Disease Self-management Using Mobile Health Applications: An Overview of Several Diseases, Functions and Effects in Military Forces

Telematics, or new electronic health media, is a growing topic that is becoming a major improvement in patients' lives, especially for the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill. In this context, mobile health provides healthcare services and overcomes geographical, time, and even organizational barriers. In this review, we examine the services and applications of mobile health in various diseases and the clinical trials conducted in connection with health-oriented applications, and the challenges ahead.

This systematic review will extract related studies in domestic and foreign databases including PubMed, SID, Science Direct, Scopus, and Magiran with the keywords of disease self-management, e-health, health care, telematics, and mobile health. The period from 1390 to 1400 was conducted with both Persian and English languages based on the search strategy. The articles were included in the study based on the inclusion criteria.

According to the review of the articles, it was found that physical and mental health problems create challenges for army veterans, returning troops, and military family members, including spouses and children. The challenges of meeting physical and mental health needs include improving access and quality of care. Mobile health can help to meet these needs in military and civilian environments.

With the broader participation of members of the healthcare and informatics communities, both from the private and public sectors, regulations related to the use of health applications will become reasonable, provided that these regulations apply to mobile medical applications that pose potential risks to public health. If they do, it should be applied.