News: Teamscope joins StudyPages 🎉
Read moreExpanding your team through Teamscope
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Dear Diary,
I have been struggling with an eating disorder for the past few years. I am afraid to eat and afraid I will gain weight. The fear is unjustified as I was never overweight. I have weighed the same since I was 12 years old, and I am currently nearing my 25th birthday. Yet, when I see my reflection, I see somebody who is much larger than reality.
I told my therapist that I thought I was fat. She said it was 'body dysmorphia'.
She explained this as a mental health condition where a person is apprehensive about their appearance and suggested I visit a nutritionist. She also told me that this condition was associated with other anxiety disorders and eating disorders. I did not understand what she was saying as I was in denial; I had a problem, to begin with. I wanted a solution without having to address my issues.
Upon visiting my nutritionist, he conducted an in-body scan and told me my body weight was dangerously low.
I disagreed with him.
I felt he was speaking about a different person than the person I saw in the mirror. I felt like the elephant in the room- both literally and figuratively. He then made the simple but revolutionary suggestion to keep a food diary to track what I was eating.
This was a clever way for my nutritionist and me to be on the same page. By recording all my meals, drinks, and snacks, I was able to see what I was eating versus what I was supposed to be eating. Keeping a meal diary was a powerful and non-invasive way for my nutritionist to walk in my shoes for a specific time and understand my eating (and thinking) habits.
No other methodology would have allowed my nutritionist to capture so much contextual and behavioural information on my eating patterns other than a daily detailed food diary.
However, by using a paper and pen, I often forgot (or intentionally did not enter my food entries) as I felt guilty reading what I had eaten or that I had eaten at all.
I also did not have the visual flexibility to express myself through using photos, videos, voice recordings, and screen recordings. The usage of multiple media sources would have allowed my nutritionist to observe my behaviour in real-time and gain a holistic view of my physical and emotional needs.
I confessed to my therapist my deliberate dishonesty in completing the physical food diary and why I had been reluctant to participate in the exercise. My therapist then suggested to my nutritionist and me to transition to a mobile diary study.
Whilst I used a physical diary (paper and pen), a mobile diary study app would have helped my nutritionist and me reach a common ground (and to be on the same page) sooner rather than later.
As a millennial, I wanted to feel like journaling was as easy as Tweeting or posting a picture on Instagram. But at the same time, I wanted to know that the information I provided in a digital diary would be as safe and private as it would have been as my handwritten diary locked in my bedroom cabinet.
Further, a digital food diary study platform with push notifications would have served as a constant reminder to log in my food entries as I constantly check my phone. It would have also made the task of writing a food diary less momentous by transforming my journaling into micro-journaling by allowing me to enter one bite at a time rather than the whole day's worth of meals at once.
Mainly, the digital food diary could help collect the evidence that I was not the elephant in the room, but rather that the elephant in the room was my denied eating disorder.
Sincerely,
The elephant in the room
We are excited to introduce group-level permissions and user invitations via links.
Managing permissions and inviting users are, although two different things, part of the same user flow. For this reason, we chose to improve them simultaneously in our last development cycle.
Before today, users could be invited from the web dashboard and assigned permissions.
After reviewing feedback from our users, we developed a strategy for improving and streamlining this process and incorporating a frequently requested feature: group-level permissions.
In large studies, you often have data collection teams working independently and spread across different departments, cities, or even countries.
For data privacy or simplicity, you may want to limit one group from seeing the cases and data from another group.
You could solve this by separating each group into different studies, but that would mean that the data collected is fragmented from the get-go. To visualise or analyse, you would have to merge various spreadsheets together afterwards.
This is all streamlined with group-level permissions.
You can now split the people in your study between groups. For example, “Tel Aviv” and “Rio de Janeiro”, and assign to each group shared permissions such as “view group data”. The users from Tel Aviv will see each other’s data, and the ones in Rio de Janeiro only have access to their cases and entries.
The study admin, however, can see the data from both groups on a single view, allowing them to analyse the entire data set or specific aspects for clearer oversight.
A single database means no need to tedious excel gymnastics, but a better oversight for group-level or study-level analysis and visualisation.
To get started with this new feature go to “Manage users” on the web dashboard and then click on the Groups tab.
Diego
If appropriately used in the 21st century, data could save us from lots of failed interventions and enable us to provide evidence-based solutions towards tackling malaria globally. This is also part of what makes the ALMA scorecard generated by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance an essential tool for tracking malaria intervention globally.
If we are able to know the financial resources deployed to fight malaria in an endemic country and equate it to the coverage and impact, it would be easier to strengthen accountability for malaria control and also track progress in malaria elimination across the continent of Africa and beyond.
West African Lead, ALMA Youth Advisory Council/Zero Malaria Champion
Build fully customizable data capture forms, collect data wherever you are and analyze it with a few clicks — without any training required.
Learn more Build fully customizable data capture forms, collect data wherever you are and analyze it with a few clicks — without any training required.
Learn more The other significant improvement of this release is the ability of inviting users via a link. You can now create an invitation link for your whole study and separately per user group.
When someone clicks on a link, they can create an account or sign in, and gain immediate access to your study.
Your invitation links can have granular permissions, limiting features for certain users, such as editing forms or exporting data. You can also convert the invitation link into a QR code making mobile onboarding even faster.
This feature should save you considerable time when you are getting your team on board.
The classic email invitations are still present. You can choose between email or public link invitation, depending on your taste.
Want to try it out? Follow this link or scan the QR code: https://teamscope.app.link/cKjbg65SHdb
In our next development cycle, we will broaden the scope and capabilities of Teamscope with a much requested feature: online surveys.
On Teamscope you can currently build fully custom forms but to view them and collect data you need to login or create an account.
In some situations, like one-off surveys or working with the elderly population, this can be a barrier.
With online surveys, participants will be able to complete forms without needing an account.
Got a feature idea? We love to hear from you and get any thoughts on how to improve Teamscope.
Dear Digital Diary,
I realized that there is an unquestionable comfort in being misunderstood. For to be understood, one must peel off all the emotional layers and be exposed.
This requires both vulnerability and strength. I guess by using a physical diary (a paper and a pen), I never felt like what I was saying was analyzed or judged. But I also never thought I was understood.
Paper does not talk back.Using a daily digital diary has required emotional strength. It has required the need to trust and the need to provide information to be helped and understood.
Using a daily diary has needed less time and effort than a physical diary as I am prompted to interact through mobile notifications. I also no longer relay information from memory, but rather the medical or personal insights I enter are real-time behaviours and experiences.
The interaction is more organic. I also must confess this technology has allowed me to see patterns in my behaviour that I would have otherwise never noticed. I trust that the data I enter is safe as it is password protected. I also trust that I am safe because my doctor and nutritionist can view my records in real-time.
Also, with the data entered being more objective and diverse through pictures and voice recordings, my treatment plan has been better suited to my needs.
Sincerely,
No more elephants in this room
Diego is the founder and CEO of Teamscope. He started Teamscope from a scribble on a table. It instantly became his passion project and a vehicle into the unknown. Diego is originally from Chile and lives in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
