JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Working-aged women often experience many unique health issues and conditions throughout their lives. The usage of applications and the Internet of Things (IoT) in improving women’s health has recently increased worldwide. However, there has been no consensus on the effectiveness of IoT in improving women’s health outcomes.

Objective:

This systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA) aims to assess and synthesize the role of applications (apps) and IoT in improving women’s health and to identify the most effective intervention for ensuring their best health outcomes.

Methods:

Our systematic review and NMA will be conducted using the guidelines of the Cochrane Handbook. We will comprehensively search electronic databases and other resources to identify relevant randomized controlled trials that have assessed the effects of various Apps and IoT with regard to improving working-aged women’s health in high-income countries. Two independent reviewers will perform the study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment. Our primary outcomes include health status, well-being, and quality of life. We will perform pairwise meta-analysis and NMA to estimate the direct, indirect, and relative effects of apps and IoT on women’s health outcomes. We will also assess the hierarchy of interventions, statistical inconsistencies, and certainties of evidence for each outcome.

Results:

We plan to conduct the search in January 2023 and are currently discussing search strategies with the literature search specialists. The final report is planned for submission to a peer-reviewed journal in September 2023.

Conclusions:

To our knowledge, this review will be the first to identify the most effective IoT intervention for ensuring working-aged women’s best health outcomes. These findings may be of great use to researchers, policymakers, and others with interest in the field. Clinical Trial: This protocol was registered under PROSPERO (receipt number: 384620).