Abbaspur-Behbahani Sara, Monaghesh Elham, Hajizadeh Alireza, Fehresti Saeedeh
Department of Health Economics and Management, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Health Information Technology, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Health Policy Technol. 2022 Mar;11(1):100595. doi: 10.1016/j.hlpt.2022.100595. Epub 2022 Jan 7.
: The COVID-19 outbreak has affected the elderly's physical and mental health. The application of information and communication technology, such as mobile health (m-health), can help control this pandemic by changing the behavior and lifestyle of the elderly during this time of crisis.
: This review aimed to synthesize the capabilities of m-health in providing health services to the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identify the factors contributing to the success of these tools.
: To find the relevant studies, a search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. The inclusion criteria were: studies in English that used m-health intervention in all aspects of elderly healthcare during the COVID-19 outbreak, were published in peer-reviewed journals from 31 December 2019, and had any research design and methodology. Two authors independently took all the steps of this review, and finally performed narrative synthesis to report the findings.
: Our initial search identified 421 studies, of which 10 met the inclusion criteria. The data analysis showed that all the m-health interventions had positive effects on the health of the elderly. The m-health services for the elderly during the current pandemic were used for therapy, information provision, self-help, monitoring, and mental health consultation purposes. The results also indicated that various factors affected the elderly's use of m-health tools.
: The application of m-health keeps the elderly and healthcare providers safe, accelerates health service provision, reduces the costs of service provision, and decreases the risk of morbidity and mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak. The successful use of m-health tools for the elderly in health programs during the current crisis greatly depends on supporting the elderly and overcoming the barriers.
新冠疫情的爆发影响了老年人的身心健康。信息通信技术的应用，如移动健康（m-health），可以通过在危机期间改变老年人的行为和生活方式来帮助控制这一疫情。
本综述旨在综合移动健康在新冠疫情期间为老年人提供健康服务的能力，并确定促成这些工具成功的因素。
为了找到相关研究，我们在PubMed、科学网、Scopus、ProQuest和谷歌学术上进行了搜索。纳入标准为：2019年12月31日之后发表在同行评审期刊上、采用英文撰写、在新冠疫情爆发期间在老年人医疗保健各个方面使用移动健康干预措施、具有任何研究设计和方法的研究。两位作者独立完成了本综述的所有步骤，最后进行叙述性综合以报告研究结果。
我们最初的搜索识别出421项研究，其中10项符合纳入标准。数据分析表明，所有移动健康干预措施都对老年人的健康产生了积极影响。当前疫情期间为老年人提供的移动健康服务用于治疗、信息提供、自助、监测和心理健康咨询目的。结果还表明，各种因素影响老年人对移动健康工具的使用。
移动健康的应用在新冠疫情爆发期间保障了老年人和医疗服务提供者的安全，加快了健康服务的提供，降低了服务提供成本，并降低了发病和死亡风险。在当前危机期间，移动健康工具在老年人健康项目中的成功使用很大程度上取决于对老年人的支持和对障碍的克服。
