Capturing Daily Disease Experiences of Adolescents With Chronic Pain: mHealth-Mediated Symptom Tracking

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain is a common problem in adolescents that can negatively impact all aspects of their health-related quality of life. The developmental period of adolescence represents a critical window of opportunity to optimize and solidify positive health behaviors and minimize future pain-related disability and impaired work productivity. This research focuses on the development and evaluation of a smartphone-based pain self-management app for adolescents with chronic pain. OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study were to characterize (1) the feasibility of deploying a mobile health (mHealth) app (iCanCope) to the personal smartphones of adolescent research participants; (2) adherence to daily symptom tracking over 55 consecutive days; (3) participant interaction with their symptom history; and (4) daily pain-related experiences of adolescents with chronic pain. METHODS: We recruited adolescents aged 15-18 years from 3 Canadian pediatric tertiary care chronic pain clinics. Participants received standardized instructions to download the iCanCope app and use it once a day for 55 days. Detailed app analytics were captured at the user level. Adherence was operationally defined as per the relative proportion of completed symptom reports. Linear mixed models were used to examine the trajectories of daily symptom reporting. RESULTS: We recruited 60 participants between March 2017 and April 2018. The mean age of the participants was 16.4 (SD 0.9) years, and 88% (53/60) of them were female. The app was deployed to 98% (59/60) devices. Among the 59 participants, adherence was as follows: low (4, 7%), low-moderate (14, 24%), high-moderate (16, 27%), and high (25, 42%). Most (49/59, 83%) participants chose to view their historical symptom trends. Participants reported pain intensity and pain-related symptoms of moderate severity, and these ratings tended to be stable over time. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that (1) the iCanCope app can be deployed to adolescents’ personal smartphones with high feasibility; (2) adolescents demonstrated moderate-to-high adherence over 55 days; (3) most participants chose to view their symptom history; and (4) adolescents with chronic pain experience stable symptomology of moderate severity. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02601755; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02601755 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/74F4SLnmc)