Research Article: Does Health & Her app use improve menopausal symptoms? A longitudinal cohort study
Abstract:
Objectives The Health & Her app provides menopausal women with a means of monitoring their symptoms, symptom triggers and menstrual periods, and enables them to engage in a variety of digital activities designed to promote well-being. This study aimed to examine whether sustained weekly engagement with the app is associated with improvements in menopausal symptoms. Design A pre–post longitudinal cohort study. Setting Analysed data collected from Health & Her app users. Participants 1900?women who provided symptom data via the app across a 2-month period. Primary and secondary outcome measures Symptom changes from baseline to 2 months was the outcome measure. A linear mixed effects model explored whether levels of weekly app engagement influenced symptom changes. Secondary analyses explored whether app-usage factors such as total number of days spent logging symptoms, reporting triggers, reporting menstrual periods and using in-app activities were independently predictive of symptom changes from baseline. Covariates included hormone replacement therapy use, hormonal contraceptive use, present comorbidities, age and dietary supplement use. Results Findings demonstrated that greater engagement with the Health & Her app for 2?months was associated with greater reductions in symptoms over time. Daily use of in-app activities and logging symptoms and menstrual periods were each independently associated with symptom reductions. Conclusions This study demonstrated that greater weekly engagement with the app was associated with greater reductions in symptoms. It is recommended that women be made aware of menopause-specific apps, such as that provided by Health & Her, to support them to manage their symptoms.
Introduction:
Menopause is a naturally occurring reproductive phase in which women permanently cease to menstruate. Menopause is associated with a number of symptoms, which in some women, can heavily impact health and quality of life. 1 The main treatment for menopausal symptoms is hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Despite menopause encompassing a wide variety of symptom domains, including psychological issues, HRT is currently only indicated for alleviating vasomotor and genitourinary symptoms. 2 Thus, there is a need to…
Read more