Trial reportArchives of physical medicine and rehabilitation2025
Improving Outcomes for Care Partners of Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury: Results for a mHealth Randomized Control Trial of the CareQOL App.
Trial report in Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of caregiver interventions on caregiver burden in adult traumatic brain injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Completion and Compliance Rates for an Intensive mHealth Study Design to Promote Self-Awareness and Self-Care Among Care Partners of Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Trial
- Understanding and Assessing Health-Related Quality of Life in Caregivers of Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury and Comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Qualitative Analysis of User Experiences of a mHealth Self-Care Intervention for Care Partners of Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translation · 2026Article
- Understanding the impact of perceived app usability on the efficacy of mobile health intervention for traumatic brain injury caregivers.Rehabilitation psychology · 2026Article
- The Effects of Digital Health Interventions for Family Members in Intensive Care Units: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo test the efficacy of a randomized control trial low-touch mobile health intervention designed to promote care partner self-awareness and self-care.
designThis randomized controlled trial included a baseline assessment of self-report surveys of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), care partner-specific outcomes, and the functional/mental status of the person with traumatic brain injury (TBI), as well as a 6-month home monitoring period that included 3 daily questions about HRQOL, monthly assessments of 12 HRQOL domains, and the use of a Fitbit to continuously monitor physical activity and sleep. HRQOL surveys were repeated at 3 and 6 months post-home monitoring.
settingTwo academic medical centers.
participantsA total of 254 TBI care partners.
interventionsThe CareQOL app, a mobile health app designed to promote care partner self-awareness (through self-monitoring) and self-care (through personalized self-care push notifications).
resultsCare partners were randomly assigned to self-monitoring alone (n=128) or self-monitoring plus self-care push notifications (n=126). Although we neither saw improvements in HRQOL outcomes, nor in physical activity or sleep, we found that across all the different measures, approximately 1/3 of the participants showed clinically meaningful improvements, 1/3 stayed the same, and 1/3 got worse; care partners who reported engagement in the intervention were more likely to show improvements than those who were not engaged. There was preliminary support for factors that being male, caring for a person with posttraumatic stress symptoms, living in the same household as the person with TBI, being a spousal care partner, working, and being diagnosed with COVID-19 during the study were associated with increased risk for negative outcomes.
conclusionsFindings suggest that engagement with the app, even when it is confined to self-monitoring alone, is associated with small improvements in HRQOL.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.