Effectiveness of using a patient education mobile application to improve the quality of bowel preparation: a randomised controlled trial

AIMS: To determine the effectiveness of a mobile application (app) in improving the quality of bowel preparation for colonoscopy. METHOD: An endoscopist-blinded randomised controlled trial enrolled patients who were undergoing a colonoscopy on the same day of bowel preparation. The intervention used a Vietnamese mobile app that provides instructions on bowel preparation while patients in the comparison group received conventional instructions. Outcomes included the Boston Bowel Preparation Scale (BBPS) to assess the quality of bowel preparation and the polyp detection rate (PDR) and adenoma detection rate (ADR). RESULTS: The study recruited 515 patients (256 in the intervention group). The median age was 42 years, 50.9% were females, 69.1% high school graduates and higher, and 45.2% from urban area. Patients in the intervention group had higher adherence to instructions (60.9% vs 52.4%, p=0.05) and longer length of taking laxatives (mean difference 0.17 hours, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.27). The intervention did not reduce the risk of poor bowel cleansing (total BBPS<6) in both overall (7.4% vs 7.7%; risk ratio 0.96, 95% CI 0.53 to 1.76) and subgroup analysis. PDR and ADR were similar between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: The mobile app providing instructions on proper bowel preparation improved the practice during bowel preparation but did not improve the quality of bowel cleansing or PDR.