Development and Evaluation of Internet-based Health Technology in Pediatric Oncology: A Scoping Review

There is an increased awareness to identify symptomatic experiences in children undergoing chemotherapy. An Internet-based health technology accessible and friendly for children and parents to report health problems during chemotherapy has been well-developed in developed countries. The purpose of this scoping review is to provide a comprehensive view of relevant research related to the emergence of health applications in pediatric oncology so that it can provide information for design and evaluation in the future.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines support this scoping review. To investigate the evidence on the development of Internet-based health technology, Science Direct, Scopus, PubMed, EBSCOHOST Medline, IEEEXplore, ProQuest, and Nature databases were searched between 2015 and 2021.

14 articles met the inclusion criteria with nine Internet-based health technologies. Moreover, four of nine mobile health apps use a theoretical foundation (SPARK for children and family member, Empower Stars!, THRIVE, and Facebook-based "Healthy Teens for Soaam"), three apps apply four stages of development and testing, and all apps have met the category of the degree of attachment of patients to the application.

The effect of Internet-based health technology through a scientific process by paying attention to the underlying theories, user needs, developer passion, application testing, and evaluation methods is the key to success.