The clinical outcomes and effectiveness of mHealth interventions for diabetes and hypertension: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: With the development of technology, mobile health (mHealth) intervention has been proposed as a treatment strategy for chronic diseases that could improve the quality of chronic care and outcomes in some developed countries. However, the effectiveness of mHealth intervention in developing countries is not clear. Purpose: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to study the clinical outcomes and effectiveness of mHealth interventions for diabetes and hypertension in countries with different levels of economic development. Methods: Pubmed, ResearchGate, Embase and Cochrane documents were searched by computer, and the retrieval period was from 2008 to June 2019. All studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing mHealth treatments to other traditional treatments. Meta-analysis was conducted using stata software. Results: 51 RCTs (N=13,054 participants) were eligible for this systematic review and meta-analysis. Compared with the usual care, the mHealth interventions yielded significant mean differences in clinical outcomes, and had a positive effect on countries at different levels of economic development. It is reassuring that we found mHealth interventions combined with human intelligence could significantly improve clinical outcomes more than mHealth interventions alone [WMD (95%Cl)=-6.75 (-9.98, -3.52)] VS [WMD (95%Cl)=-2.53 (-4.99, -0.07)]. The main secondary outcomes showed that mHealth interventions could also improve quality of life, satisfaction and self-efficacy, etc. Conclusion: This review shown that mHealth interventions as a therapeutic strategy could improve the management of diabetes and hypertension in countries with different levels of economic development.