JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

eHealth is a multidisciplinary and rapidly evolving field, thus is in need for research focused on knowledge accumulation, curation, and translation. Cardiovascular diseases represent a global healthcare crisis where eHealth can provide novel solutions to improve the efficiency and reach of self-management support for patients where they most need it: their homes and communities. A holistic understanding of the eHealth projects focused on such case is required to bridge the multidisciplinary gap and improve future research and development approaches.

Objective:

The primary objective of this review is to facilitate a holistic interpretation of eHealth projects aimed at providing self-management support of cardiovascular diseases in the natural setting of patients. The review aims to synthesize the operationalization of frameworks, models, and theories applied to the research and development process of eHealth.

Methods:

Noblit and Hare’s meta-ethnography approach will be used to review and synthesize the reports of researchers and practitioners on how they applied frameworks, models, and theories in their projects. A systematic literature search will be conducted on seven databases: Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ACM DL, and the Cochrane Library. Selected studies will be thoroughly read and coded to extract both the raw and the contextual data for the synthesis. The relation of the studies will be determined according to the elements of the frameworks, models, or theories they applied. A translation of these elements between each other will be conducted, and a synthesis of holistic principles for eHealth development for the case at hand is intended.

Results:

The search strategy has been completed, data extraction is almost finalized, and the first synthesis approaches are currently undergoing. The search yielded 1224 citations and after applying the selection criteria 17 papers remained . The final results are expected to be submitted for publication in 2019.

Conclusions:

The review is of importance because it aims to create a holistic understanding of a multidisciplinary topic at the crossroads of eHealth, cardiovascular diseases, and self-management. The value of meta-ethnography in contrast to other systematic reviews is that its synthesis approach seeks to generate a new understanding of a topic, while preserving the social and theoretical contexts in which findings emerge. Our results will show how useful this method can be in bridging the multidisciplinary gap of eHealth research and development, to inform and advance on the importance of holistic approaches, showcasing this for the case of self-management in cardiovascular diseases. Clinical Trial: PROSPERO CRD42018104397; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=104397 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/75H1kP1Mm).