JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Research shows that more patients expect and want to play a greater part in decisions about their treatment and care, and to perform self-care more effectively. This emphasizes the need for the adoption of collaborative healthcare practice, which implies collaboration between an interprofessional healthcare team and patients, their families, caregivers, and communities. In recent years, digital health technologies for self-management and self-monitoring have received much attention and the term participatory health informatics emerged in 2008. However, there is still limited knowledge about the features of participatory health technologies (PHTs) that support effective patient-professional partnerships.

Objective:

To describe what is known from existing literature about PHTs intended to support partnership between patients and/or caregivers and healthcare professionals in chronic care, focusing specifically on qualitatively synthesizing the main features of these technologies.

Methods:

A scoping review was performed to qualitatively synthesize literature published in English between January 2008 and December 2020. We searched PubMed and Web of Science. Peer-reviewed qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies that evaluated digital health technologies for patient-professional partnership in a chronic care setting were included. Data were charted and analyzed thematically. The PRISMA-ScR checklist was used.

Results:

A total of 34 papers were included in the review. The publication years suggest a slightly increasing publication trend, with most papers originating from the USA and Norway. Diabetes was the most common condition that was addressed, followed by cardiovascular diseases. Nine studies evaluated the influence on partnership, mostly with positive outcomes, although we also identified how partnership relations and the nature of collaborative work could be challenged when roles and expectations between users were unclear. Six common PHT features were identified: patient-professional communication, self-monitoring, tailored self-care support, self-care education, careplanning, and community forums for peer-to-peer interactions.

Conclusions:

The findings emphasize the importance of clarifying mutual expectations and carefully considering the implications that the introduction of PHTs may have on the work of patients and healthcare professionals, individually and in collaboration. There is still a knowledge gap regarding the influence of PHTs on the nature of partnership and how to effectively support collaborative healthcare practice.