Mobile Health Technology for Hypertension Management: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Hypertension is a chronic condition, and a major risk factor for other chronic conditions requires management. Considering the growth and extensive use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies and their capabilities, it is essential to examine the effects of these technologies on hypertension control and self-management. The present systematic review examined the effect of using mHealth technologies in controlling blood pressure and investigated the functionalities of mHealth technology on self-management aspects of patients with hypertension. A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus databases. Clinical trials in English investigating the use of mHealth technologies for blood pressure control published from 2005 to 2018 were included in this study. The functionalities of these technologies were also investigated. These functionalities were divided into five categories of monitoring, alarms, feedbacks, education, and communication. The most frequently used technology for hypertension control was smartphones in the 15 articles examined. Moreover, the most frequent functionalities used for self-management of hypertension were communications and reminders, education, monitoring, and feedback, respectively. In the majority of the studies, these functionalities were employed in combination with mHealth technologies, a feature that affects hypertension control and self-management. The use of mHealth technologies, such as smartphones, positively affects hypertension self-management and reduces blood pressure. Functionalities such as communication and reminders, education, monitoring, and feedback are effective in hypertension self-management programs. The simultaneous use of these functionalities combined will be more effective in hypertension self-management programs.