MoKA Study : Using mobile health to prevent asthma attacks in children

Brief study description

The main goal of this study is to anticipate severe asthma attacks in children, using multiple sources of data with the mobile application RespiSentinel.

Asthma attacks are some of the main causes of emergency visits and hospitalization in children. Often, parents do not recognize a poor asthma control, which lead to a sub-optimal asthma control and avoidable asthma attacks. Existing predictive scores and biomarkers can not predict severe asthma attacks with accuracy, because they often rely on one source of data. Therefore, we are in need of accessible tools that can give real time retroaction to parents and physicians on the child’s asthma status with data from different source. Mobile health or “mHealth”, defined as the use of mobile device for medical practice, is a promising approach for the integration of different source of data in real time to improve asthma attacks prediction in children.

Who can participate?

Parents of 1 to 13 years old children, and 14 to 17 years old teenagers
Children/teenagers need to have had an asthma attack or an episode of wheezing, in the last 12 months, for which they received corticosteroids or a pump prescription
Participants need to be Canadian resident

How is the study conducted?

Once participants acknowledge the study and give their consent, we are asking them to download the mobile application RespiSentinel. Questionnaires will be available to participants directly in the application. Participants will receive a notification when a new questionnaire needs to be filled. Questionnaires are about the child asthma control and the usage of health resources. Questionnaires are weekly and monthly and they take 5-15 minutes to complete.

There is also an optional element for the automatic cough detection during sleep to predict asthma control. For this part of the study, we will asked participants to register their first 2 hours of sleep once a week or daily if they have symptoms.

In addition to the research element, participants could use other functionality of RespiSentinel, including personalisation of reminders to renew and take medication, educational tools on asthma, environmental alert pertinent to asthma and a downloadable graphic of your child’s asthma control (e.g., to share with their doctor).

Why participate?

Knowledge generated from the MoKA study will allow researchers and physicians to better predict and prevent severe asthma attacks in children.

Throughout the study, we will share this knowledge regularly with participants through a newsletter. A gift card will be drawn each month among the participants who filled out their questionnaires.

What are the risks?

There is no risk associated with this study. The confidentiality of our participants is very important to us and we are following a data security protocol, approved by CHU Sainte-Justine, a University Medical Center. We will replace your name and your phone number by a study identification number, and only the research team will have access to your data.

How to register?

To register, you can directly download the application RespiSentinel on Google Play Store or Apple Store and complete the eligibility questionnaire and the consent form directly in the application. You can also take an appointment here with a member of our team, who will explain the project to you and answer your questions.

Research team at Sainte-Justine

Dr. Sze Man Tse, Principal investigator
Vincent Laguë, research coordinator

Financing

This study received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Contact us

Any questions? Send us an email at: respisentinel.moka.hsj@ssss.gouv.qc.ca

To make an appointment with our research team: https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/CHUSJMoKA@ssss.gouv.qc.ca/bookings/