Previously submitted to: JMIR mHealth and uHealth (no longer under consideration since Feb 20, 2022)
Date Submitted: Sep 8, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 8, 2021 - Nov 3, 2021
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Mapping Research Trends of mHealth-Based Weight Management from 2010 to 2020: A Bibliometric Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Obesity and overweight have become major public health issues worldwide. mHealth is considered a potential novel strategy to intervene in overweight and obesity. The number of mHealth applications is currently large and growing rapidly, but the mechanisms and effects of their influence on users' health behaviors have not been fully elucidated.
Objective:
A systematic review of research on the application of mHealth to promote weight loss behaviors over the past 10 years is presented to understand the global progress of research findings on mHealth for weight loss and to deepen the systematic and comprehensive understanding of the field.
Methods:
A systematic review was conducted using 9 databases as search platforms. All published studies on the application of mHealth to promote weight loss between 2010 and 2020 were retrieved. The data obtained from these published studies were cleaned and structured. Excel (Microsoft Corp), VOSviewer (Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman) and the bibliometrix package in R were used to perform bibliometric analysis of publication trends, authorship, and research hot spots.
Results:
A total of 1900 articles were obtained during the initial screening, and 1561 articles were found to meet the study criteria after manual screening. We found that the number of publications is increasing rapidly, with an average annual growth rate of 20.84. A total of 7326 authors published in 613 different journals and conferences, and 39% of the articles were published in 20 core journals, including JMIR mHealth and uHealth, BMC Public Health, and Journal of Medical Internet Research. Among them, JMIR mHealth and uHealth was far ahead of the other journals in terms of growth rate and volume of publications. Among all authors, the largest number of authors were from the United States and Australia. There were 10 top authors with more than 15 total publications. The key themes of research were divided into 3 broad categories (population, behavior and interventions), and the focus of research gradually shifted over the decade from exploring the theoretical basis of mHealth to how to facilitate its application, with community information services and fitness and exercise mHealth applications as emerging and under-researched topics within the field.
Conclusions:
In terms of overall trends, research on the application of mHealth to promote weight loss is of great interest, and a relatively popular subfield is the study of mHealth for exercise and fitness. From the research content, it was found that the effect of a single exercise intervention at the individual level is limited, and there is a need to explore multidimensional and effective intervention models for individuals, families, and society, starting with diversified health behaviors such as nutritional support and health monitoring.
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Copyright
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