Principal Findings
PAD
From this study, we were able to show that the treatment outcome of smart-TRT is similar to that of conv-TRT. That is, both treatments had a significant treatment effect that comparably improved over time. As for the primary outcome measure (ΔTHI), the improvement was –23.3 in the smart-TRT group and –16.8 in the conv-TRT group (significant improvement over time within both groups, but no difference between groups). These improvements are not only statistically significant but also clinically significant, given that a change in THI score of 7 or greater is clinically meaningful [The attempt to use smart devices [The biggest advantage of smart-TRT is that it is cost-effective. Since the directive counseling is performed by an application installed on a smart pad, the health provider does not have to spend much time with each patient. Delivering the main idea of TRT and checking whether the patient is making good progress can be done via the smart pad. During this study, the health provider only had to answer questions after each smart-TRT course. The high cost-effectiveness of ICT-based management has been proven for other interventions such as lifestyle modification [The smart pad interface and interactive nature of the multimedia content seem to be critical to the outcome of smart-TRT. The high efficacy of ICT-based education is now generally accepted [Interestingly, the smart-TRT group had a slightly better treatment outcome (3-month ΔTHI of –23.3 points) than the conv-TRT group and in former publications on conv-TRT. Other studies reported a ΔTHI outcome of conv-TRT of –8.3 or –14.5 points at 3 months [