Standardized system and App for continuous patient symptom logging in gastroduodenal disorders: Design,...

Area of Science:

• Gastroenterology
• Medical Informatics
• Patient-Reported Outcomes

Background:

• Functional gastroduodenal disorders (FGIDs) like functional dyspepsia and gastroparesis present diagnostic challenges due to overlapping symptoms.
• Accurate symptom reporting is crucial for research and clinical management of these common conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate a standardized patient symptom-logging system using an iOS App.
• To improve the accuracy of reporting gastroduodenal symptoms for research and clinical applications.

Main Methods:

• An iOS App with pictographic symptom illustrations was developed.
• Two validation studies assessed convergent, concurrent, face, and content validity using established instruments and qualitative interviews.
• Symptom logging was performed for 4 hours post-meal in patients with chronic gastroduodenal symptoms.

Main Results:

• The App demonstrated robust convergent validity with PAGI-SYM for various symptoms (e.g., nausea rS=0.68, early satiation rS=0.55) and overall symptom burden (rS=0.56).
• The App showed adequate concurrent validity, correlating negatively with PAGI-QOL (rS=-0.34).
• Qualitative interviews confirmed adequate face and content validity of the pictograms.

Conclusions:

• The validated App enables standardized, continuous patient symptom logging.
• This tool is expected to be valuable for both clinical practice and research in functional gastroduodenal disorders.