The number of studies involving mHealth technology registered with the ISRCTN registry has been increasing in recent years. With this in mind, we thought it would be a good opportunity to investigate this a little further and learn more about this new field of research.
Unless you have been living on Mars for the last few months, you couldn’t possibly have failed to come across the latest smartphone app craze, Pokémon Go. Admittedly I haven’t downloaded it on my own phone (perhaps I’ll use writing this blog as an excuse to do so), but this augmented reality game has become something of a global phenomenon. Amazingly, it’s also been credited with both physical and mental health benefits
Not all mobile phone apps with a health benefit tag capture the public imagination in quite the same way as Pokémon Go of course, but they are certainly big business. According to a recent article in The Economist, there are currently around 165K health-related apps available for either Apple or Android phones and it’s been predicted that the global revenue from these products will reach $21.1 billion in 2018.
Healthcare services by phone, however, don’t have to be high tech. Although many people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) own a mobile phone, far fewer of them own a smartphone compared to people living in high income countries, and simple text messages are increasingly being used as a tool in a number of healthcare-related settings.
As a Database Editor for the ISRCTN registry, I’ve noticed an upsurge in the number of studies being registered that involve the testing of mHealth technology, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce just some of the research happening in this area.
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