A Systematic Review of Electronic Health (eHealth) interventions to improve physical activity in patients with breast cancer

Abstract

Background: Electronic Health (eHealth) may have a positive effect on healthcare, such as patient education and decreasing the costs of healthcare services. Evidence suggests that such interventions can also improve physical activity (PA) of patients. This systematic review aimed to investigate the effects of PA interventions provided through eHealth on breast cancer patients.

Methods: This study was conducted through a search in electronic databases up to July 2018. PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases were searched without time limitation.

Results: In total, 2187 articles were retrieved and finally 16 articles remained. Five were pre/post and 11 were randomized trial studies. Different platforms were used in these studies including web-based, mobile-based, both web-and-mobile-based and email. In total, these articles comprise 2304 breast cancer patients with the mean age of 51 years and 50% were conducted in the USA. Four studies measured PA using wearable devices such as accelerometers and pedometers. All studies reported an increase in PA level at least in one of moderate or vigorous PA, although not all these results were significant.

Conclusion: The results show that eHealth interventions can improve the level of PA in breast cancer patients. Although there are numerous eHealth interventions focusing on PA in cancer patients, there is still an essential need for eHealth interventions to be tailored for breast cancer patients specifically. Clinical trials with appropriate methodology, enough intervention time and follow-up are needed to make evidence-based results more generalizable.

Trial registration: PROSPERO CRD42018092422; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/.

Keywords: Breast cancer; Physical activity; Systematic review; eHealth; mHealth.