Review articleNovel technology as platform for interventions for caregivers and individuals with severe mental health illnesses: A systematic review
Section snippets
Background
Severe mental illness (SMI) is an umbrella term involving numerous psychiatric disorders, namely bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder (MDD) (Schinnar et al., 1990). The National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) definition is used most frequently using three criteria: a) diagnosis of a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder, b) duration, i.e. current or recent diagnosis in the past year, and c) disability, i.e. serious functional impairment (Cooper, 1988,
Methods
We searched Pubmed, Ovid MEDLINE In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE, PsycInfo, and ACM DL, till July 2017. Studies on severe mental health disorders and mobile and/or web-based applications were included. We have used specific search terms namely- serious mental illn*, severe mental illn*, internet or World Wide Web, mobile applicatio* or web based applicatio* or android applicatio* or iOS applicatio* or windows applicatio* or macintosh applicatio* etc.
Our inclusion criteria
Results
The first and main finding was that as a result of examining the full texts of the 102 papers from the first sift based on the title and abstract, we did not identify a single paper which focused on caregivers with or without their respective patients. At this stage, we decided to review at least the evidence for apps and web-based interventions for individuals with a SMI regardless of inclusion of their loved ones (i.e. ignoring inclusion criterion 3). Furthermore, realizing that this form of
Discussion
The original goal was to review the advancements of Internet-based computer programs and mobile software applications developed for caregivers of patients with a SMI in order to increase access to treatment, to support their role as informal caretakers and to improve their well-being. Despite the important and growing role of significant others as informal caregivers (Grover et al., 2013, Gupta et al., 2015, Tan et al., 2012), not one single study was focused on the well-being of relatives as
Contributors
Thomas D. Meyer and M. Sriram Iyengar designed the protocol for the review paper search and supervised the searches and data extraction as well as the write-up of the paper. Satyajit S. Mohite conducted the searches and together with Nikki La Rosa did the data extraction. Rebecca Casarez contributed to the write-up of the final manuscript. All authors contributed and proofread the final version of the manuscript. All authors have approved the final article.
Role of funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflict of interest
None of the authors is aware of any conflict of interest with regards to this review.
Acknowledgment
We thank Dr. Isabelle Bauer and Nic Crist for proofreading the final version of the manuscript and helpful comments.
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