Print-based health promotion interventions are being phased out to bring forth more appealing and assessable new technology applications. This review aimed to evaluate the current literature on the use of mobile text messaging and similar electronic technology interventions in the area of skin cancer prevention.
A search of studies guided by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was conducted on mobile technology interventions for improving skin cancer prevention in the electronic databases PubMed, MEDLINE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and PsycINFO.
Overall, 136 articles were screened for eligibility between 2001 (earliest relevant article found) and November 2015. Eight studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were reviewed according to the PRISMA guidelines. Of these, five were RCTs, two were controlled clinical trials, and one was a cohort study. Five studies used text messages as an intervention, two used mobile phone applications, and another used electronic messages via email. All studies resulted in self-reported behaviour change in at least some of their outcome measures (e.g., sunscreen application, seeking shade, or overall sun protection such as wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses).
While the behaviour change outcomes are promising, the lack of change in more objective measures such as sunburn indicates a need to further improve mobile phone technology-delivered interventions in order to have a greater impact on skin cancer prevention. Future studies may consider the use of objective outcome measures (e.g., sunscreen weight), electronic diaries, or behavioural outcomes in social networks.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 17. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 June 2022.
All research outputs
#2,825,651
of 34,302,672 outputs
Outputs from Preventive Medicine
#1,178
of 5,627 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#34,787
of 342,078 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Preventive Medicine
#26
of 100 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,302,672 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,627 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 22.8. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 342,078 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 100 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its contemporaries.
