Applied Computing to Education on Noncommunicable Chronic Diseases: A Systematic Mapping Study

Background: The number of deaths from noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCDs) has increased worldwide. These deaths would be partly avoidable if prevention and follow-up measures were applied to reduce risk factors. Computing can help educate individuals, improving their knowledge about NCDs. This article presents a systematic mapping of studies that apply computing to education on NCDs. The results allow a general view of the literature and the identification of research opportunities. Materials and Methods: The methodology followed three steps: (1) definition of search databases from computer science and health sciences, (2) selection of keywords for search string composition, and (3) application of inclusion and exclusion criteria to filter the results. The survey occurred from January 2008 to April 2018. Results: The initial search resulted in 19,675 papers, of which 38 were selected after applying the filter criteria. The use of mobile computing stood out in 25 papers. The education modalities were self-management and educational content for diabetes (10 papers), asthma (1), cardiovascular disease (1) and chronic diseases (1), self-management of diabetes and games (1), educational content (15), games (6), personalized content (2), and virtual community (1). The percentage of papers on diabetes was 65%. Most solutions (55%) do not use data from individuals to provide information considering their health condition. In addition, 19 papers produced outcome measures by means of experiments. Conclusions: Mobile computing was the most used technology in the papers. In addition, self-management, educational content, and games were the most used mechanisms. A research opportunity consists of personalized assistance. In this sense, ubiquitous learning can provide a continuous and contextualized education.