%0 Journal Article
%@ 2561-6722
%I JMIR Publications
%V 5
%N 4
%P e41930
%T Validation of an Electronic Visual Analog Scale App for Pain Evaluation in Children and Adolescents With Symptomatic Hypermobility: Cross-sectional Study
%A Maarj,Muhammad
%A Pacey,Verity
%A Tofts,Louise
%A Clapham,Matthew
%A Gironès Garcia,Xavier
%A Coda,Andrea
%+ School of Health Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle, PO Box 127, Ourimbah, 2258, Australia, 61 02 9971 1188, muhammad.maarj@uon.edu.au
%K hypermobility syndrome
%K Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
%K hypermobility
%K hypermobile
%K mobile application
%K mobile app
%K pain measurement
%K pain
%K validation
%K validate
%K scale
%K measure
%K pain severity
%K pediatric
%K validation
%K visual analogue scale
%K mHealth
%K mobile health
%K mobile app
%K children
%K adolescent
%K youth
%K child
%K digital health tool
%D 2022
%7 26.10.2022
%9 Original Paper
%J JMIR Pediatr Parent
%G English
%X Background: Rapid advances in mobile apps for clinical data collection for pain evaluation have resulted in more efficient data handling and analysis than traditional paper-based approaches. As paper-based visual analogue scale (p-VAS) scores are commonly used to assess pain levels, new emerging apps need to be validated prior to clinical application with symptomatic children and adolescents. Objective: This study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of an electronic visual analogue scale (e-VAS) method via a mobile health (mHealth) App in children and adolescents diagnosed with hypermobility spectrum disorder/hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (HSD/HEDS) in comparison with the traditional p-VAS. Methods: Children diagnosed with HSD/HEDS aged 5-18 years were recruited from a sports medicine center in Sydney (New South Wales, Australia). Consenting participants assigned in random order to the e-VAS and p-VAS platforms were asked to indicate their current lower limb pain level and completed pain assessment e-VAS or p-VAS at one time point. Instrument agreement between the 2 methods was determined from the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and through Bland–Altman analysis. Results: In total, 43 children with HSD/HEDS aged 11 (SD 3.8) years were recruited and completed this study. The difference between the 2 VAS platforms of median values was 0.20. Bland–Altman analysis revealed a difference of 0.19 (SD 0.95) with limits of agreement ranging –1.67 to 2.04. An ICC of 0.87 (95% CI 0.78-0.93) indicated good reliability. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the e-VAS mHealth App is a validated tool and a feasible method of collecting pain recording scores when compared with the traditional paper format in children and adolescents with HSD/HEDS. The e-VAS App can be reliably used for pediatric pain evaluation, and it could potentially be introduced into daily clinical practice to improve real-time symptom monitoring. Further research is warranted to investigate the usage of the app for remote support in real clinical settings. 
%M 36287606
%R 10.2196/41930
%U https://pediatrics.jmir.org/2022/4/e41930
%U https://doi.org/10.2196/41930
%U http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36287606