Effectiveness of Mobile App-Based Interventions to Support Diabetes Self-Management: A Systematic Review
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Introduction:Diabetes is a major health problem worldwide due to its rapidly growing prevalence and high disease burden. Nowadays, the evolution of mobile technology provides a large number of health-related mobile applications (apps) mainly focusing on the self-management of diabetes. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the effectiveness of mobile app-based self-management interventions on clinical and/or psychological outcomes in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Methods: A systematic search of four databases (Scopus, Medline, CINAHL, and Proquest) was conducted using the terms "diabetes" AND "self-management" AND "mobile applications" OR "mobile based" OR "smartphone”. Studies published in English from 2016 to 2020 were considered. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes that reported any of the study outcomes were included. Using our search strategies, we identified 4339 articles. After removing duplicate studies, a total of 12 articles met the inclusion and exclusion criteria included in the review.
Results: The majority measured self-monitoring of blood glucose monitoring frequency, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and/or psychological or cognitive outcomes. The most positive findings were associated with mobile app-based health interventions as a behavioral outcome, with some benefits found for clinical and/or psychological diabetes self-management outcomes for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Conclusion: Therefore, more research with larger and longer studies to develop the ideal mobile-app based self-management tool for diabetes is needed.Agarwal, P., Mukerji, G., Desveaux, L., Ivers, N. M., Bhattacharyya, O., Hensel, J. M., Shaw, J., Bouck, Z., Jamieson, T., Onabajo, N., Cooper, M., Marani, H., Jeffs, L., & Sacha Bhatia, R. (2019). Mobile app for improved self-management of type 2 diabetes: Multicenter pragmatic randomized controlled trial. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.2196/10321
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