Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Nov 27, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 18, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Efficacy of Mobile Health in Patients with Low Back Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
ABSTRACT
Background:
Low back pain is one of the most common health problems and a main cause of disability, which imposes a great burden on patients. Mobile health (mHealth) affects many aspects of people's lives, and it has progressed rapidly, showing promise as an effective intervention for patients with low back pain. However, the efficacy of mHealth interventions for patients with low back pain remains unclear; thus, further exploration is necessary.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of mHealth interventions in patients with low back pain, compared to usual care.
Methods:
We searched for studies published in English before October 2020 in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library. Two researchers independently scanned the literature, extracted data, and assessed the methodological quality of the included studies. We used RevMan 5.4 software to perform the meta-analysis.
Results:
A total of 10 studies with 1003 participant, met the inclusion criteria. The simultaneous use of mHealth and usual care showed a greater reduction in pain intensity than usual care alone, as measured by the Numeric Rating Scale (mean difference [MD] -0.85, 95% CI -1.29 to -0.40; P<.001), and greater efficacy in reducing disability, as measured by the Rolland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (MD -1.58, 95% CI -2.33 to -0.83; P<.001).
Conclusions:
The simultaneous interventions of mHealth and usual care has greater efficacy than usual care alone in reducing pain intensity and disability in patients with low back pain.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
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.