DIABETES CARE AND SELF-MANAGEMENT WITH SMARTPHONE TECHNOLOGY – REVIEW

Introduction Despite the availability of international guidelines and major efforts towards improvements, the care of diabetic patients remains suboptimal. The lack of patient engagement and clinical inertia both contribute to this issue. Mobile technologies can provide means to overcome these limitations. However, studies analyzing the direct effect on the treatment of patients are rare. This article describes a review conducted to evaluate the benefits of using smartphones in this patients and the effect of that technology on self-management and diabetes clinical outcomes. Method A literature review was conducted by searching PubMed database using the terms diabetes and smartphones, covering papers from 2011 to 2015. Articles with no clinical outcome or relying on describing study protocol only were excluded. A total of 53 papers were reviewed, 14 studies were selected, including systematic reviews, meta-analysis and randomized controlled trial designs. Results The review found that smartphones had positive impacts on diabetes outcomes; 5 studies demonstrated improvements in glycemic control and hemoglobin A1C levels comparing smartphone intervention with control, and 3 studies demonstrated benefits in diabetes self-management and adoption of healthier life styles such as physical activity and diet. Other articles approached the available mobile applications related to diabetes care, their potential and limitations. Conclusions Diabetes-related smartphone applications can benefit people living with diabetes. But success of diabetes' care with interventions that include smartphones will need to take into account patient’s expectations and provider’s needs. This review was limited by data from small-scale studies available at this time.