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News > Accessibility and usability

Research: Web-based Interventions and Patient Empowerment

25 June 2010
News > Accessibility and usability

D Samoocha, D  Bruinvels, N Elbers et al.  Effectiveness of Web-based Interventions on Patient Empowerment: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Med Internet Res 2010 (Jun 24); 12(2):e23

Patient empowerment is growing in popularity and application. Due to the increasing possibilities of the Internet and eHealth, many initiatives that are aimed at empowering patients are delivered online.

The objective of this research was to evaluate whether Web-based interventions are effective in increasing patient empowerment compared with usual care or face-to-face interventions. The authors performed a systematic review of published literature, by searching the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases from January 1985 to January 2009. From 7096 citations 14 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that met all inclusion criteria were found.

Results: In comparison with usual care or no care, Web-based interventions had a significant positive effect on empowerment, on self-efficacy and on mastery (control over your condition and what happens to you and the ability to change things) When comparing Web-based interventions with face-to-face deliveries of the same interventions, no significant (beneficial or harmful) effects were found for mastery ( and self-esteem (1 study.

The authors concluded that Web-based interventions showed positive effects on empowerment. However, because of the low quality of evidence  found, the results should be interpreted with caution. The clinical relevance of the findings can be questioned because the significant effects we found were, in general, small.

www.jmir.org/2010/2