Assessing Adherence to Multi-Modal Oura Ring Wearables From COVID-19 Detection Among Healthcare Workers

Steven K Shiba; Caroline A Temple; Joanne Krasnoff; Stephan Dilchert; Benjamin L Smarr; Janet Robishaw; Ashley E Mason

doi:10.7759/cureus.45362

Assessing Adherence to Multi-Modal Oura Ring Wearables From COVID-19 Detection Among Healthcare Workers

Cureus. 2023 Sep 16;15(9):e45362. doi: 10.7759/cureus.45362. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Steven K Shiba¹, Caroline A Temple², Joanne Krasnoff³, Stephan Dilchert⁴, Benjamin L Smarr^{5

6}, Janet Robishaw³, Ashley E Mason⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Boca Raton, USA.
² Department of Pediatrics, Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Boca Raton, USA.
³ Department of Biomedical Science, Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Boca Raton, USA.
⁴ Department of Management, The City University of New York Baruch College Zicklin School of Business, New York, USA.
⁵ Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA.
⁶ Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA.
⁷ Osher Center for Integrative Health, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, USA.

Abstract

Background Identifying early signs of a SARS-CoV-2 infection in healthcare workers could be a critical tool in reducing disease transmission. To provide this information, both daily symptom surveys and wearable device monitoring could have utility, assuming there is a sufficiently high level of participant adherence. Purpose The aim of this study is to evaluate adherence to a daily symptom survey and a wearable device (Oura Ring) among healthcare professionals (attending physicians and other clinical staff) and trainees (residents and medical students) in a hospital setting during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods In this mixed-methods observational study, the data were a subset (N=91) of those collected as part of the larger TemPredict Study. Demographic data analyses were conducted with descriptive statistics. Participant adherence to the wearable device protocol was reported as the percentage of days that sleep was recorded, and adherence to the daily survey was reported as the percentage of days with submitted surveys. Comparisons for the primary (wearable and survey adherence of groups) and secondary (adherence patterns among subgroups) outcomes were conducted using descriptive statistics, two-tailed independent t-tests, and Welch's ANOVA with post hoc analysis using Games-Howell. Results Wearable device adherence was significantly higher than the daily symptom survey adherence for most participants. Overall, participants were highly adherent to the wearable device, wearing the device an average of 87.8 ± 11.6% of study nights compared to survey submission, showing an average of 63.8 ± 27.4% of study days. In subgroup analysis, we found that healthcare professionals (HCPs) and medical students had the highest adherence to wearing the wearable device, while medical residents had lower adherence in both wearable adherence and daily symptom survey adherence. Conclusions These results indicated high participant adherence to wearable devices to monitor for impending infection in the course of a research study conducted as part of clinical practice. Subgroup analysis indicated HCPs and medical students maintained high adherence, but residents' adherence was lower, which is likely multifactorial, with differences in work demands and stress contributing to the findings. These results can guide the development of adherence strategies for a wearable device to increase the quality of data collection and assist in disease detection in this and future pandemics.

Keywords: covid-19 pandemic; disease detection; healthcare professionals; oura ring; participant adherence; transmission; wearable device.

Grants and funding

This effort was funded under MTEC solicitation MTEC-20-12-Diagnostics-023 and the USAMRDC under the Department of Defense (#MTEC-20-12-COVID19-D.-023). The US Department of Defense Air Force Office of Scientific Research, through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL; #FA8702-15-D-0001), the #StartSmall foundation (#7029991), and Oura Health Oy (#134650) also provided funding for this work. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government. Oura Health Oy provided a portion of the wearable devices used in the study. The Florida Blue Foundation also provided a charitable contribution for “Developing Predictive Algorithms for COVID-19 Infection in FAU Health Care Workers”.