Mobile phone applications to overcome malnutrition among preschoolers: a systematic review

Abstract

Background Malnutrition is one of the most important reasons for child mortality in developing countries, especially during the first 5 years of life. We set out to systematically review evaluations of interventions that use mobile phone applications to overcome malnutrition among preschoolers. Methods The review was conducted and reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses: the PRISMA statement. To be eligible, the study had to have evaluated mobile phone interventions to increase nutrition knowledge or enhance behavior related to nutrition in order to cope with malnutrition (under nutrition or overweight) in preschoolers. Articles addressing other research topics, older children or adults, review papers, theoretical and conceptual articles, editorials, and letters were excluded. The PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases covering both medical and technical literature were searched for studies addressing preschoolers’ malnutrition using mobile technology. Results Seven articles were identified that fulfilled the review criteria. The studies reported in the main positive signals concerning the acceptance of mobile phone based nutritional interventions addressing preschoolers. Important infrastructural and technical limitations to implement mHealth in low and middle income countries (LMICs) were also communicated, ranging from low network capacity and low access to mobile phones to specific technical barriers. Only one study was identified evaluating primary anthropometric outcomes. Conclusions The review findings indicated a need for more controlled evaluations using anthropometric primary endpoints and put relevance to the suggestion that cooperation between government organizations, academia, and industry is necessary to provide sufficient infrastructure support for mHealth use against malnutrition in LMICs.

Development and validation of a point‐of‐care nursing mobile tool to guide the diagnosis of malnutrition in hospitalized adult patients: a multicenter, prospective cohort study

“…In the other field of diagnosing genetic diseases, facial‐photograph‐based e‐health technology has also showed it potential 37,38 . In the field of screening malnutrition, more and more mobile phone interventions were developed 39,40 . These studies helped to screen malnutrition especially in low‐ and middle‐income countries, but were also limited by low network capacity and limited access to mobile phones to specific technical barriers 41–43 .…”

Effectiveness of a smartphone-based educational intervention to improve breastfeeding

“…The results demonstrated larger improvement scores for the intervention group compared to the control group. Based on a recent Iranian systematic review, any education or advice received from influential sources can improve the mean score of self-efficacy in a moderate or strong manner [ 29 , 30 ]. An earlier study evaluated the impact of an educational program and reported a significant difference ( p < 0.01) for breastfeeding self-efficacy mean scores between intervention and control groups [ 31 ].…”

Smartphone-Based Maternal Education for the Complementary Feeding of Undernourished Children Under 3 Years of Age in Food-Secure Communities: Randomised Controlled Trial in Urmia, Iran

“…This study has strengths and some potential limitations that need to be considered when interpreting the results. To our knowledge and based on a recent review [48], it is the first randomised controlled trial assessing the effect of smartphone-based maternal nutritional education addressing complementary feeding among undernourished young children of an age characterised by accelerated growth and growth faltering. Due to the low number of dropouts (<10%) and missing values (i.e., those mother-child pairs with some but not all outcomes at follow-up) completers-only analysis was found to be sufficient to assess the research question.…”