JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Self-management plays a critical role in maintaining and improving the health of persons with spinal cord injury. Despite their potential, existing mobile health (mHealth) tools that aim to support self-management in spinal cord injury (SMiSCI) have not been comprehensively described in terms of their characteristics and approaches. It is important to have an overview of these tools to know how best to select, further develop and improve these tools.

Objective:

The objective of this review was to identify mHealth tools developed for SMiSCI and to summarize their characteristics and approaches to supporting SMiSCI.

Methods:

A systematic review of literature published between January 2010 and March 2022 was conducted across eight bibliographic databases. The data synthesis was guided by Corbin and Strauss’ self-management tasks taxonomy, Lorig and Holman’s self-management skills taxonomy and the Practical Reviews in Self-Management Support taxonomy. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guided the reporting.

Results:

A total of 24 publications reporting on 19 mHealth tools that support SMiSCI were included. These tools were first introduced in 2015 and used various mHealth technologies and multimedia formats to provide self-management support using nine methods identified by the Practical Reviews in Self-Management Support taxonomy (eg, social support, lifestyle advice and support). The identified tools focused on common SCI self-management areas (eg, bowel, bladder and pain management) and overlooked areas such as sexual dysfunction problems and environmental problems, including barriers in the built environment. Most tools unexpectedly supported a single self-management task, instead of all three tasks (ie, medical, role and emotional), and emotional management tasks received very little support. All self-management skills (eg, problem solving, decision-making, action planning) received coverage but a single tool addressed resource utilization. The identified mHealth tools are similar in terms of number, introduction period, geographical distribution and technical sophistication compared to tools for self-management in other chronic conditions.

Conclusions:

This systematic literature review provides one of the first descriptions of mHealth tools for SMiSCI in terms of their characteristics and approaches to supporting self-management. This study’s findings have highlighted a need for increased coverage of key SMiSCI components, adopting comparable usability, user experience and accessibility evaluation methods, and related research to provide more detailed reporting. Future research should consider other data sources, such as app stores and technology-centric bibliographies databases, to complement this compilation by identifying other possibly overlooked mHealth tools. A consideration of this study’s findings is expected to support the selection, development and improvement of mHealth tools for SMiSCI.