Leveraging mHealth to Manage Mental Health/ Behavioral Health Disorders: A Systematic Literature Review

JMIR Ment Health. 2022 Oct 4. doi: 10.2196/42301. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Mental health is a complex condition, highly related to emotion. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant spike in depression (from isolation) and anxiety (event related). mHealth and telemedicine offer solutions to augment patient care, provide education, improve symptoms of depression and assuage fears and anxiety.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review is to assess the effectiveness of mHealth to provide mental healthcare by analyzing articles published in the last year in peer-reviewed, academic journals using strong methodology (RCT).

METHODS: We queried four databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect) using a standard Boolean search string. We conducted this systematic literature review in accordance with the Kruse Protocol, and we reported it in accordance with PRISMA 2020 (n=33).

RESULTS: Four interventions (mostly mHealth) from 14 countries identified improvements in both primary outcomes of depression and anxiety as well as several secondary outcomes: quality of life, mental well-being, cognitive flexibility, distress, sleep, self-efficacy, anger, decision conflict, decision regret, digestive disturbance, pain, and medication adherence.

CONCLUSIONS: mHealth interventions can provide education, treatment augmentation, and serve as the primary modality in mental healthcare. The mHealth modality should be carefully considered when evaluating modes of care.

PMID:36194896 | DOI:10.2196/42301