Effectiveness of mHealth interventions for improving hypertension control in uncontrolled hypertensive patients: A meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

The benefits of mHealth interventions in uncontrolled hypertension are unclear. To determine whether mHealth effectively improves the control rate of uncontrolled hypertension. PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Scopus, and Cochrane Library were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from January 2007 to September 2022. The intervention group consisted of mHealth intervention, and the control group was usual care. Random-effects meta-analysis models were used to assess pooled mHealth intervention effects and CIs. The primary outcome was the blood pressure (BP) control rate of uncontrolled hypertension. The secondary outcome was the change of BP. Thirteen RCTs were included in this meta-analysis, of which eight reported the successful BP control rate, 13 reported the change of systolic blood pressure (SBP), and 11 reported the change in diastolic blood pressure (DBP). The mean age of trial participants ranged from 47.7 to 66.9 years old, with a female composition ratio of 40.0%-66.1%. The duration of follow-up ranged from 3 to 18 months. This study showed a more robust effect size for improving BP control rate by mHealth interventions than usual care (57.5% vs. 40.8% of successful control rate; odds ratio [OR], 2.19 [95% CI, 1.32-3.62]). Furthermore, mHealth significantly reduced SBP by 4.45 mm Hg and DBP by 2.47 mm Hg, and subgroup analysis did not observe the major source of heterogeneity. This meta-analysis found that mHealth could significantly improve the uncontrolled hypertension control rate and might be a feasible, acceptable, and effective tool for uncontrolled hypertension management.