Heart Failure Management via Mobile Phones: A Systematic Review

Advances in telecommunication technologies have created new opportunities to provide telemedical care as an adjunct to medical management of patients with heart failure. One of the proposed strategies for helping heart failure patients in managing their disease is using mobile phone which is now growing rapidly worldwide. However, the efficacy of this system is not well known. The objective of this systematic review was to determine the effects of mobile use on heart failure management.

In this review, published studies from 2009 to January 2015 that were accessible in PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus and Proquest were searched and from 1021 related studies, 69 articles were identified by their titles and finally, after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 11 articles were selected for review.

In whole, 32 outcomes had been studied in the selected papers and the review showed that in 14 cases, the intervention had led to significant positive effect and in 11 cases, the intervention had non-significant positive effect. While, in 5 cases, the intervention had no effect and in 2 cases, it had led to a negative effect.

According to the results of this review, using mobile phones could be beneficial in the management of Heart Failure and delivery of health services to the affected patients.