Does Health & Her app use improve menopausal symptoms? A longitudinal cohort study

Andrews, Robin, Lancastle, Deborah, Bache, Kate and Lacey, Arron S. 2023. Does Health & Her app use improve menopausal symptoms? A longitudinal cohort study. BMJ Open 13 (12) , e077185. 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-077185

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Pharmacy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/, Start Date: 2023-12-30, Type: open-access
Publisher:	BMJ Publishing Group
ISSN:	2044-6055
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	3 January 2024
Date of Acceptance:	30 November 2023
Last Modified:	03 Jan 2024 10:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/165175

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