Feasibility and Preliminary Outcomes of a Web and Smartphone–Based Medication Self-Management Platform for Chronically Ill Patients

Abstract

The Medplan platform proved to be feasible and was well accepted by its users. However, its impact on adherence differed depending on the assessment method. The lack of effect on PDC is mainly because patients were already good adherers at baseline. The study enabled us to validate the platform in real patients using many different mobile devices and to identify potential barriers to scaling up the platform.

Mobile Apps to Support the Self-Management of Hypertension: Systematic Review of Effectiveness, Usability, and User Satisfaction (Preprint)

“…The publication year of the studies ranged from 2012 to 2017 (see Table 1). Most studies (n=11) were conducted in the US [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] and Canada [33,34], while seven were carried out in European countries, including France [35], Sweden [36][37][38], Spain [39,40] and Italy [41]. The remaining three studies were conducted in China [42,43] and South Korea [44. Nine studies were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) [24,25,27,28,30,[33][34][35]42], ten were nonrandomised studies [26,29,31,32,37,[39][40][41]43,44], and two were qualitative studies [36,38].…”

“…Four of these studies [27,30,31,39] also assessed user satisfaction and experience with the apps. The remaining seven studies that did not report efficacy focused on user satisfaction with and attitudes towards the apps and/or their usability [26,32,36,38,40,43,44].…”

“…Participants' average age ranged from 42.4 years [27] to 69.5 [42] years. The population groups of the studies included individuals with hypertension [24][25][26][27][28][29][30]32,[36][37][38][39][41][42][43][44], metabolic syndrome risk factors [34], and obstructive sleep apnoea with high cardiovascular risk [35], as well as overweight individuals [31]. Of the 21 included studies, 5 reported to have used behavioural theories, such as selfdetermination theory [24,26,27], motivational interviewing [30] and theory of planned behaviour [43] to underpin and guide the intervention methods and/or the development of the technology.…”

“…Nine studies aimed to enhance selfmanagement without involving clinicians to monitor patients remotely [29,33,[35][36][37][38][42][43][44]. The other 11 studies mainly involved clinicians or other HCPs remotely monitoring patient data and health status [24][25][26][27][28][30][31][32][39][40][41], whilst the remaining study involved the researcher remotely monitoring patient data and alerting physicians if needed [34,36]. In these 11 studies involving HCPs, the HCPs provided feedback, including a medication plan or adjustments [24][25][26][27]39,41], regular online coaching consultation [31] instructions [28,30] or communication with patients [40,42].…”

“…In most studies an app was supplemented with other interventions, such as a website [28,[36][37][38][39]41], voice telephone messages [33], exercise prescription [34], a nasal mask and an autotitrating machine [35], an electronic medication tray, email, and SMS or phone call [24][25][26][27], and education provided by a nurse [28]. The control group in the controlled studies had usual care.…”