Patients’ adherence to smartphone apps in the management of bipolar disorder: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Despite an increasing number of available mental health apps in the bipolar disorder field, these tools remain scarcely implemented in everyday practice and are quickly discontinued by patients after downloading. The aim of this study is to explore adherence characteristics of bipolar disorder patients to dedicated smartphone interventions in research studies. METHODS: A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Three databases (EMBASE, PsychInfo and MEDLINE) were searched using the following keywords: "bipolar disorder" or "mood disorder" or “bipolar” combined with “digital” or “mobile” or “phone” or “smartphone” or “mHealth” or “ehealth” or "mobile health" or “app” or “mobile-health”. RESULTS: Thirteen articles remained in the review after exclusion criteria were applied. Of the 118 eligible studies, 39 did not provide adherence characteristics. Among the selected papers, study length, sample size and definition of measures of adherence were strongly heterogeneous. Activity rates ranged from 58 to 91.6%. CONCLUSION: The adherence of bipolar patients to apps is understudied. Standardised measures of adherence should be defined and systematically evaluated in future studies dedicated to these tools. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40345-021-00224-6.