Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Aug 6, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 6, 2021 - Oct 1, 2021
Date Accepted: Jan 19, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Apr 22, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Problems and Barriers related to the Use of Digital Health Applications: A Scoping Review Protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
Usage of digital health applications (DHA) is increasing internationally. More and more regulatory bodies develop regulations and guidelines to enable an evidence-based and safe use. In Germany, DHA fulfilling predefined criteria (Digitale Gesundheitsanwendungen (="DiGA")) can be prescribed and are reimbursable by the German statutory health insurance scheme. Due to the increasing distribution of DHA problems and barriers should receive special attention.
Objective:
This study aims to identify relevant problems and barriers related to the use of DHA fulfilling the criteria of DiGA. The research done in this area will be mapped and research findings will be summarized.
Methods:
Conduct of the scoping review will follow published methodological frameworks and PRISMA-Scr criteria. Electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO), reference lists of relevant articles and grey literature sources will be searched. Two reviewers will assess eligibility of articles by a two-stage (title/abstract and full-text) screening process. Only problems and barriers related to DHA fulfilling the criteria of DiGA are included for this research.
Results:
This scoping review serves to give an overview about the available evidence and to identify research gaps with regards to problems and barriers related to DiGA. Results are planned to be submitted to an indexed, peer-reviewed journal in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Conclusions:
This is the first review identifying problems and barriers specifically to the use of the German definition of DiGA. Nevertheless, our findings can presumably be applied to other contexts and health care systems as well.
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.