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The increasing need for mental health support and a shortage of therapists have led to the development of the eXtended-reality Artificial Intelligence Assistant (XAIA). This platform combines spatial computing, virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide immersive mental health support. Utilizing GPT-4 for AI-driven therapy, XAIA engaged participants with mild-to-moderate anxiety or depression in biophilic VR environments. Speaking with an AI therapy avatar in VR was considered acceptable, helpful, and safe, with participants observed to engage genuinely with the program. However, some still favored human interaction and identified shortcomings with using a digital VR therapist. The study provides initial evidence of the acceptability and safety of AI psychotherapy via spatial computing, warranting further research on technical enhancements and clinical impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: There is limited research examining the biopsychosocial impact of cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS) on patients. This study aims to assess individuals' experiences, fears, and concerns associated with CVS and the impact of CVS on their daily lives. Methods: We employed social netnography to analyze publicly available posts related to CVS that were identified from six US online forums and Twitter. A randomly selected sub‐cohort of posts per pre‐defined criteria was first qualitatively analyzed using an inductive thematic approach. Then, machine learning topic modeling was applied to explore themes in an unsupervised manner for the entire corpus of posts. Afterward, findings from the qualitative and quantitative approaches were integrated to generate a thematic network. Results: Based on the 39,179 collected posts, seven domain themes were identified. Overall, 41.4% of the posts were related to "biopsychosocial burden" of CVS, including physical impact, psychological impact, and social impact. In 22.3% of posts, individuals shared their experience of "interactions with the healthcare system", and 14.2% of posts were related to "perceived CVS triggers." Individuals also shared "solutions to alleviate their symptoms" and "mental health needs" in 10.2% and 8.8% of posts, respectively. Finally, 6.1% of the posts were about "seeking/sharing support" with others. Discussion: This is the first social netnography study to describe the in‐depth experiences of individuals living with CVS and the marked impact on their physical, mental, and social health. The study also highlights the unmet need for effective therapies, both pharmacological and non‐pharmacological, to alleviate the biopsychosocial impact of CVS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing need for mental health support and a shortage of therapists have led to the development of the eXtended-reality Artificial Intelligence Assistant (XAIA). This platform combines spatial computing, virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide immersive mental health support. Utilizing GPT-4 for AI-driven therapy, XAIA engaged participants with mild-to-moderate anxiety or depression in biophilic VR environments. Speaking with an AI therapy avatar in VR was considered acceptable, helpful, and safe, with participants observed to engage genuinely with the program. However, some still favored human interaction and identified shortcomings with using a digital VR therapist. The study provides initial evidence of the acceptability and safety of AI psychotherapy via spatial computing, warranting further research on technical enhancements and clinical impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: We used conjoint analysis—a method that assesses complex decision making—to quantify patients' choices when selecting an osteoporosis therapy. While 60% of people prioritized medication efficacy when deciding among treatments, the remaining 40% highly valued factors other than efficacy, suggesting the need for personalized shared decision-making tools. Introduction: In this study, we aimed to examine patient decision-making surrounding osteoporosis medications using conjoint analysis. Methods: We enrolled osteoporosis patients at an academic medical center to complete an online conjoint exercise which calculated each patient's relative importance score of 6 osteoporosis medication attributes (higher = greater relative importance in decision-making). We used latent class analysis to identify distinct segments of patients with similar choice patterns and then used logistic regression to determine if demographics and osteoporosis disease features were associated with latent class assignment. Results: Overall, 304 participants completed the survey. The rank order of medication attributes by importance score was the following: efficacy at preventing hip fractures (accounted for 31.0% of decision making), mode of administration (17.5%); risk of serious side effects (16.6%); dose frequency (13.9%); efficacy at preventing spine fractures (12.5%); risk of non-serious side effects (8.4%). We found that 60.9% of the cohort prioritized medication efficacy as their top factor when selecting among the therapies. Being a college graduate, having stronger beliefs on the necessity of using medications for osteoporosis, and never having used osteoporosis medicines were the only factors associated with prioritizing medication efficacy for fracture prevention over the other factors in the decision-making process. Conclusions: While about 60% of patients prioritized efficacy when selecting an osteoporosis therapy, the remaining 40% valued other factors more highly. Furthermore, individual patient characteristics and clinical factors did not reliably predict patient decision making, suggesting that development and implementation of shared decision-making tools is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Multiple biologics are available to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which can either be administered subcutaneously or intravenously. The factors that determine patients' preferences for SC/IV administration in IBD are largely unknown. This study aims to elucidate how IBD patients trade off between medications' route of administration and other medication characteristics and to understand what drives patients' preferences. Methods: We employed a mixed methods design using data from a prior quantitative conjoint analysis survey and a series of 22 qualitative interviews. We quantitatively assessed individual patients' preferences for subcutaneous (SC) or intravenous (IV) medications based on the part-worth utilities derived from the conjoint analysis and identified predictors for these preferences. We used a qualitative analysis to identify key themes surrounding patients' preferences in the interview data. Results: Of 1,077 survey participants, 49% preferred an SC medication every 2 weeks, whereas 51% preferred an IV medication