Principal Findings
Postoperative pain, postoperative acute pain, pain
CHRONIC PAIN, POSTOPERATIVE COMPLICATION
In this prospective, randomized, parallel-arm clinical trial evaluating the impact of an mHealth app on overall dental postoperative acute pain experience, we found no significant differences in pain experience or use of analgesic medication after painful dental procedures between the intervention (mHealth) and control (standard care) arms. Providers and patients, however, reported that the use of an mHealth platform had significant potential for improving patient-provider communication, patient-provider relationships, postoperative complication management, and the ability to customize pain medication prescribing. Almost all previously completed trials on the use of mobile technology apps for pain management in health care have focused on chronic pain. No trials have been reported in dentistry.Several factors may have influenced the observed lack of difference between the study arms. First, comparisons between intervention and control groups were made on day 7. Previous studies suggest that postoperative dental pain is usually of short duration, reaching its maximum intensity in the early postoperative period (day 1) and petering out before day 7, regardless of the pain control technique [Nevertheless, this study highlights the potential of PROs for providing valuable data for optimizing the delivery of care. Mobile phones have been shown to be an effective platform for assessing various aspects of patient health, including symptoms, symptom burden, health status, health behaviors, and health-related quality of life. In dentistry, mobile apps have been used to encourage evidence-based oral hygiene routines [Our qualitative analysis revealed that the use of mHealth systems could be clinically useful in ways that have also been reported in other studies. For example, a study conducted in rural Ghana found that providers perceived the use of mHealth technology to be an approach to increasing health care access [Postoperative pain measurement by recall is difficult to accurately determine. Research on autobiographical memory [