Mobile Health Privacy Concerns – A Systematic Review Completed Research

Mobile health technologies have great potential to improve healthcare delivery. However, adoption of mobile applications raise many privacy concerns, and these issues must be addressed in order to facilitate technology adoption. We conducted a systematic review of the extant research literature to understand privacy concerns of patients and providers when they use mobile health applications. An extensive search of various databases including Web of Science, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and JMIR identified 37 unique articles on this topic. We analyzed these articles using a 3x3 framework with user type and usage type as the two dimensions. Our findings revealed that patient’s privacy concerns are heightened in the presence of certain disease types that carry a social stigma. Providers on the other hand are anxious about staying compliant with privacy regulations. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.