The Effectiveness of Self-Management Mobile Health Technology in Chronic Disease: A Systematic Review

Background: Chronic diseases have a high prevalence in the world and the intense impact on the life of the patients. For enhancing the health care in chronic diseases and reducing costs, the self-management approaches using technology are helpful to improve the patient care and better endurance of coarseness of the diseases. Due to the high use of mobile in societies, the usage of this kind of technology for better management of chronic diseases and the impacts of it, are studied in many studies. Objectives: We conducted a systematic review to investigate about the efficiency, effectiveness of M-Health Technology in self-management of chronic diseases. Materials/Patients and Methods: We searched MEDLINE/PubMed electronically for articles published between 2006/01/01 and 2016/08/18.The inclusion criteria were set based on the type of study and beneficial or harmful effects of mobile technology based intervention in relation to chronic disease and self-management. A total of 78 articles was identified based on the searches conducted in MEDLINE from PubMed. After excluding duplicates (n = 34), we screened titles and abstracts of 44 articles based on inclusion criteria. The remaining articles matched with inclusion criteria (n = 38) were reviewed in full text, and 15 articles were excluded based on exclusion criteria. Finally, 23 articles complied with our eligibility criteria and were included in this study. Results: Of the 23 studies we reviewed, 13 studies assessed the impact of using mobile technology in the diseases and all of them reported a good or high level of benefit of the technology and they improved clinical outcomes.7 studies had the purpose of investigating usability, but only 3 of them concluded the present mobile technology qualified a high level of usability. 6 studies explored the feasibility of the mobile technology and all studies reported mobile technology was feasible. 3 studies explored acceptability of the mobile technology and all studies reported high level of acceptability. 4 articles had the purpose of investigating satisfaction and all of them demonstrated high satisfaction of mobile technology. Conclusion: The evidence indicates the potential of M-Health technology in improving symptom management through self-management interventions.