BMC Health Services Research · 3 authors, 3 centres
This summary was generated by AI from a single paper. It has not been reviewed by a clinician and is not clinical advice. Verify against the source before acting on it.
This PRISMA-reported systematic review of 55 studies used qualitative SWOT content analysis to identify 13 facilitators and 18 barriers to mHealth intervention use during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mobile applications were highly flexible technologies for health service delivery, but limitations in privacy, internet access, hardware requirements, and non-academic development undermined their effectiveness.
This systematic review searched PubMed for original studies on mHealth interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic up to August 2022, following PRISMA reporting guidelines. Quality was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool, with 46 of 55 studies meeting all criteria. Of the included studies, 96.4% used mobile applications, primarily for prevention (17 studies), follow-up (15), treatment (12), and diagnosis (8). Outcomes included clinical improvement (47.27% of studies), social outcomes (40%), patient and provider satisfaction (10.9%), and increased quality of life (9.1%). Barriers included privacy concerns, internet and hardware dependencies, language limitations, non-academic development quality, and lack of integration with existing systems. Most studies were limited to small populations without national or international scale-up.
