Remote digital health interventions to support physical, functional and/or psychological rehabilitation of adult patients with major traumatic injuries: Protocol for a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (Preprint)

Al-Jabr, Hiyam; Salt, Emma; Stephenson, John; Hamdan, Esra; Helliwell, Toby

Abstract

Background:

Digital health (DH) interventions have increased across the past two decades, providing patients with alternative remote pathways to receiving healthcare services. Patients with major trauma frequently require long-term access to healthcare services to support their mental and physical health and their overall quality of life. DH interventions could help patients stay connected to rehabilitation services to enhance their health condition and regain their independence to enable them to return to the workplace and/or regain a role in society. There is a need to explore existing evidence on the effectiveness of DH interventions in improving health-related outcomes of patients with major trauma.

Objective:

This review aims to identify DH interventions that support physical and/or mental rehabilitation of patients who have been subject to major physical trauma.

Methods:

This review targets randomised controlled trials. Eligibility criteria include studies investigating DH interventions in adult patients with major traumatic physical injuries as end users of the intervention. Digital interventions that are delivered remotely and studies that report the impact of DH interventions on patients’ health-related outcomes will be included. The search strategy will be limited to time (since year 2000 to date) and to peer reviewed journals. No language restriction will be used, and articles that are not written in English will be translated. The search will be conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, CINAHL Plus, and PsycInfo. Grey literature, bibliographies of included studies and of relevant reviews will also be searched for potentially relevant articles. A minimum of two reviewers will independently screen retrieved references. Data extraction will be conducted by one reviewer and independently checked by another reviewer. Quality assessment of included studies will be conducted using the Cochrane RoB-2 tool. Any disagreements arising at any stage of the review will be resolved through discussion or by consulting a third reviewer where needed. A meta-analysis will be performed where possible, and a descriptive analysis of included studies will be reported.

Citation

Al-Jabr, H., Salt, E., Stephenson, J., Hamdan, E., & Helliwell, T. (2025). Remote digital health interventions to support physical, functional and/or psychological rehabilitation of adult patients with major traumatic injuries: Protocol for a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (Preprint)

• Other Type: Protocol
• Acceptance Date: May 21, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Jul 28, 2025
• Publication Date: Jul 28, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jun 20, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 23, 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2196/67675
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/1241031
• Publisher URL: https://www.researchprotocols.org/2025/1/e67675
• Related Public URLs: https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/67675/submitted