REVIEW ARTICLE
mHealth Interventions To Support Self-Management In HIV: A Systematic Review
Vanessa Cooper, Jane Clatworthy, Jennifer Whetham*, EmERGE Consortium
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
First Page: 119
Last Page: 132
Publisher ID: TOAIDJ-11-119
DOI: 10.2174/1874613601711010119
Article History:
Received Date: 30/09/2017Revision Received Date: 04/10/2017
Acceptance Date: 27/10/2017
Electronic publication date: 21/11/2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Self-management is an important aspect of long-term HIV treatment. Mobile technologies offer the potential to efficiently deliver interventions to facilitate HIV self-management. The last comprehensive review of such mHealth interventions was conducted in 2011. Given the rapidly evolving field, a need was identified for an updated review of the literature.
Objective:
The study aimed to describe and evaluate current evidence-based mHealth interventions to support self-management in HIV.
Method:
Eight online databases (Medline, Scopus, Embase, PsycINFO, Cochrane, Global Health CAB, IEEE explore, Web of Science) were systematically searched for papers describing and evaluating mHealth HIV self-management interventions. Reference lists of relevant papers were also searched. Data on intervention content and evaluation methodology were extracted and appraised by two researchers.
Results:
41 papers were identified evaluating 28 interventions. The majority of these interventions (n=20, 71%) had a single focus of either improving adherence (n=16), increasing engagement in care (n=3) or supporting smoking cessation (n=1), while just 8 (29%) were more complex self-management interventions, targeting a range of health-related behaviours. Interventions were predominantly delivered through SMS messaging. They significantly impacted on a range of outcomes including adherence, viral load, mental health and social support.
Conclusion:
Since the last major review of mHealth interventions in HIV, there has been a shift from exploratory acceptability/feasibility studies to impact evaluations. While overall the interventions impacted on a range of outcomes, they were generally limited in scope, failing to encompass many functions identified as desirable by people living with HIV. Participant incentives may limit the generalizability of findings.
