WOMHEAL - A symptom tracking app for side effects of hormonal contraceptives

We here propose to develop a symptom tracking app – WOMHEAL – for women who start on hormonal contraception. As envisioned, the app will serve multiple purposes. On the one hand it will provide women with reminders to take their contraceptive or get refills as needed and thereby increase adherence to their treatment protocol. On the other hand, it will give women the chance to record their symptoms in a systematic manner, visualize those symptoms and share selected reports with their physician. Thus, any health changes (i) will be immediately detectable, (ii) can be timed precisely with respect to the contraceptive intake, but also with respect to any life events that might explain the symptoms irrespective of the contraceptive treatment. The goal is to take women’s health concerns with respect to contraceptive treatment seriously and give them a tool to systematically record any health-related changes in order to be able to take immediate action in case any outliers or concerning patterns are detected. This tool will benefit contraceptive users, physicians and contraceptive researchers alike, and increase the safety of hormonal contraceptives.