Mobile Phone-Mediated Interventions to Improve Adherence to Prescribed Treatment in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a progressive respiratory disorder that poses significant challenges in treatment adherence. This systematic review evaluates the effectiveness of mobile health (mHealth) interventions compared to conventional therapy in improving treatment adherence among COPD patients. A total of 13 randomized controlled trials and comparative cohort studies published up to July 2023 were included, analyzing interventions such as medication reminders and remote monitoring in adult COPD patients. Studies involving participants under 18 years of age or with severe comorbidities were excluded. This review identified 4688 records from MEDLINE, WEB OF SCIENCE, and SCOPUS. Of these, 13 studies met the inclusion criteria. The selection process was conducted by two independent reviewers, with discrepancies resolved by consensus with a third reviewer. The results showed that mHealth interventions improved treatment adherence in some studies, particularly in exercise and symptom monitoring; however, the evidence was inconsistent, and results varied across studies. This review concludes that mHealth interventions have the potential to improve adherence but higher-quality studies and more robust designs are needed to confirm these findings and support their clinical implementation.

Keywords: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; digital health; mobile phone-mediated interventions; treatment adherence.

Figure 2

The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2) [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30].

Figure 1

Flow diagram of the literature search and selection process.