Is mHealth a useful therapy for improving physical or emotional health in adolescents with cystic fibrosis? A systematic review
Open accessAbstract
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rare disease that severely compromises health and interferes with the lives of those who suffer from it and is especially challenging in adolescence. The use of tools such as MHealth may benefit the physical and psychological health of adolescents with CF. Therefore, this study aims to examine the benefits of MHealth in adolescents with CF through a systematic review. A search of the scientific literature following the PRISMA guidelines was conducted in the ProQuest Central, PubMed, Web Of Science, Embase and ínDICE databases, resulting in 186 studies, of which seven were selected (based on inclusion and exclusion criteria). Two blinded evaluators conducted the searches, the selection and data extraction process and the quality evaluation of the studies. The agreement between evaluators was excellent in all cases (Kappa ranged from .78 to .96). 214 pediatric CF patients (61.71% female) participated in the final analysis. The mean age was 12.76 years. The studies evaluated different types of mHealth tools, with greater homogeneity in the independent and dependent variables. The quality of the studies analyzed was poor, since these had small samples selected for convenience, conducted non-experimental and low-quality designs, recorded few variables, and their statistical analyses were not sufficiently robust. Further research is needed in this field, improving research designs and considering physical and psychological adjustment variables, as well as patients and family members in the process of health improvement.
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A 2021 systematic review investigating mHealth apps for CF emotional and physical health concluded that current available research was of low quality due to small sample sizes, limited to pilot studies, and homogeneity in data.
“a systematic review in 2021 investigating mHealth apps for CF emotional and physical health concluded that current available research was of low quality due to small sample sizes, limited to pilot studies, and with homogeneity in data (28).”
From Virtual monitoring in CF – the importance of continuous monitoring in a multi-organ chronic condition (2023) · cites this paper as [28]
The Abstract and Results > Quality Assessment describe the included studies as generally poor quality, with small convenience samples and weak designs. The paper does not characterize the research as limited to pilot studies. It also attributes difficulty combining the data to heterogeneity of measures and results, not homogeneity (Discussion; Methods > Bibliography Search). (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Valero-Moreno, S., Lacomba-Trejo, L., Montoya-Castilla, I., & Pérez-Marín, M.
- Venue
- Current Psychology
- Published
- 2021-11-24
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 22
- Pages
- 19302-19315
- ISSN
- 1046-1310 (ISSN-L)
- 1936-4733
- PMC
- PMC8610788
- OpenAlex
- W3215152408
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Current Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Repository of Digital Objects for Teaching Research and Culture (University of Valencia) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- Universitat de Valencia
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Cystic Fibrosis Research Advances
- Keywords
- mobile health, cystic fibrosis, adolescents, physical health, emotional well-being, psychological adjustment, mobile health intervention, pediatric patients
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