Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Feb 21, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 19, 2020
eHealth delivery of educational contents using selected visual methods to improve health literacy for lifestyle-related diseases: a literature review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Lifestyle-related diseases such as stroke, heart disease, and diabetes are examples of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCDs are now the leading cause of death in the world, and their major causes are lifestyle-related. The number of eHealth interventions is increasing, and is expected to improve health literacy for lifestyle-related diseases.
Objective:
This literature review aims to identify existing literature published in the past decade on eHealth interventions aimed at improving health literacy of lifestyle-related diseases among the general population using selected visual methods such as educational videos, films, and movies.
Methods:
A systematic literature search of the PubMed database was conducted in April 2019 for papers written in English and published between April 2nd, 2009 through April 2nd, 2019. A total of 538 papers were identified and screened in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram. Finally, 23 articles were included in this review.
Results:
The 23 articles were characterized with regard to study characteristics (author and year of publication, study design and region where the study was conducted, study objective, service platform, target disease and participant age, research period, outcome, evaluation of application (app) development and the intervention), app features, and the evaluation of its impact on health literacy. Seven studies compared results using statistical methods. Of these, five studies reported significant positive effects of the intervention on health literacy, and health-related measures (e.g, physical activity, body weight). Although most of the studies included educational content aimed at improving health literacy, only seven studies measured health literacy. In addition, only five studies assessed literacy using health literacy measurement tools.
Conclusions:
This review found that the provision of educational content by most eHealth studies was satisfactory using selected visual methods such as videos, films, and movies. These findings suggest that eHealth interventions influence people’s health behaviors, and that the need for this intervention is expected to increase. In spite of the need to develop eHealth, standardized measurement tools to evaluate health literacy are lacking. Further research is required to clarify acceptable health literacy measurements.
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