Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 31, 2023
Date Accepted: Apr 16, 2024
Effectiveness of mhealth applications for maternal healthcare delivery: a systematic review of systematic reviews
ABSTRACT
Background:
Globally, the use of mobile health (mhealth) applications/interventions has ascended. Robust synthesis of existing systematic reviews on mhealth applications may offer useful insights to guide maternal health clinicians and policy makers.
Objective:
This systematic review assessed the effectiveness /impact of mhealth applications on maternal healthcare delivery globally.
Methods:
We systematically searched Scopus, Web of Science (Core Collection), Medline/PubMed, Cinahl and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, using a pre-developed search strategy. Three reviewers independently assessed the quality of the reviews. We presented a narrative synthesis of the findings, highlighting the specific mhealth applications, where they are implemented and their effectiveness/outcomes towards various maternal conditions.
Results:
A total of 2,527 documents were retrieved, out of which 16 were included in the review. Most mhealth applications were implemented by sending Short Message Service (SMS) with mobile phones. Mhealth interventions were most effective in five areas; maternal anxiety and depression, diabetes in pregnancy, gestational weight management, maternal healthcare utilization, and behavioural modification towards smoking cessation, and controlling substance use in pregnancy. We noted that mhealth interventions for maternal healthcare are skewed toward high-income countries (n=13, 81.3%).
Conclusions:
The effectiveness of mhealth applications for maternity healthcare is drawing attention in research and practice recently. Considering that worse maternal conditions typically occur in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) whilst most mhealth interventions abound in high-income countries, more mhealth interventions and research efforts in LMICs will be beneficial for positive maternal health outcomes.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.