The role of SmartWatch Technology in the provision of care for type 1 or type 2 Diabetes Mellitus or Gestational Diabetes: a systematic review.

Abstract

Background:

The use of Smart technology in the management of all forms of diabetes mellitus has grown significantly in the past ten years. Technologies such as the SmartWatch have been proposed as a method of assisting in the monitoring of blood glucose levels as well as other alert prompts such as medication adherence and daily physical activity targets. These important outcomes reach across all forms of diabetes and have the potential to increase compliance of self-monitoring with the aim of improving long term outcomes such as HbA1c.

Objective:

This systematic review aims to explore the literature for evidence of SmartWatch technology in type 1,2 and gestational diabetes.

Methods:

A systematic review was undertaken by searching Ovid MEDLINE and CINAHL databases. A second search using all identified keywords and index terms was performed on Ovid MEDLINE (January 1966 to August 2023), EMBASE (January 1980 to August 2023), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (the Cochrane Library, latest issue), CINAHL (from 1982), IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Libraries, and Web of Science databases.

Results:

Five studies were included for qualitative synthesis in this review, however, none of these studies were randomised clinical trials and published research is currently focusing on usability and feasibility.

Conclusions:

This systematic review has highlighted the lack of robust randomised clinical trials that explore the efficacy of SmartWatch technology in the management of patients with type 1, 2 and gestational diabetes.