every 8 weeks. More people preferred SC at reduced administration frequencies, whereas less people preferred SC at the expense of lower efficacy or higher side-effects rates. Prior experience with SC/IV was the strongest predictor for patients' preferences. Qualitatively, we obtained in-depth insights in the perceived advantages and disadvantages of SC and IV medications and in patients' preconceived ideas. Conclusion: While prior SC/IV exposure was a strong predictor for SC/IV preferences, patients' preferences largely are determined by a variety of other personal factors. The themes we identified could help guide clinicians when discussing therapeutic options with their patients and support shared decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) experience acute and unexpected pain episodes over and above chronic background symptoms, and there are emerging medications designed to treat such pain. We aimed to use conjoint analysis—a technique that elucidates how people make complex decisions—to examine patient preferences for emerging medicines for breakthrough IBS pain. Methods: We conducted a cross‐sectional conjoint analysis survey among patients with Rome IV IBS and recurrent episodes of acute pain to assess the relative importance of medication attributes in their decision‐making. We also assessed what respondents would require of subcutaneous (SQ) therapies to consider their use. Key Results: Among 629 patients with Rome IV IBS, 606 (96.3%) reported ≥1 acute pain episodes in the past month. For the 461 participants with multiple attacks who completed the conjoint analysis, they prioritized medication efficacy (importance score 34.9%), avoidance of nausea (24.3%), and avoidance of constipation (12.2%) as most important in their decision‐making. These were followed by route of administration (10.3%), avoidance of headache (9.3%), and avoidance of drowsiness (8.9%). Moreover, 431 (93.5%) participants would consider SQ therapies for their acute pain; they had varying expectations on the minimum pain decrease and onset and duration of pain relief needed for considering their use. Conclusions and Inferences: The vast majority of patients with IBS experience breakthrough pain, and when selecting among therapies, they prioritize efficacy and most are willing to use a rapid‐acting SQ treatment. These results support development of novel, effective medications—oral or SQ—for management of acute pain attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess women's knowledge, patient experience, and treatment decision making regarding overactive bladder (OAB) using digital ethnography. Methods: Online posts were identified using a data mining service. Two hundred randomized posts were reviewed and coded using grounded theory. We then applied a latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) probabilistic topic modeling process to review the entire collection of identified posts. Results: A total of 2618 posts by 1867 unique users from 203 different websites were identified. Our analysis yielded six themes: the impact of OAB on quality of life, patient-physician interactions, online engagement, symptom management, patient knowledge acquisition, and alternative therapies. Conclusion: Overall, online communities are a source of support for women to self-manage the OAB symptom complex and help overcome treatment pathway challenges. Digital ethnography provides insight into patient knowledge and barriers to patient-centered care, which are important to improve patient outreach. Additionally, we identify similar findings to prior work, indicating the reliability of studying social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge represents a sustainable asset for innovative firms and specifically software industries working in unpredictable environments. Until the late 90's, the most widely used software development approaches advocated extensive documentation and traceability. The emphasized knowledge is mainly explicit. However, with the dynamics of progress of technologies and the market changing demands, extensive planning and documentation are quickly becoming obsolete. As such, more flexible methods, called agile methods, have gained popularity. These methods value collective learning and close collaboration between team members. To this day, little research has shown how agile software development supports knowledge management initiatives. This research helps fill this gap by reviewing the related work on agile software development by focusing on and examining knowledge management initiatives in agile organizations. We developed a theoretical model of knowledge management in agile environments. Our findings highlight the way knowledge management is embedded in agile practices, including continuous communication, iterative development, knowledge repositories and engineering practices. It also emphasizes the importance of knowledge management in Information Technology development organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Few studies have examined ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients' concerns about and perceptions of biologic therapies, apart from traditional surveys. In this study, we used social media data to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of AS patients regarding biologic therapies.Methods: We collected posts published on 601 social media sites between January 1, 2016 and April 26, 2017. In each post, both an AS keyword and a biologic were mentioned. To explore themes within the collection of posts in an unsupervised manner, a latent Dirichlet allocation topic model was fit to the data set. Each discovered topic was represented as a discrete distribution over the words in the collection, similar to a word cloud. The topics were manually reviewed to identify themes, which were confirmed using thematic data analysis.Results: We examined 27,416 social media posts and identified 112 themes. The majority of themes (n = 67 [60%]) focused on discussions related to AS treatment. Other themes, including the psychological impact of AS, reporting of medical literature, and AS disease consequences, accounted for the remaining 40% (n = 45). In discussions regarding AS treatment, most topics involved biologics, and most subthemes involved side effects (e.g., fatigue, allergic reactions), biologic treatment attributes (e.g., dosing, frequency), and concerns about use of biologics (e.g., increased cancer risk). Additional implicit patient needs (e.g., support) were identified using qualitative analyses.Conclusion: Social media revealed a dynamic range of themes governing AS patients' experience with and choice of biologic agents. The complexity of selecting biologics from among many such agents and navigating their risk/benefit profiles suggests the merit of creating online tools tailored to support patients' decision-making with regard to biologic therapies for AS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]