JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Psychological problems are common among people receiving dialysis, but conventional assessments are often episodic and may not capture changes across treatment cycles, time, and everyday contexts. Digital health technologies (DHTs) may support more flexible and repeated psychological screening, assessment, and monitoring, yet their applications in dialysis care have not been comprehensively mapped.

Objective:

This scoping review aimed to review and synthesize the applications of DHTs for psychological screening, assessment, and monitoring among adults receiving dialysis.

Methods:

This scoping review followed established scoping review methodology and was reported according to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) and PRISMA-S (PRISMA Statement for Reporting Literature Searches in Systematic Reviews) guidelines. PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, SinoMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, and the China Science and Technology Journal Database were searched from inception to August 14, 2026. Eligible studies involved adults receiving maintenance dialysis and evaluated DHTs used to screen, assess, identify, or monitor psychological outcomes. Study selection and data extraction were conducted using prespecified eligibility criteria based on the population-concept-context framework.

Results:

Database searches identified 3467 records, of which 2560 remained after deduplication. After screening and supplementary searching, 21 reports representing 17 unique studies were included. Of these, 13 studies were first reported in 2020 or later, and 11 focused exclusively on in-center hemodialysis. Six digital assessment approaches were identified, with electronic patient-reported outcome measure-based assessment being the most common, followed by ecological momentary assessment and experience sampling. Active patient self-report was the primary data source in 16 studies, whereas passive sensing and multimodal data integration were uncommon. The most frequently assessed outcomes were depression, anxiety, mood or affect, and mental health-related quality of life, and assessment schedules ranged from single assessments to repeated and longitudinal monitoring. Feasibility information was reported in 16 studies.

Conclusions:

DHTs are being applied in increasingly diverse ways to assess and monitor psychological health among people receiving dialysis. However, existing evidence relies predominantly on active patient self-report and focuses largely on in-center hemodialysis populations. Temporal assessment designs vary substantially, ranging from episodic assessment to intensive repeated monitoring. Future research should strengthen long-term and multiscale monitoring, improve the integration and validation of multimodal data, and establish clearer clinical pathways for reviewing and responding to clinically meaningful psychological findings. Clinical Trial: https://osf.io/zfmgw/overview