Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Dec 15, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 15, 2024 - Feb 9, 2025
Date Accepted: Jan 22, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Effects of the modern digital information environment on maternal healthcare professionals, the role of midwives and the people in their care: a scoping review
ABSTRACT
Background:
The digital information environment poses challenges for pregnant women and other people seeking care and to their midwives and other maternal health providers. They can encounter questions, concerns, information gaps and misinformation, which can influence healthcare decisions.
Objective:
This literature review examines how healthcare providers are affected by the modern digital information environment, including health misinformation, its effects on their clients and implications it has on care provision.
Methods:
Screened English-language peer-reviewed literature published from Jan 1, 2020 to May 31, 2024 in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Google Scholar with keywords related to midwifery, misinformation and health equity.
Results:
105 studies were ultimately included and themes extracted and mapped onto a patient-centered conceptual model to understand digital information environment barriers and enablers.
Conclusions:
Misinformation, information voids, unaddressed questions and concerns, and lack of access to high-quality health information are globally prevalent barriers that affect both patients and healthcare providers (HCPs). The review identified individual, provider-level, health systems and societal-level strategies that can be used to promote healthier digital information environments.
Citation
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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.