[The contribution of digital technology to mental healthcare: much hope, a few concerns]

Conditions for the Successful Integration of an eHealth Tool "StopBlues" Into Community-Based Interventions in France: Results From a Multiple Correspondence Analysis

Background

For over a decade, digital health has held promise for enabling broader access to health information, education, and services for the general population at a lower cost. However, recent studies have shown mixed results leading to a certain disappointment regarding the benefits of eHealth technologies. In this context, community-based health promotion represents an interesting and efficient conceptual framework that could help increase the adoption of digital health solutions and facilitate their evaluation.

Objective

To understand how the local implementation of the promotion of an eHealth tool, StopBlues (SB), aimed at preventing psychological distress and suicide, varied according to local contexts and if the implementation was related to the use of the tool.

Methods

The study was nested within a cluster-randomized controlled trial that was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the promotion, with before and after observation (NCT03565562). Data from questionnaires, observations, and institutional sources were collected in 27 localities where SB was implemented. A multiple correspondence analysis was performed to assess the relations between context, type of implementation and promotion, and use of the tool.

Results

Three distinct promotion patterns emerged according to the profiles of the localities that were associated with specific SB utilization rates. From highest to lowest utilization rates, they are listed as follows: the privileged urban localities, investing in health that implemented a high-intensity and digital promotion, demonstrating a greater capacity to take ownership of the project; the urban, but less privileged localities that, in spite of having relatively little experience in health policy implementation, managed to implement a traditional and high-intensity promotion; and the rural localities, with little experience in addressing health issues, that implemented low-intensity promotion but could not overcome the challenges associated with their local context.

Conclusions

These findings indicate the substantial influence of local context on the reception of digital tools. The urban and socioeconomic status profiles of the localities, along with their investment and pre-existing experience in health, appear to be critical for shaping the promotion and implementation of eHealth tools in terms of intensity and use of digital communication. The more digital channels used, the higher the utilization rates, ultimately leading to the overall success of the intervention.

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

RR2-10.1186/s13063-020-04464-2

The Extent and Coverage of Current Knowledge of Connected Health: Systematic Mapping Study

Background

This study examines the development of the connected health (CH) research landscape with a view to providing an overview of the existing CH research. The research field of CH has experienced rapid growth coinciding with increasing pressure on health care systems to become more proactive and patient centered.

Objective

This study aimed to assess the extent and coverage of the current body of knowledge in CH. In doing so, we sought to identify specific topics that have drawn the attention of CH researchers and to identify research gaps, in particular those offering opportunities for further interdisciplinary research.

Methods

A systematic mapping study that combined scientific contributions from research in the disciplines of medicine, business, computer science, and engineering was used. Overall, seven classification criteria were used to analyze the papers, including publication source, publication year, research type, empirical type, contribution type, research topic, and the medical condition studied.

Results

The search resulted in 208 papers that were analyzed by a multidisciplinary group of researchers. The results indicated a slow start for CH research but showed a more recent steady upswing since 2013. The majority of papers proposed health care solutions (77/208, 37.0%) or evaluated CH approaches (49/208, 23.5%). Case studies (59/208, 28.3%) and experiments (55/208, 26.4%) were the most popular forms of scientific validation used. Diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and heart conditions were among the most prevalent medical conditions studied.

Conclusions

We conclude that CH research has become an established field of research that has grown over the last five years. The results of this study indicate a focus on technology-driven research with a strong contribution from medicine, whereas the business aspects of CH have received less research attention.