Impact of 25 Years of Mobile Health Tools for Pain Management in Patients With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: Systematic Review

• Published in: Journal of medical Internet research 2024-08, Vol.26 (6), p.e59358
• Main Authors: Shi, Jenny Lin-Hong, Sit, Regina Wing-Shan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Care and treatment; Chronic Pain - therapy; Health care industry; Health care reform; Humans; Medical care, Cost of; Mobile Applications; Musculoskeletal Pain - therapy; Pain; Pain Management - methods; Patient compliance; Patient Compliance - statistics & numerical data; Physician and patient; Public health; Telemedicine
• ISSN: 1439-4456; 1438-8871; 1438-8871
• DOI: 10.2196/59358

Mobile technologies are increasingly being used in health care and public health practice for patient communication, monitoring, and education. Mobile health (mHealth) tools have also been used to facilitate adherence to chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) management, which is critical to achieving improved pain outcomes, quality of life, and cost-effective health care. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the 25-year trend of the literature on the adherence, usability, feasibility, and acceptability of mHealth interventions in CMP management among patients and health care providers. We searched the PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases for studies assessing the role of mHealth in CMP management from January 1999 to December 2023. Outcomes of interest included the effect of mHealth interventions on patient adherence; pain-specific clinical outcomes after the intervention; and the usability, feasibility, and acceptability of mHealth tools and platforms in chronic pain management among target end users. A total of 89 articles (26,429 participants) were included in the systematic review. Mobile apps were the most commonly used mHealth tools (78/89, 88%) among the included studies, followed by mobile app plus monitor (5/89, 6%), mobile app plus wearable sensor (4/89, 4%), and web-based mobile app plus monitor (1/89, 1%). Usability, feasibility, and acceptability or patient preferences for mHealth interventions were assessed in 26% (23/89) of the studies and observed to be generally high. Overall, 30% (27/89) of the studies used a randomized controlled trial (RCT), cohort, or pilot design to assess the impact of the mHealth intervention on patients' adherence, with significant improvements (all P