and have limited “The use of mobile technologies to support health (mHealth technologies), specifically mHealth applications (apps), has the potential to improve outcomes in SLE by empowering patients through education, symptom tracking, and peer support,” first author Lucas Ogura Dantas, of Tufts Medical Center, Boston, and coauthors wrote in Lupus. “These may be particularly powerful tools in SLE which commonly affects young adults, who are typically avid smartphone users familiar with the use of mobile apps.”
The authors’ review of 19 mHealth apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store (and 1 not on either platform) gave an overall average score of 2.3 out of a possible 5.0 from individual mean scores for engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information quality on the 23-item Mobile App Rating Scale, each item of which is rated on a 0-5 point scale. Overall, 10 apps offered educational content, 7 offered tools for tracking patient-reported symptoms, 5 offered interactive online communities, 1 offered emojis to share through text messages or email for the purpose of entertainment, and 1 could not be fully evaluated.
The researchers noted that “most apps scored poorly based on design, user interface, functionality, and credibility,” with mean scores of 2.5 for engagement, 2.9 for functionality, 2.2 for aesthetics, and 1.6 for information. “The majority of the apps provided low-quality information from questionable sources (i.e., sources were not cited or their legitimacy was unknown or unverifiable),” they wrote.
The three highest-rated apps – LupusMinder (overall mean score, 3.3), Lupus Corner Health Manager (3.2), and PatientsLikeMe (3.1) – all focused on tracking patient-reported outcomes, but none used validated outcome measures; offered connectivity with wearable devices; or passively collected data such as step count, walking distances, flights climbed, calories expenditure, or sleep monitoring. However, two did have social network components and interactive support groups. Despite these apps’ interactivity and customizability, none offered “features for patients to create and track goals, directly connect with a physician or expert in the field, or synchronize data with electronic health records. None of the apps provided patients with feedback.”
The authors wrote that the Lupus Corner Health Manager was “the only one that addresses the majority of the preferences of SLE patients identified in our literature review. This app provides educational material, a symptom and medication tracker, and a discussion group for communicating with others living with lupus – all key features of mHealth technologies in the management of chronic diseases.”
However, they noted that the “ideal mHealth app for patients with SLE would incorporate evidence-based educational material, customizable symptom and medication trackers, logs for personalized health goals, and connectivity with external hardware devices to enrich data collection. Additional useful features would include gamification components to engage users, the provision of tailored feedback based on collected data, and secure mechanisms of communication and data access between users and health care providers to facilitate treatment planning and coordination of care.”
In the systematic literature review, the researchers identified a total of 21 original research studies “related to the development or use of mHealth technologies targeting people of all ages with an SLE diagnosis,” including 2 randomized trials, 10 observational studies, 4 qualitative studies, 3 review articles, and 2 study protocols for future randomized trials.
These papers most often focused on developing and using mHealth for providing patient information (11 papers), followed by mHealth interventions (5); study protocols (2); and developing mHealth apps, websites, or mHealth interventions (3).
Seven studies implemented mHealth technologies, including two with wearable devices, two with text-messaging interventions, and three that used web-based systems. These had mixed results and small samples sizes ranging from 9 to 41 patients, making their interpretation difficult, the authors wrote. A total of 11 studies examined the development of mHealth technologies, including 7 that recognized “the need for more interactive educational platforms with high-quality information,” 2 that described a need for “novel methods of disease monitoring,” and 2 that revealed “a need for sources of support such as virtual communities.”
“Though our systematic literature review found that patients seek to use mHealth technologies to aid with disease management, we identified few studies exploring mHealth-based interventions to improve health outcomes, with the limited published literature devoted to the use of mHealth platforms to provide educational information,” Mr. Dantas and associates wrote.
The lack of evidence for mHealth technologies in SLE patients “contrast with the robust evidence supporting the effectiveness of mHealth interventions in improving outcomes in several chronic conditions,” such as chronic low back and musculoskeletal pain and blood pressure control, they noted.
The authors reported no potential conflicts of interest. The study authors received funding from the Saõ Paulo Research Foundation, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
SOURCE: Dantas LO et al. Lupus. 2020;29:144-56.