SynthesisInternational journal of environmental research and public health2020
Utilization of Mobile Mental Health Services among Syrian Refugees and Other Vulnerable Arab Populations-A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of a self-guided digital mental health self-help intervention for Syrian refugees in Egypt: A pragmatic randomized controlled trial.PLoS medicine · 2024Trial
- Is only one cognitive technique also effective? Results from a randomized controlled trial of two different versions of an internet-based cognitive behavioural intervention for post-traumatic stress disorder in Arabic-speaking countries.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2021Trial
- How to culturally adapt mental mHealth apps: lessons from an Australian Arabic-speaking community survey.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- PICO-based assessment and categorization of evidence for digital health interventions: an inductive framework development.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Review
- Improving Digital Cancer Care for Older Black Adults: Qualitative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Keeping an AI on the mental health of vulnerable populations: reflections on the potential for participatory injustice.AI and ethics · 2025Article
- Psychosocial support for Arabic-speaking refugees residing in Switzerland (Sui app): A mixed-methods randomised controlled trial.Journal of migration and health · 2025Review
- Self-harm and suicide prevention in humanitarian and fragile contexts: A systematic scoping review.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2025Review
- Readiness for mHealth interventions in Jordan: Refugee camp and urban community survey.Internet interventions · 2024Article
- Mental Health Care Access Among Arab Immigrants in the United States: Application of Public Arena Model.Community mental health journal · 2024Article
- Mental health and conflict: a pilot of an online eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) intervention for forcibly displaced Syrian women.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- A systematic review of reviews on the advantages of mHealth utilization in mental health services: A viable option for large populations in low-resource settings.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2024Review
- Practitioners' Perspectives on Barriers and Benefits of Telemental Health Services: The Unique Impact of COVID-19 on Resettled U.S. Refugees and Asylees.Community mental health journal · 2023Article
- Health equity related challenges and experiences during the rapid implementation of virtual care during COVID-19: a multiple case study.International journal for equity in health · 2023Article
- Reinventing mental health care in youth through mobile approaches: Current status and future steps.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Proposal of a New Rating Concept for Digital Health Applications in Orthopedics and Traumatology.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Challenges and strategies for promoting health equity in virtual care: findings and policy directions from a scoping review of reviews.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
- A Conceptual Framework to Design Connected Mental Health Solutions in the United Arab Emirates: Questionnaire Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Perceptions on a mobile health intervention to improve maternal child health for Syrian refugees in Turkey: Opportunities and challenges for end-user acceptability.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- [Digital interventions for refugees. Challenges, opportunities, and perspectives ofEthik in der Medizin : Organ der Akademie fur Ethik in der Medizin · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The global refugee crisis is at its most critical state in history; Syria alone has produced 12 million internally displaced persons, with another 5 million refugees seeking protection across the globe. Faced with the heavy burden of mental distress carried by a massive refugee influx, many host nations lack the service capacity to respond adequately. While mobile mental health (mMHealth) applications and platforms have the potential to augment screenings and interventions for vulnerable populations, an insufficient gender and cultural adaptation of technology may drastically hamper its uptake in Arab refugees. Reporting only papers originating from Middle Eastern and/or Arab nations or refugee host nations, this systematic review evaluates the available literature published between 2000 and 2019 on the usage acceptability of mMHealth in Syrian refugees and other vulnerable Arab populations. We conducted a systematic review in PubMed, PsychInfo, Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to identify studies that addressed mMHealth implementation in these populations; of a total of 607 articles identified, only 10 (1.6%) available, unique articles met our search criteria. These studies discussed the feasibility and efficacy of mMHealth applications and the barriers to their uptake. The few existing studies show positive impacts of mMHealth on the access to services and on treatment outcomes but also reveal a paucity of literature on mMHealth for vulnerable Arab populations. These findings indicate a critical need for research on the barriers to mMHealth uptake, to bolster service capacity in the Arab Region and in the refugee diaspora of other, non-Arab host countries.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.