Mobile Health Technologies for Long COVID Management: A Scoping Review

Background: Long COVID affects an estimated 400 million worldwide. Individuals with long COVID face a range of fluctuating and often debilitating symptoms including myalgia, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties. Psychological effects such as anxiety, depression, and reduced quality of life are also commonly reported. Together, these symptoms present barriers to accessing traditional healthcare services. Furthermore, a lack of satisfaction in traditional healthcare services is often reported. Mobile health has been proposed as a solution to improve long COVID symptom management whilst overcoming some barriers and improving patient experience of healthcare services. This scoping review aimed to identify mobile health technologies to support long COVID symptom management or tracking and to synthesise their reported outcomes. Methods: Following JBI guidelines and the PRISMA-ScR checklist, five databases (CINAHL ultimate, MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, and Scopus) were searched. Articles were eligible for the review if they examined the use of mobile health technologies for long COVID symptom management or tracking. Articles which involved individuals under 18 years or non-human samples or focussed on conditions alongside long COVID where results could not be separated were not eligible for inclusion. Risk of bias was assessed using JBI, ROB 2, and ROBINS-1 V2, and is presented using both visual summaries and narrative descriptions. Results: Of 737 articles screened, 38 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the current review. These articles totalled 3541 participants across 14 countries. Technology modality varied, with the current review synthesising findings from mobile apps, web pages, video-calling platforms, wearables, and virtual reality headsets. Findings showed that mobile health technologies were acceptable and feasible, although a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be adopted due to individual differences in symptomatology and support needs. Conclusions: Promising improvements in symptom-based outcome measures and fitness tests were reported, although intervention and methodological heterogeneity limits our conclusions regarding comparative effectiveness.