Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Sep 15, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 16, 2025 - Nov 11, 2025
Date Accepted: May 6, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Scoping review protocol: Dual-facing Digital Health Systems (DDHS) to support self-management of chronic pain.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Chronic pain affects around one in five adults worldwide and imposes a major personal and societal burden. Supported self-management, increasingly delivered through digital health systems, is recommended to improve quality of life and function. Dual-facing digital health systems (DDHS), which engage both patients and professionals, show promise but remain underexplored, with limited use of established frameworks to guide their design and evaluation.
Objective:
This protocol outlines the planned methods for conducting a scoping review which aims to map existing dual-facing digital health systems (DDHS) for chronic pain self-management, examine the frameworks used to inform their design, implementation, and evaluation, and identify gaps to guide future research and practice.
Methods:
The review will follow JBI methodology and PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines. Peer-reviewed studies (2010–present) on dual-facing digital health systems (DDHS) for use by healthcare professionals and adults with chronic pain will be included. Searches will be conducted across MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and APA Psychinfo, supplemented by citation tracking. Two reviewers will independently screen and extract data using a structured form. Results will be synthesized narratively, with emphasis on system features, populations, and applied frameworks. Quality of the included studies will be assessed using the Quality Assessment for Diverse Studies (QuADS) tool.
Results:
This review is expected to finish in December 2025 and be published in the Spring of 2026.
Conclusions:
This review will map dual-facing digital health systems for chronic pain self-management and the frameworks guiding their design and evaluation. Results will outline system features, contexts of use, and methodological approaches, while noting possible gaps due to unpublished or non-English studies. The findings will add to the evidence base and inform the future development of digital support for self-management. Clinical Trial: The protocol has been registered on Open Science Framework (OSF). DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/39CFX
Citation
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Copyright
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