Journal of Medical Internet Research

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is increasingly used to improve large language models in the medical and nursing domains. However, a comprehensive understanding of its specific architecture and applications in medical and nursing reasoning remains limited.

Research typically shows a higher preference for professionally-led face-to-face mental health interventions over digital ones. It remains unclear in which circumstances digital self-help tools are preferred. To address this gap, it is important to examine user characteristics that may help predict when digital interventions are more desirable, ultimately guiding their design to enhance engagement and appeal.

Social media has shown promise in supporting young people with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) by providing information and emotional support. Although previous qualitative studies have investigated young people’s self-reported use of social media for self-management, their patterns of actual use remain underexplored. Furthermore, different platforms may serve different functions or attract different types of engagement, making it important to examine how the patterns of actual use vary across them.

Most people living with dementia experience behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD), leading to poor quality of life and hospitalisations, and causing a significant burden for informal caregivers and healthcare systems, with a global lack of equitable support to manage these symptoms in the community. Telephone interventions can potentially improve the accessibility and flexibility of long-term dementia support.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) continues to be a leading cause of global morbidity and mortality, with patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) facing a significant risk of recurrent cardiovascular events. While secondary prevention strategies, such as medication adherence and lifestyle modifications, are essential, implementation gaps remain due to limited healthcare access and inadequate patient engagement. Telemedical interventions offer a promising solution to these challenges by facilitating remote monitoring and providing individualized patient management strategies.

eHealth and mobile health (mHealth) interventions are promising in promoting healthy behaviors among children and adolescents.

Functional neurological disorder (FND) is one of the commonest conditions in neurological practice, describing symptoms like paralysis and seizures that can be severe and disabling. It is a diagnosis that is confirmed clinically rather than by scans or laboratory results. It is a stigmatized and widely misperceived condition, and since the emergence of long COVID, there has been some conflation of FND with other conditions, which has caused further misunderstanding. Social media has become increasingly popular for patients to learn and interact about their conditions, and the information that they seek and receive may be shaped by many factors. Prior to this study, the online discourse about FND had not been described in the literature.

First responders, military personnel, and veterans face disproportionate risk for mental health and wellness issues. Stigma and confidentiality are common barriers to traditional services. Mobile health interventions offer anonymous, convenient, and cost-effective alternatives.

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) guidelines aim to optimise perioperative care and improve recovery outcomes. The guidelines contain clinician- and patient-led recommendations for pre-and post-operative care, with patient-led recommendations including smoking cessation, early mobilisation and early resumption of eating and drinking. While adherence to these recommendations can improve recovery outcomes, it’s typically low, and many patients require support. Digital Health Interventions (DHIs) are increasingly accepted as useful tools in delivering individualised healthcare,and have the potential to support adherence to ERAS guidelines. Evidence suggests intervention use is optimised when DHIs are considered acceptable to end-users. RecoverEsupport is a DHI designed to support patient adherence to surgical recovery guidelines, following breast cancer surgery, intended as part of a blended approach with standard care.

Mood monitoring and Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) hold promise for supporting self-management and data collection in Bipolar Disorder (BD), but the effectiveness of these depends crucially on the preferences and perspectives of those who use them. To date, these user experiences have not been systematically synthesised.

Artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents have been applied and developed in outpatient departments to improve health services in China. However, there has been little research that evaluates the effect of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents on the patient experience related to physicians during outpatient visits.