Georgetown Institute launches real-time study of smartphone fertility app

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center's Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) have started a study including 1,200 women in an analysis of the efficiency of a smartphone app that calculates a woman's chance for pregnancy on a daily basis.

Called Dot (Dynamic Optimal Timing), the app tracks fertility based on data from several published studies and empirical evidence, says Victoria Jennings, PhD, director of IRH. The information used to build the app includes a fertility analysis of about 1,000 women in six geographical and cultural diverse settings, with aditional data coming from the World Health Organization and clinical research in the U.S.

The app has been out for a year. Researchers believe the app is 96-98 percent effective.

The app is able to adjust for the varying menstrual cycles of its many diverse users. Relying on the woman's period start date to provide her with accurate information about her chance of pregnancy for each day of her cycle, Dot alerts a woman if she is on a high or low risk day for the purpose of planning or avoiding pregnancy.

"To our knowledge this is the first prospective study on the effectiveness of a 'fertility app,'" Jennings says.  

The study has started recruiting participants who have downloaded and are using Dot. Researchers will then be able to calculate how efficient and effective Dot is by collecting data on how each individual woman uses the app, such as how the app might affect a couple's relationship and if a woman tires of using the app and why. The participants will be interviewed four times in the one-year study, and they will answer questions that pop-up in the app that are sent by the researchers.

"Our goal is to test the efficacy of Dot as a method to avoid unplanned pregnancy in a real-time situation," says Rebecca Simmons, MPH, a senior research officer at IRH. "We are all smartphone based, and this study will be conducted on the phone and the app."