Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 3, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 4, 2025 - May 30, 2025
Date Accepted: May 29, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Type-1 Diabetes self-management mobile and web applications: A Systematic Review of their functions, features and impact on psychological wellbeing.
ABSTRACT
Background:
People living with type 1 diabetes must adhere to an intense self-care regimen, which may impact their psychological wellbeing and contribute to poor self-management behaviours. Despite the potential of mobile health and web-based applications for diabetes management, most prioritise glycaemic control and often overlook psychological wellbeing.
Objective:
This review assessed psychological wellbeing changes and identified functions and features of mobile and web-based interventions that may enhance the wellbeing of people with type 1 diabetes.
Methods:
Relevant studies were identified through PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Embase, Scopus, APA, and Cochrane Central until November 2024. Studies were included if they quantitatively assessed the impact of mobile health or web-based apps on psychological wellbeing in people with type 1 diabetes using validated screening tools.
Results:
Eight of the 2142 articles identified met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Six types of functions were identified, each incorporating different sets of features: (1) Therapy, (2) Education, (3) Self-Management, (4) Peer Support, (5) Healthcare Provider–Patient Support, and (6) Parental Support. Psychological wellbeing improved in only two of the eight studies. However, the limited number of studies and variability in study design and participant characteristics limited the ability to identify specific functions and features that effectively improved psychological wellbeing.
Conclusions:
This review highlights the limited effectiveness of mHealth interventions in improving psychological wellbeing in people living with type 1 diabetes. While some interventions showed promise, the findings emphasise the need for targeted, theory-based approaches and participatory design to improve support and long-term outcomes.
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.