Developing a patient-led electronic feedback system for quality and safety within Renal PatientView

Participation in eHealth Communication Interventions Among Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis: Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

eHealth communication interventions have been shown to offer individuals with chronic kidney disease the opportunity to embrace dialysis therapies with greater confidence, the potential to obtain better clinical outcomes, and an increased quality of life. eHealth is an emerging field that offers diverse, flexible designs and delivery options. However, existing evidence on eHealth communication among patients undergoing hemodialysis is sparse and scattered and lacks systematization.

OBJECTIVE

This scoping review aims to identify and map the current evidence on patient participation in eHealth communication interventions. We aimed to map the associations between interventions and electronic health records, the participative role of individuals living with chronic kidney disease and undergoing hemodialysis, and the barriers to and facilitators of patient involvement in eHealth communication with health care professionals.

METHODS

This study used the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for conducting a scoping review. Studies eligible for inclusion were those that included adult patients (aged >18 y) undergoing all types of hemodialysis, including prescheduled in-center hemodialysis and conventional home-based hemodialysis. Systematic searches were completed in Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, EBSCOhost CINAHL with Full Text, Scopus, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Extracted data from the included studies were presented in figures and tables along with descriptions that responded to the research questions. This review was reported according to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines.

RESULTS

In total, 9 peer-reviewed studies were included. The main result was a low participative patient role and a vaguely described link to electronic health records. The key participative facilitators were availability of and access to the intervention; security, trust, and confidence; patient knowledge of their health situation and use of self-care; and patient preparedness for an uncertain future health situation and the ability to relate to family and friends about it. The key participative barriers were lack of availability of and access to information, mistrust and lack of safety, lack of knowledge of health situation and self-care, and relational issues. All barriers and facilitators were related to health literacy.

CONCLUSIONS

This scoping review summarizes 4 specific and 3 nonspecific eHealth communication interventions developed and evaluated in various studies involving patients receiving hemodialysis. A knowledge gap exists between low levels of patient participation in eHealth communication and patients' limited access to electronic health records. eHealth communication interventions should implement patient participation and focus on the fact that different modalities of eHealth communication can complement face-to-face communication.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

RR2-10.2196/38615.

A Bibliometric Analysis of the Health Field Regarding Social Networks and Young People

Social networks have historically been used to share information and support regarding health-related topics, and this usage has increased with the rise of online social media. Young people are high users of social media, both as passive listeners and as active contributors. This study aimed to map the trends in publications focused on social networks, health, and young people over the last 40 years. Scopus and the program VOSviewer were used to map the frequency of the publications, keywords, and clusters of researchers active in the field internationally. A structured keyword search using the Scopus database yielded 11,966 publications. The results reveal a long history of research on social networks, health, and young people. Research articles were the most common type of publication (68%), most of which described quantitative studies (82%). The main discipline represented in this literature was medicine, with 6062 documents. North American researchers dominate the field, both as authors and partners in international research collaborations. The present article adds to the literature by elucidating the growing importance of social networks in health research as a topic of study. This may help to inform future investments in public health research and surveillance using these novel data sources.

Patient Engagement In Health Care Safety: An Overview Of Mixed-Quality Evidence

Patients and caregivers play a central role in health care safety in the hospital, ambulatory care setting, and community. Despite this, interventions to promote patient engagement in safety are still underexplored. We conducted an overview of review articles on patient engagement interventions in safety to examine the current state of the evidence. Of the 2,795 references we evaluated, 52 articles met our full-text inclusion criteria for synthesis in 2018. We identified robust evidence supporting patients' self-management of anticoagulation medications and mixed-quality evidence supporting patient engagement in medication and chronic disease self-management, adverse event reporting, and medical record accuracy. Promising modes of patient engagement in safety, such as anticoagulation management and patient portal access, are not widely implemented. We discuss major implementation priorities and propose directions for future research and policy to enhance patient partnership within safety efforts.