The Origin and Impact of Ideals in eHealth Research: Experiences From the U-CARE Research Environment

Abstract

BackgroundThe prevalence of information technology (IT) in society is a foundation for new modes of interaction between patients and health specialists. IT plays an important role in the renewal of care. Several countries have incorporated eHealth plans into their national health strategies. Part of the eHealth evolution concerns Internet psychological treatment and psychosocial care. These interventions are complex to design and evaluate due to legal, ethical, organizational, technical, and methodological challenges.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to seek to make explicit contributions to the understanding of ideals in eHealth research, and illuminate their implications for establishing an effective research environment. Our analysis draws from three years of experience in establishing an eHealth research environment, and the literature.MethodsWe worked inductively to characterize challenging research ideals, and their origins, in our environment. Thereafter, we made a selective search of the literature to scrutinize and illuminate each ideal and it’s implications.ResultsIn this work, we propose a structured approach to address ideals in eHealth research. The scrutinized ideals are accountability, innovation, rigor, relevance, and sustainability. The approach supports researchers to systematically understand the ideals, their origin, and to manage their implications within an eHealth research environment.ConclusionsThe complexity of eHealth research causes a need for sustainable, multi-disciplinary research environments. There is a need for a structured approach to organize eHealth research. The proposed approach helps to systematically scrutinize ideals, thus promoting high quality research.

Commencement of and Retention in Web-Based Interventions and Response to Prompts and Reminders: Longitudinal Observational Study Based on Two Randomized Controlled Trials

“…The Uppsala University Psychosocial Care (U-CARE) program has the overarching goal of promoting psychosocial health among patients struck by somatic diseases and their significant others [ 23 ].…”

“…In web-based intervention trials, it is possible to track participants’ activities in the intervention by logging use patterns with high precision, including recording every click a participant makes on the web-based platform when working with the intervention and answering questionnaires [ 23 ]. Automatized and standardized reminders via emails or text messages are often used to support retention at low cost and with minimal effort [ 12 ].…”

Treatment of depression and anxiety with internet-based cognitive behavior therapy in patients with a recent myocardial infarction (U-CARE Heart): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

“…The present study is part of the Uppsala University Psychosocial Care Program (U-CARE), which aims at developing psychosocial care for somatic disease via the internet [ 23 ]. An internet platform (the U-CARE portal, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden) has been developed within the U-CARE program.…”

Commencement of and Retention in Web-Based Interventions and Response to Prompts and Reminders: Longitudinal Observational Study Based on Two Randomized Controlled Trials (Preprint)

“…In web-based intervention trials, it is possible to track participants' activities in the intervention by logging use patterns with high precision, including recording every click a participant makes on the web-based platform when working with the intervention and answering questionnaires [23]. Automatized and standardized reminders via emails or text messages are often used to support retention at low cost and with minimal effort [12].…”