Self-monitoring Method for Improving Health-related Quality of Life: Data Acquisition, Monitoring, and Analysis of Vital Signs and Diet

Abstract

Vital signs are a series of clinical measurements and important to health-related quality of life. To establish a method for self-monitoring and management of vital signs and diet, a self-monitoring method (SMM) including wireless body area network and mobile technology was proposed in this paper. The study population comprised a total of 180 participants. Differences between measurements taken using the SMM and traditional instruments were analyzed with respect to accuracy and reproducibility. Participant measurements before and after intervention were used to evaluate the validity of the SMM. There was no statistically significant difference between our SMM and traditional instruments for measuring vital signs (p>0.05). The relative standard deviation of the SMM (0.38%) indicated good repeatability. These findings suggest that the SMM had a clear effect of promoting improvement in health habits, health condition monitoring, and disease prevention (p<0.05). Statistical analysis indicated that our SMM contributed to improve monitoring of vital signs and diet, and improved the health-related quality of life among study participants to a certain degree.