Effectiveness of mHealth Interventions in Medication Adherence among Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases: A Systematic Review

• Published in: Diseases Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 41
• Main Authors: Arshed, Muhammad, Mahmud, Aidalina Binti, Minhat, Halimatus Sakdiah, Ying, Lim Poh, Umer, Muhammad Farooq
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01-03-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: adherence; Analysis; Automation; Blood pressure; Boolean; Cardiac patients; Cardiovascular diseases; cardiovascular diseases medication; Care and treatment; Cellular telephones; Clinical trials; Disease; Drug therapy; Drugs; Evidence-based medicine; Health aspects; Health care; Intervention; interventions; Medication adherence; mobile health; Mortality; Patient compliance; patients; Public health; Review; Systematic review; Telemedicine; Text messaging; United States; interventions; mobile health; cardiovascular diseases medication; adherence; patients
• ISSN: 2079-9721; 2079-9721
• DOI: 10.3390/diseases11010041

mHealth interventions have been reported to improve adherence to long-term therapies in chronic conditions. Therefore, this study aimed at determining the effectiveness of mHealth interventions in medication adherence among patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), a leading cause of mortality globally. Relying on our inclusion criteria and the PRISMA recommendations, a literature search was carried out in the PubMed, Medline, and ProQuest databases for primary studies that investigated the impact of mHealth on medication adherence for cardiovascular disease (CVD) between 2000-2021. A total of 23 randomized controlled trials with 34,915 participants matched the selection criteria. The mHealth interventions used included text messages, mobile phone applications, and voice calls, which were used either as a single intervention or combined. Additionally, studies on enhancing drug adherence had contradictory findings: most of the studies elaborated positive results; however, six studies were unable to reveal any significant effect. Finally, a risk bias analysis revealed varying outcomes across all studies. This review, as a whole, supported the notion that mHealth interventions can be effective in improving adherence to CVD medication even though they could not improve adherence to all CVD medications when compared with controls. Further trials with more refined designs integrated with comprehensive interventions are needed to produce better health outcomes.