Digital Interventions in management of Asthma in Children: A Systematic Review

Abstract

A rising variety of digital solutions are being developed to assist persons with asthma in self-management. Digital technologies, in general, are advanced technologies that can capture, interpret, and transfer information, with smartphone or online applications, tech devices, and other telephone or digitally interventions being common applications.This review aimed to identify the digital interventions available in the management of asthma. Online database search was performed in Pubmed, CINHAL, Medline and relevant studies were included. Following on from this, databases were accessed to enable a more in depth search of the literature using key words and Boolean operators to generate articles relevant to the topic. These articles were filtered using an inclusion /exclusion criterion in order to refine the results to a manageable level or eight articles. These 8 articles were analyzed and the results reported that there is a wide variety of digital interventions being explored. Although several of the research looked at yielded excellent outcomes, there is still a lack of convincing proof of their usefulness in attaining diverse goals. Because asthma is a long-term illness, the research period of included studies may not be long enough to detect substantial health effects, or other factors may be at play in the association between medication adherence and health outcomes.Although some evidence supported the usefulness of the digital therapies evaluated, particularly in terms of improving treatment and drug adherence, the evaluation found that further research is needed to assess their value in terms of treatment outcomes and other clinical outcomes.