Background: People who are homeless experience poorer health outcomes and challenges accessing healthcare contribute to the experienced health inequality. There has been an expansion in using technology to promote health and wellbeing and technology has the potential to enable people who are socially excluded, including those who are homeless, to be able to access health services. However, little research has been undertaken to explore how technology is used to promote health and wellbeing for those who are homeless. This review aims to address the questions: ‘what mobile health (mHealth) related technology is used by homeless populations’ and ‘what is the health impact of mobile technology for homeless populations’? Methods: An integrative review methodology was employed. A systematic search of electronic databases was carried out between 4 January 2021 and 30 April 2021, searching for papers published between 2015 and 2021, which yielded 2113 hits, relevant papers were selected using specified inclusion and exclusion criteria reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis. The quality assessment of each paper included in the review was undertaken using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Results: Seventeen papers were selected for review and thematic analysis identified four themes: technology ownership, barriers to use, connectivity and health benefits. Conclusion: It is evident that technology has the potential to support the health and wellbeing of individuals who are homeless; however, there are challenges regarding connectivity to the internet, as well as issues of trust in who has access to personal data and how they are used. Further research is needed to explore the use of health technology with people who are homeless to address these challenges.
Malnutrition (specifically undernutrition) in older, community-dwelling adults reduces well-being and predisposes to disease. Implementation of screen-and-treat policies could help to systematically detect and treat at-risk and malnourished patients. We aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to implementing malnutrition screen and treat policies in primary/community care, which barriers have been addressed and which facilitators have been successfully incorporated in existing interventions. A data-base search was conducted using MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, DARE, CINAHL, Cochrane Central and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews from 2012 to June 2016 to identify relevant qualitative and quantitative literature from primary/community care. Studies were included if participants were older, community-dwelling adults (65+) or healthcare professionals who would screen and treat such patients. Barriers and facilitators were extracted and mapped onto intervention features to determine whether these had addressed barriers. Of a total of 2182 studies identified, 21 were included (6 qualitative, 12 quantitative and 3 mixed; 14 studies targeting patients and 7 targeting healthcare professionals). Facilitators addressing a wide range of barriers were identified, yet few interventions addressed psychosocial barriers to screen-and-treat policies for patients, such as loneliness and reluctance to be screened, or healthcare professionals’ reservations about prescribing oral nutritional supplements. The studies reviewed identified several barriers and facilitators and addressed some of these in intervention design, although a prominent gap appeared to be psychosocial barriers. No single included study addressed all barriers or made use of all facilitators, although this appears to be possible. Interventions aiming to implement screen-and-treat approaches to malnutrition in primary care should consider barriers that both patients and healthcare professionals may face. PROSPERO: CRD42017071398 . The review protocol was registered retrospectively.