BACKGROUND
There has been an increase number of eHealth and mHealth interventions aimed to support symptoms among cancer survivors. However, patient engagement has not been guaranteed and standardized in these interventions.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this review was to address how patient engagement has been defined and measured in eHealth and mHealth interventions designed to improve symptoms and quality of life for cancer patients.
METHODS
Searches were performed in MEDLINE, PsychINFO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar to identify eHealth and mHealth interventions designed specifically to improve symptom management for cancer patients. Definition and measurement of engagement and engagement related outcomes of each intervention were synthesized. This integrated review was conducted using Critical Interpretive Synthesis to ensure the quality of data synthesis.
RESULTS
A total of 792 intervention studies were identified through the searches; 10 research papers met the inclusion criteria. Most of them (6/10) were randomized trial, 2 were one group trail, 1 was qualitative design, and 1 paper used mixed method. Majority of identified papers defined patient engagement as the usage of an eHealth and mHealth intervention by using different variables (e.g., usage time, log in times, participation rate). Engagement has also been described as subjective experience about the interaction with the intervention. The measurement of engagement is in accordance with the definition of engagement and can be categorized as objective and subjective measures. Among identified papers, 5 used system usage data, 2 used self-reported questionnaire, 1 used sensor data and 3 used qualitative method. Almost all studies reported engagement at a moment to moment level, but there is a lack of measurement of engagement for the long term.
CONCLUSIONS
There have been calls to develop standard definition and measurement of patient engagement in eHealth and mHealth interventions. Besides, it is important to provide cancer patients with more tailored and engaging eHealth and mHealth interventions for long term engagement.
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