Bremer Whitney, Sarker Abeed
Department of Biomedical Informatics, School of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Inform Health Soc Care. 2023 Apr 3;48(2):139-152. doi: 10.1080/17538157.2022.2082297. Epub 2022 Jun 3.
Use of mobile health applications (mHealth apps) is becoming increasingly popular for the management of chronic illnesses, but mHealth-based intervention studies often have limitations associated with subject recruitment and retention. In this synopsis, we focus on targeted aspects of mHealth-based intervention studies, specifically: (i) subject recruitment, (ii) cohort sizes, and (iii) retention rates. We used the Google Scholar (meta-search) and Galileo search engines to identify sample articles focusing on and published between 2010 and 2020 and selected 21 papers for detailed review. Most studies recruited relatively small cohorts (minimum: 20, maximum: 510). Retention rates had high variance with only five studies managing >80% subject retention throughout the study duration, 10.4% being the lowest. Eighty-five percent of the studies expressed concerns regarding study duration, app usage, and lack of proper implementation. The use of mHealth interventions generally yielded positive outcomes, but most studies discussed facing challenges associated with recruitment and retention. There is a clear need to identify strategies for recruiting larger cohorts and improving retention rates, and ultimately increasing the reliability of mHealth app-based intervention studies. We advise that potential underutilized opportunities lie at the intersection of mHealth and social media to address the limitations identified in the synopsis.
移动健康应用程序（mHealth应用）在慢性病管理中的应用越来越普遍，但基于mHealth的干预研究往往存在与受试者招募和留存相关的局限性。在本综述中，我们重点关注基于mHealth的干预研究的特定方面，具体包括：（i）受试者招募，（ii）队列规模，以及（iii）留存率。我们使用谷歌学术（元搜索）和伽利略搜索引擎来识别2010年至2020年间发表的关注[此处原文缺失相关内容]的样本文章，并选择了21篇论文进行详细审查。大多数研究招募的队列相对较小（最少：20人，最多：510人）。留存率差异很大，只有五项研究在整个研究期间实现了>80%的受试者留存率，最低为10.4%。85%的研究表达了对研究持续时间、应用程序使用情况以及缺乏适当实施的担忧。mHealth干预措施的使用总体上产生了积极效果，但大多数研究都讨论了在招募和留存方面面临的挑战。显然需要确定招募更大队列和提高留存率的策略，并最终提高基于mHealth应用的干预研究的可靠性。我们建议，mHealth与社交媒体的交叉领域存在潜在未充分利用的机会，可以解决本综述中确定的局限性。
