Benefits of mHealth for Symptom Management of Cancer Patients: A Meta-Analysis (Preprint)
BACKGROUND At the present, cancer patients are experiencing symptoms that can seriously influence their quality of life. There are many mobile health applications in Internet medical services to manage those symptoms. However, further research is needed to see whether mobile health can provide benefits to cancer patients. OBJECTIVE The meta-analysis aimed to value the benefits of mHealth for depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and insomnia outcomes of cancer patients. METHODS We searched PubMed, CINHAL, Web of Science, Cochrane library Trials, EMBASE database to select random clinic trials that investigated the benefits of mHealth for cancer patients, from the date of inception to 17 April 2021. RESULTS Eight random clinic trials were eligible for this meta-analysis. Collectively, mHealth group has 1641 participants, the control group has 1463 participants. The meta-analysis revealed that the mHealth intervention improves significantly cancer patients’ fatigue(SMD −0.19, 95% CI −0.32 to −0.05),P= .007), insomnia(SMD −0.26, 95% CI −0.44 to −0.08, P= .005), depression(SMD −0.22, 95% CI −0.32 to −0.13,P<0.00001), and anxiety(SMD −0.27, 95% CI −0.47 to −0.07, P= .008), whereas no significant difference was found in pain score (SMD -0.27, 95%CI −0.68 to 0.13,P= .19). CONCLUSIONS mHealth intervention may significantly improve depression, anxiety, fatigue, and insomnia outcomes of cancer patients, but have no significant effort on pain. CLINICALTRIAL This meta-analysis was registered with The International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) , registration number is: CRD42021272537.