Digital health interventions in children with asthma

Abstract

Although healthcare providers are actively involved in offering education, information and interventions for asthmatic patients, medication and therapeutic adherence remain low in the paediatric population, with estimates suggesting that adherence rates hover below 50%. A range of available digital health interventions has been explored in paediatric asthma with promising but variable results, limiting their widespread adoption in clinical practice. They include emerging technologies that yield the advantage of tracking asthma symptoms and medications, setting drug reminders, improving inhaler technique and delivering asthma education, such as serious games (video games designed for medical‐ or health‐related purposes), electronic monitoring devices, speech recognition calls, text messaging, mobile apps and interactive websites. Some of the proposed digital interventions have used multiple components, including educational and behavioural strategies and interactions with medical professionals. Overall, the implementation of such interventions may offer the opportunity to improve adherence and asthma control. In a state of emergency as the COVID‐19 pandemic, telemedicine can also play a central role in supporting physicians in managing children with asthma. This review evaluates the published literature examining digital health interventions for paediatric asthma and explores the most relevant issues affecting their implementation in practice and the associated evidence gaps, research limitations and future research perspectives.

A scoping review of mHealth monitoring of pediatric bronchial asthma before and during COVID-19 pandemic

“…To ensure the relevance of search terminology, we consulted previous systematic reviews and/or scoping reviews and/or narrative reviews on this subject (e.g., [5] , [6] , [7] ), or bibliography recommendations on specialized websites (e.g., [8] ). Our COVID-19 search has been described previously [9] .…”

Adherence to Growth Hormone Treatment Using a Connected Device in Latin America: Real-World Exploratory Descriptive Analysis Study

“…Optimizing adherence might also be achieved through the use of structured and active interventions from HCPs, patient/caregiver support programs [33], and/or digital interventions to help manage adherence over the long-term course of rhGH treatment. Although extensive evidence is available in the adult population [34][35][36], there are few studies addressing the unique needs of digital adherence support in pediatrics [37]. However, the potential of gamified interventions to promote and improve adherence in pediatric patients has recently been demonstrated [38].…”

COVID-19 Pandemic and Reduced Physical Activity: Is There an Impact on Healthy and Asthmatic Children?

“…Therefore, personalized PA programs with supervision are urgently required, possibly to be delivered and disseminated through communication technology solutions. Indeed, in the times of the pandemic, the use of digital tools to support and maintain PA could be particularly useful in children with chronic diseases ( 49 ). Recently, “serious games” (SGs), which are games not primarily oriented toward entertainment, enjoyment or fun, have provided new opportunities for constructive learning and training ( 50 , 51 ).…”