JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

There is growing interest in enhancing stroke self-management support with mobile health (mHealth) technology (e.g., smartphones, apps). Despite this growing interest, ‘self-management support’ is inconsistently defined and applied in post-stroke mHealth intervention literature which limits efforts to synthesize and compare evidence. To address this gap in conceptual clarity, a scoping review was conducted.

Objective:

The objectives were to: (1) identify and describe the types of post-stroke mHealth interventions evaluated using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design; (2) determine whether (and how) such interventions align with well-accepted conceptualizations (theory and taxonomy) of self-management support; and (3) identify the mHealth functions that facilitate self-management.

Methods:

A scoping review was conducted consistent with Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and Levac and colleagues (2010). Seven databases were searched. Article screening and data extraction were completed by two reviewers. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis.

Results:

Twenty-nine studies (26 interventions) were included. Interventions addressed seven focal areas (physical exercise, risk factor management, linguistic exercise, activities of daily living training, medication adherence, stroke education, and weight management), five mobile devices (mobile phones/smartphones, tablets, wearable sensors, wireless monitoring devices, and laptops), and seven mHealth functions (educating, communicating, goal setting, monitoring, providing feedback, reminding, and motivating). Collectively, the interventions aligned well with the concept of self-management support. However, on an individual basis (per intervention), the alignment was less strong.

Conclusions:

Based on the results, it is recommended that future research on post-stroke mHealth interventions be more theoretically driven, more multidisciplinary, and larger in scale.