Investigating smartphone tracking apps for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The intervention of this study is the use of a symptom tracking app. In particular the study will use the Eat Smart Kiwi app which is available on the Apple and Android app stores. There will be two intervention groups that differ in terms of dose effect. One group will be asked to track a large list of symptoms including common symptoms like headache and fatigue. The second group will only be asked to track symptoms relevant to irritable bowel syndrome like stomach pain. Tracking symptoms involves rating the symptom on a scale from great - 0 to awful -10. The time at which they make this rating is recorded or they can adjust this to reflect the time at which they are making the rating for. The app has options to set up to three reminders per day (9am, 1pm, 7pm) we will make participants aware of this feature but not require them to use a reminder. All groups will be asked to use the app for four weeks. In addition to symptom tracking the app has features to track diet, sleep, mood and bowel movements. We will encourage them to use the diet tracking feature to fit with the trial's cover story. Food tracking involves setting the time of eating and listing the different foods eaten. The app does not support calorie tracking, just noting the food itself. There will be no requirement to use any of the other features. We will monitor adherence by extracting data regarding the number of times the app was opened within the four week period. We will not access any of the data input to the app regarding symptoms or food.