Table 1.

User-based considerations for choosing data collection methods with mobile health technologies

	Patient/Caregiver	Healthcare provider	Researcher
Number of sensors	Minimal number of sensors easy-to-access location/s	Number of sensors locations based on clinical purpose	Number location of sensors based on targeted accuracy
Sensor burden	Minimal patient caregiver burden over a long time	Minimal clinician burden over a long time	Potentially greater burden in patients clinicians over a short time
Frequency	Less frequent use to enhance adherence during data capture	Frequency depending on use of data	More frequent use to ensure, e.g., high signal to noise ratio
Targets	1–2 domains at low- frequency intervals, based on identified problems	Possibly 1–2 domains at periodic intervals, according to patient’s clinician’s goals	Likely multiple domains at frequent intervals, according to research objectives
User friendliness	Easy to use, ready (ideally 24/7) access to helpdesk to facilitate compliance minimal manual skill level required to operate the system.	Easy to use in clinical practice; helpdesk to troubleshoot range of potential problems. Facilitate patient compliance by reviewing data.	Usability compliance – less of an issue for fully supervised sessions; will have to ensure ease of use to facilitate patient compliance for unsupervised monitoring
Supervised vs. unsupervised	Unsupervised data collection ensured by friendly, acceptable device to user	Reliance only on unsupervised data collection	Reliance on supervised unsupervised data collection
Desirable technical aspects	Long battery life, low charging, easy or automatic uploading downloading, small size, low weight, water-proof. Low level of expertise to use underst output.		Battery life, need for charging, size, weight less critical for supervised /short duration sessions. High level of expertise to analyze.
Validation	Must show correlation with global patient-centered scales for the appropriate domains.	Monitoring of motor fluctuations medication titration.	May not strongly correlate with the total or even specific items of such gold stards as the UPDRS. Observation or video analysis may be needed.