Using Wearables in the Context of Chronic Disorders - Results of a Pre-Study

Smart mobile devices are variously used in the health sector. Some mobile applications empower patients to better understand their health problems, others guide them in health behavior. Moreover, smart mobile devices can be used in clinical research. Mobile crowd sensing has proven high usefulness for collecting health data with high ecological validity in this context. As the core idea, individually recorded health data are evaluated and fed back to individuals to better control their symptoms. For this purpose, the Track- YourTinnitus mobile crowd sensing platform was developed to empower patients to cope better with their tinnitus. So far, the platform has solely gathered patient data based on mobile questionnaires. When filling in a questionnaire, however, the analysis of the heartrate might provide novel information to medical experts. As monitoring the heartrate with smart mobile devices is costly, the trend towards wearables offers promising perspectives. Using smartwatches instead of smartphones in TrackYourTinnitus, however, requires questionnaire management on smartwatches. This work presents results of a prestudy related to the feasibility of sophisticated questionnaires on smartwatches. A prototype was developed and evaluated with 24 subjects. The obtained results are promising regarding the use of smartwatches for mobile crowd sensing in the context of chronic disorders.