Here, we summarise the studies on the use of mobile health technology (m-Health) that were indexed in PubMed in January 2016.

Mobile health technology includes the use of smartphones, telemonitoring, mobile apps and similar online tools and devices to educate patients, caregivers and health professionals about disease, to promote healthy living in the general public, and to provide an interactive platform to aid communication and feedback between individuals and those helping them manage their disease. Although evidence of clinical benefit from such technologies is relatively sparse, there is a growing evidence base on the topic.

In this blog, we are building on previous summaries of the evidence on this topic by reviewing papers indexed in PubMed in January 2016 reporting results of studies evaluating m-Health technologies.

Links to our previous summaries:
July 2015
August 2015
September 2015
October 2015
November 2015
December 2015

Key studies this month:

• A systematic review concluded that text messaging probably improves diabetes self-management, weight loss, physical activity, smoking cessation, adherence to antiretroviral therapy for HIV, but disparate studies mean the best approaches are unclear Hall and colleagues 2015
• A systematic review found that telemedicine interventions reduce mortality and hospitalisation rates in adults with heart failure Kotb and colleagues 2015 
• A systematic review found that telemonitoring generally improved quality of life and reduced costs in adults with hypertension Omboni and colleagues 2015

 

 

Papers looking at m-Health to promote healthy living in the general public

Population	m-Health technology used	Disease or Problem	Outcome	Clinically important outcome relating to m-Health intervention?	Reference
General population	Systematic review of Mobile text messaging for health improvement	Multiple	Some evidence of efficacy for diabetes self-management, weight loss, physical activity, smoking cessation, adherence to antiretroviral therapy for HIV	Yes	Hall and colleagues 2015
Blind running athletes	Mobile electromagnetic guiding system	Visual impairment	Development of a functioning unit is described	No	Pieralisi and colleagures 2015

Studies using m-Health to improve disease management and self-management

Population	m-Health technology used	Disease or Problem	Outcome	Clinically important outcome relating to m-Health intervention?	Reference
Review of 30 RCTs of 10,193 adults with heart failure	Telemedicine interventions versus usual care	Heart failure	Network meta-analysis concluded lower mortality and hospitalisation rates with structured telephone support and telemnonitoring, reduced hospital admissions with remote ECG monitoring.	Yes	Kotb and colleagues 2015
331 US adults with heart failure and their caregivers	standard m-health weekly interactive voice response calls versus m-health + CPinteractive calls as before plus automated email to caregiver	Heart failure	After 12 months, m-health +CP group reported fewer symptoms, lower depression scores, increased adherence with medication and caregiver communication, but no difference in quality of life	Yes	Piette and colleagues 2015
Australian adults with heart disease in urban and rural settings	pedometer-based telephone coaching for physical activity or for healthy weight	Heart disease	Economic evaluation concluded the healthy weight intervention was more cost-effective than the physical activity intervention	Yes	Sangster and colleagues 2015
Review of studies of adults with hypertension	Telemedicine interventions especially telemonitoring versus usual care	Hypertension	Most studies found that telemonitoring reduced blood pressure, improved quality of life and reduced medical costs, with good satisfaction ratings	Yes	Omboni and colleagues 2015
99 US adults with no access to formal care, less than 6 months after a stroke	Home-based robot-assisted telerehabilitationversus home exercise program	Depression after stroke	After 8 weeks, both groups had improved depression scores, no comparison reported between groups	Yes	Linder and colleagues 2015
251 caregivers of adults with dementia in the Netherlands	Internet intervention versus e-bulletins	Dementia	Significantly lower depression and anxiety in the internet intervention group at the end of the study	Yes	Blom and colleagues 2015
34 adults with depression in the Netherlands	mHealth monitoring of affect, side effects, activities and stressors	Depression	Remote monitoring was sensitive to changes in mood and treatment effects over 18 weeks	No	van Os and colleagues 2014
Patients with bipolar disorder	Web-based relapse prevention intervention	Bipolar disorder	Study protocol so no results: describes the development and feasibility-testing of the intervention	No	Lobban and colleagues 2015
Adolescents aged 12-18 years with OCD in Australia	Web-based self-guided treatment	Obsessive compulsive disorder	Study protocol so no results yet: will assess OCD symptoms and self esteem, impact on families	No	Rees and colleagues 2015
Twitter analysis	Twitter	Sleep problems	Analysis of tweets identified individuals reporting sleep problems, who posted less, had fewer friends, lower sentiment scores and posted more during typical sleep hours than those with no sleep problems	No	McIver and colleagues 2015
139 adults using CPAP for obstructive sleep apnoea in Spain	Telemedicine with website and videoconferences versus face-to-face follow-up	Obstructive sleep apnoea	After 6 months, CPAP compliance, quality of life and sleep scores were similar across groups; telemedicine group had more contacts but lower costs so was cost-effective	Yes	Isetta and colleagues 2015
Patients at 2 cancer centres in the US	Web-based, automated self-reporting intervention versus web-based assessment	Cancer	Lower distress scores in the intervention group versus controls at the end of the study; use was greater in patients receiving radiotherapy than chemotherapy	Yes	Berry and colleagues 2015
183 adults being screened for HIV in Uganda	SMS texts with test results and transport reimbursement for those with positive results	HIV infection	Faster return to the clinic for treatment after the mHealth intervention began than before	Yes	Siedner and colleagues 2015

Studies using m-Health interventions to prevent or detect disease or injury

Population	m-Health technology used	Disease or problem	Outcome	Clinically important outcome relating to m-Health intervention?	Reference
Over 7000 children from 12 countries	Accelerometer worn 24 hours a day at the waist	Obesity	9% of participants had implausibly high activity counts at some period, 90% of participants contributed useable data	No	Tudor-Locke and colleagues 2015
20 overweight and obese adolescents in the US	Videoconferences 3 times a week with trainer and diet consultations	Videoconferences 3 times a week with trainer and diet consultations	85% completed the program after 12 weeks, and had improved cardiovascular risk factors	No	Nourse and colleagues 2015
27 overweight and obese African-American college students	Website promoting physical activity using social cognitive theory plus exercise sessions	Obesity	56% participants completed the 6-month study, 80% of completers were satisfied with the site	No	Joseph and colleagues 2015
83 African-American women at risk of HIV infection	Web-based education program versus delayed HIV education control	HIV prevention	Greater use of condoms in the intervention group	No	Billings and colleagues 2015
People in Ghana at risk of lymphatic filariasis	SMS tool facilitating trained community workers to report likely cases	Lymphatic filariasis	Community worker diagnoses had 90% positive predictive value for true detection of cases	No	Stanton and colleagues 2015