Patient-reported outcomes and mobile applications. A review of their impact on patients' health outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

To review the evidence of the mobile apps in collection patient- reported outcomes and their impact on health outcomes. Method: A review was conducted of the literature on apps aimed at collecting  patient-reported outcomes. Selected articles were required to consider the  apps' impact on patients' health outcomes. The search was carried out during  April 2021 in Pubmed and Embase using the search terms "app", "mobile  applications" , "patient-reported outcomes", "outcome assessment, health  care", and "quality of life", To be included articles had to be written in English  or Spanish and they were required to dwell on apps used by patients, family  members and/or caregivers that measured at least one health outcome. No  time restrictions were applied.

RESULTS

Of the 26 articles reviewed, 19 (73.1%) were clinical trials, 4  (15.4%) were quasi-experimental studies, and 3 (11.5%) were observational studies. A pharmacy department was involved in 4 studies  (15.4%), and 3 (11.5%), were carried out in Spain. The sample size ranged  from 14 to 411. Depending on the study population, the most frequent studies included cancer patients (42.3%) and patients with cardiovascular  diseases (26.9%). Most of the studies focused on measuring the impact of the app on the patients' quality of life (50.0%), control of clinical parameters  (46.2%), adherence (38.5%), and management of symptoms and/or reduction  of complications (26.9%). Overall efficacy in terms of the  percentage of studies where apps were found to result in a significant  improvement was 73.1%. The most heavily impacted patient-reported  outcomes were adherence, health-related quality of life and satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS

There is emerging evidence that apps have a positive impact on  patients' health outcomes. These tools have shown to lead to an improvement  in the management of different conditions, with results showing a reduction in  complications rates and in the consumption of resources as well as better  adherence to medication and enhanced patient quality of life.