Review of Digitalized Patient Education in Cardiology: A Future Ahead?

Introduction: An increased focus on shared decision-making and patient empowerment in cardiology and on patient outcomes such as quality of life (QoL), depression, and anxiety underline the importance of high-quality patient education. Studies focusing on digital means of patient education performed in other disciplines of medicine demonstrated its positive effect in these areas. Therefore, a review of the current literature was performed to (i) evaluate the status of innovative, digitalized means of patient education in cardiology and (ii) assess the impact of digital patient education on outcome parameters (i.e., patient knowledge (or health literacy), QoL, depression, anxiety, and patient satisfaction).

Method: A review of the current literature was performed to evaluate the effect of digitalized patient education for any purpose in the field of cardiology. Medline and EMBASE were searched for articles reporting any digital educational platform used for patient education up to May 2020. The articles were compared on their effect on patient knowledge or health literacy, QoL, depression or anxiety, and patient satisfaction.

Results: The initial search yielded 279 articles, 34 of which were retained after applying in, and exclusion criteria. After full-text analysis, the total number of articles remaining was 16. Of these, 6 articles discussed the use of smartphone or tablet applications as a means of patient education, whereas 3 reviewed web-based content, and 7 evaluated the use of video (2 three-dimensional videos, from which one on a virtual reality headset).

Conclusion: This review demonstrates that digital patient education increases patient knowledge. Overall, digital education increases QoL and lowers feelings of depression and anxiety. The majority of patients express satisfaction with digital platforms. It remains important that developers of digital patient education platforms remain focused on clear, structured, and comprehensible information presentation.