Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Oct 5, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 9, 2018 - Dec 4, 2018
Date Accepted: Sep 4, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
A systematic review of eHealth interventions for preventing and treating negative psychological sequelae resulting from pediatric medical conditions
ABSTRACT
Background:
Pediatric medical conditions have the potential to result in challenging psychological symptoms (e.g., anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress-PTSS) and impaired health-related quality of life in youth. Thus, effective, accessible interventions are needed to prevent and / or treat psychological sequelae associated with pediatric medical conditions. eHealth interventions may help to meet this need, with the capacity to reach more children and families than in-person interventions. Many of these interventions are in their infancy, and we do not yet know what key components contribute to successful eHealth interventions.
Objective:
The primary aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review to summarize current evidence on the efficacy of eHealth (web- and mobile-based) interventions designed to prevent or treat psychological sequelae in youth with medical conditions.
Methods:
MEDLINE (PubMed) and PsycINFO databases were searched for studies published between February 2, 1998 and February 1, 2018 using pre-defined search terms. Two authors independently reviewed titles and abstracts of search results to determine which studies were eligible for full-text review. Reference lists of studies meeting eligibility criteria were reviewed. If the title of a reference suggested that it might be relevant for the current review, the full manuscript was retrieved and reviewed. Inclusion criteria required that eligible studies had 1) conducted empirical research on the efficacy of a web or mobile-based intervention for youth with a medical condition, 2) assessed outcomes of psychological sequelae (i.e., symptoms of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, internalizing symptoms or quality of life) in youth (0-18 years) and / or their caregivers, 3) included assessments at two or more time points, and 5) was available in the English language.
Results:
67 studies were reviewed for inclusion based on their title and abstracts; 23 articles qualified for full-text review. 15 studies met inclusion criteria for the systematic review. Of the 15 included studies, 9 reported results indicating that eHealth interventions significantly improved psychological sequelae in participants. Common characteristics among interventions which showed an effect included content on problem-solving, education, communication, and behavior management. Studies most commonly reported on child and caregiver depression, followed by child PTSS and caregiver anxiety.
Conclusions:
Early research is mixed but suggests that eHealth interventions may be helpful in alleviating and /or preventing problematic psychological sequelae in youth with medical conditions and their caregivers. Additional research is needed to advance understanding of the most powerful intervention components and to determine when and how to best disseminate eHealth interventions, with the goal of extending the current reach of psychological interventions
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.