Urticaria Patients Are Highly Interested in Apps to Monitor Their
Disease Activity and Control: A UCARE CURICT Analysis
Abstract
Background: Information/communication technologies such as
mobile phone applications (apps) would enable chronic urticaria (CU)
patients to self-evaluate their disease activity and control. Yet,
recently Antó et al (2021) reported a global paucity of such apps for
patients with CU. In this analysis, we assessed patient interest in
using apps to monitor CU disease activity and control using questions
from the CURICT study, Methods: The methodology for CURICT has
been reported. Briefly, a 23-item questionnaire was completed by 1,841
CU patients from 17 UCAREs across 17 countries. Here, we analyzed
patient responses to the CURICT questions on the use of apps for
urticaria-related purposes. Results: As previously published,
the majority of respondents had chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU;
63%; 18% chronic inducible urticaria [CIndu]; 19% with both),
were female (70%) and in urban areas (75%). Over half of patients were
very/extremely interested in an app to monitor disease activity (51%)
and control (53%), while only ~1/10 were not. Patients
with both urticaria types vs those with CSU only (OR, 1.36
[1.03-1.79]) and females vs males (OR[95%CI], 1.47
[1.17-1.85]) were more likely to be very to extremely interested in
an app to assess disease control. Conclusions: Overall,
patients with CU were highly interested in using an app to assess their
disease activity and control. Development of well-designed apps,
specific to disease types (CSU, CIndU, CSU+CIndU, etc), validated by
experts across platforms would help improve the management and possibly
outcomes of CU treatment while providing important patient information
to be used in future research.