Mobile health applications for disease screening and treatment support in low-and middle-income countries: A narrative review

Abstract

The advances in mobile technologies and applications are driving the transformation in health services delivery globally. Mobile phone penetration is increasing exponentially in low-and middle-income countries, hence using mobile phones for healthcare services could reach more people in resource-limited settings than the traditional forms of healthcare provision. The review presents recent literature on facilitators and barriers of implementing mHealth for disease screening and treatment support in low-and middle-income countries. We searched for relevant literature from the following electronic databases: MEDLINE; CINAHL with full text via EBSCOhost; Science Direct; PubMed; Google Scholar and Web of Science using the keywords for relevant studies. We searched for published studies from 2015 to August 2020 with no language limitations. A total of 721 articles identified, 125 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the qualitative synthesis. The review demonstrates relevant facilitators for the implementation of mHealth, which includes knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of stakeholders on the use of mHealth and the performance of mHealth for disease diagnosis in low and-middle-income countries. Barriers and challenges hindering the implementation of mHealth applications were also identified. We proposed a framework for improving the implementation of mHealth for disease screening and treatment support in low-and middle-income countries.

Availability and Use of Mobile Health Technology for Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Support by Health Workers in the Ashanti Region of Ghana: A Cross-Sectional Survey

“…This means that policymakers and implementors should adopt various strategies to facilitate the implementation of mHealth applications for disease diagnosis and treatment support in such resource-constrained settings and enhance their scale-ups. Given this, we recommend a proposed framework for improving the implementation of mHealth for disease diagnosis and treatment support in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) [ 12 ]. The results show that mHealth applications are generally available to healthcare professionals and are being utilised for disease diagnosis and treatment support of patients’ conditions.…”

“…Digitisation of healthcare systems such as mobile health (mHealth) technologies and applications have been identified as promising strategies for improving access to healthcare delivery and patient outcomes [ 9 , 10 ]. Mobile health technology is defined as mobile devices, their various components, and other related technologies in healthcare delivery [ 11 , 12 ]. These applications have been shown to provide a cost-effective, convenient, and broadly accessible modality to implement population-level health interventions [ 13 ].…”

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Diagnostic Accuracy of Mobile-Linked Point-of-Care Diagnostics in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…mHealth technology is considered one of the emerging diagnostic tools or recognized as an enabling technology for disease diagnosis [1,9,10]. In this study, we define mHealth as the use of mobile health devices such as smartphones, tablets, and others as diagnostic tools to diagnose existing disease conditions in patients [11]. The current global outbreak of the novel Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections has overstretched many healthcare systems, and its implications are still unfolding.…”

“…In low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), several mobile health techniques are being utilized to support healthcare delivery. Studies in SSA revealed that mobile health techniques such as short message service (SMS), voice/phone calls, and mobile apps are predominantly employed to support healthcare delivery [3,11,17]. For instance, recently, mobile phone devices are used to capture images that are processed immediately and analyzed using smart algorithms for disease diagnosis [6,7].…”

“…In SSA, healthcare professionals employed the SMS technique for educating and creating awareness on treatment methods, management of diseases, and availability of health services [8]. Similarly, SMS and voice calls are used to remotely monitor chronic conditions, communicate, and train healthcare professionals, track pandemic and epidemic outbreaks, and data collection [8,11]. Additionally, in SSA and other settings, mobile health techniques such as mobile apps allow the community healthcare workers to enter patients' symptoms into the app, diagnose illness, and give treatment recommendations [2,4,8].…”