Patients' and healthcare professionals' experiences of using digital interventions for self-management of a chronic physical health condition: A qualitative meta-synthesis Seminar

Digital interventions (DIs) offer a means to facilitate patient engagement with self-management behaviours, such as self-monitoring health data, medication adherence and lifestyle choices. Here we review empirical qualitative literature on patients’ and healthcare professionals’ (HCPs’) experiences of using DIs for self-management of a chronic physical health condition.

A systematic literature search identified 105 papers as eligible for full text review, of which 25 were included in the meta-synthesis. Thematic synthesis was used to generate descriptive and analytical codes of the data, and the common concepts identified were then compared between studies to develop a line of argument using a meta-ethnography approach.

Most patients reported feeling reassured by monitoring their own data and learning to recognise what was ‘normal’ for them, whilst some patients (especially those with more serious conditions) felt reassured by having the HCP ‘watching over them’. The patients perceived that the DI created a closer, more equal relationship with the HCP, whilst HCPs demonstrated a more paternalistic perception that the DI provided them with better clinical control of the patient’s condition. The future direction of healthcare would seem to be increasingly oriented towards patient self-management, highlighting the need for interventions which meet the diverse needs of patients to ensure widespread patient and HCP confidence in self-management.