JMIR Research Protocols

Parkinson disease (PD), a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor and nonmotor symptoms, is becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide. Conventional treatment for PD involves dopamine therapy, including levodopa; however, this treatment is ineffective for nonmotor symptoms and may cause adverse effects. The gut-brain axis has been hypothesized to promote PD, and regulation of gut microbiome, which modulates the gut-brain axis, is emerging as a treatment target. Acupuncture and moxibustion exert therapeutic effects on PD and modulate the gut microbial composition.

Iron deficiency is the most widespread nutritional deficiency worldwide, and it is the primary cause of anemia, particularly in low- and middle-income countries such as Indonesia. Iron deficiency has a multifactorial etiology involving complex interactions between genetic factors, especially the transmembrane protease serine 6 (TMPRSS6) rs855791 variant, which encodes matriptase-2, a protein involved in regulating hepcidin expression, and nongenetic factors, including sociodemographics, nutritional status, iron intake, and menstrual patterns. Women of reproductive age, including medical students, are susceptible to iron deficiency owing to unhealthy dietary habits, growth requirements, and menstruation. Iron deficiency among medical students may lead to decreased academic performance and productivity. Additionally, as future mothers, women may experience a heightened risk of delivering children with intellectual disabilities and various psychosocial impairments. Owing to the significant consequences of this condition, identifying the underlying causes of iron deficiency is crucial. The high prevalence of iron deficiency in Indonesia poses a challenge in addressing these contributing factors to effectively reduce its occurrence.

Transgender women face significant health inequities. Facial feminization surgery is an intervention that aligns craniofacial structures with female anatomical norms and gender identity. Although international studies suggest that facial feminization surgery improves psychosocial outcomes, most studies have focused on aesthetic results or relied on generic quality-of-life instruments that have not been validated for this population. In Chile, no study has evaluated the multidimensional impact of facial feminization surgery using patient-centered measures combined with objective cephalometric and photometric analyses. Moreover, no validated Spanish-language quality-of-life instrument exists for transgender women undergoing this surgery.

Older adults represent the majority of individuals diagnosed with cancer in the United States and often face complex treatment decisions that require balancing survival benefits with quality-of-life considerations. Despite the emphasis on shared decision-making (SDM), many patients report that clinical guidance does not reflect their personal values. Values-clarification tools have shown slight improvements in aligning care with patient values; however, the factors by which these tools influence decision-making are less studied.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide and imposes a significant public health burden. In 2019, HPV was responsible for approximately 620,000 cancer cases in women, 70,000 in men, and more than 300,000 deaths globally. Despite the proven efficacy of the vaccine, vaccination rates remain alarmingly low in certain regions of France. In Réunion Island, only 16% of girls and 9% of boys under 16 years old were fully vaccinated in 2024. This underscores the need for increased awareness, education, and outreach programs. Peer learning is well-established in health education, whereas serious game–style card games are newer and require further research. Both methods have been shown to improve knowledge on specific topics.

Many mental health professionals face work-related stress due to high job demands, limited control, and inadequate institutional support. Connected mental health (CMH) technologies such as mobile apps and teletherapy platforms are increasingly being proposed as tools to alleviate these job demands. However, their actual influence on clinicians’ work environments—here understood as the organizational, social, and psychological conditions that shape their workload, job demands, autonomy, and overall well-being—remains underexplored. Existing reviews have primarily focused on traditional organizational interventions, leaving a critical gap in understanding how CMH technologies specifically influence the work environment of mental health clinicians.

Metastasis is the primary cause of poor prognosis and high mortality in lung cancer. Surgery with postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy is the standard treatment for patients with stage IIA-IIIA lung cancer with negative driver genes. However, recurrence rates remain significant. In China, traditional Chinese medicine shows potential as an adjuvant therapy to reduce treatment toxicity and improve clinical efficacy.

The gut microbiota (GM) plays a critical role in systemic health, influencing immune, metabolic, and neurological functions. Emerging evidence suggests that moxibustion, a traditional thermal therapy, may modulate GM to restore microbial homeostasis, yet its exclusive effects remain undifferentiated from combined therapies like acupuncture. Prior meta-analyses lack mechanistic specificity, necessitating a focused evaluation of moxibustion’s impact on microbial ecology.

Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) undergoing chemotherapy have limited access to rehabilitation support. While rehabilitation on the basis of physiotherapy has been found to enhance psychosocial well-being and motor performance, a viable substitute for this can be aquatherapy. However, no trials have currently evaluated the effectiveness of aquatherapy in this population.

The family plays a critical role in shaping children’s health behaviors during early childhood. Family-based interventions are a cornerstone of childhood obesity prevention but often yield modest effects and have several limitations, including a focus on a single caregiver and insufficient attention to coparenting dynamics. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions that include multiple caregivers and target coparenting practices are rare, but have the potential to amplify parenting intervention effects, leading to stronger child health outcomes.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) affects millions of people worldwide and often results in impaired lower limb function and reduced mobility. Transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) has emerged as a promising neuromodulation technique that shows potential for enhancing motor recovery and walking ability in individuals with SCI. However, the effectiveness of tSCS for lower limb rehabilitation in this population remains unclear due to limited evidence from small sample sizes, heterogeneous protocols, and lack of long-term follow-up data.

The growing population of cancer survivors faces persistent physical and emotional challenges that significantly impact health-related quality of life (HRQL). To address these multifaceted needs, robust and culturally adapted patient-reported outcome measures, such as the Measure Yourself Concerns and Wellbeing (MYCaW®) questionnaire, are essential for understanding and improving survivors’ subjective experiences.