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Abstract
Objectives
The purpose of this study was to understand current research on the utilization of mobile health (mHealth) technologies for college students with disabilities.
Methods
We conducted a bibliometric analysis to understand the longitudinal research trends and dominant topics in mHealth research for college students. Next, we performed a scoping review to gain a more in-depth understanding of the current research on the use of mobile technologies for college students with disabilities.
Results
Despite the increasing number of publications on the development of mobile health applications and mHealth interventions for college students, we found only five studies on disabilities. Most previous studies discussed mental health problems, and we could not find any research utilizing mHealth technologies for college students with physical disabilities.
Conclusion
Due to a lack of scientific evidence on the digitalized self-care of college students with disabilities, future studies focusing on this minority population are needed.
Limitations
Conference abstracts, proceedings, dissertations, theses, and gray literature were excluded from this review. Furthermore, our search was conducted using representative search terms, without incorporating specific keywords, which may have resulted in the omission of potentially relevant sources. To comprehensively review and synthesize all relevant studies, a systematic review would necessary. However, due to the limited number of research papers meeting the eligibility criteria, we were unable to perform a systematic comparison of previous findings. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, this review represents the first synthesis of studies investigating the use of digital health technologies for the health management of college students with disabilities. It is worth noting that although our study focused on college students with disabilities, many individuals with disabilities face similar challenges in accessing mobile health technologies. By addressing these barriers to access, we believe that innovation in health technology can contribute to reducing health disparities in public health.
Conflict of interest disclosure
The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of University of the Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.