Barriers to and Facilitators of e-Learning Health Education Based on the Mental Workload Framework: A Scoping Review

This scoping review of studies on patients' mental workload (MWL) in health education via e-learning was conducted to characterize the state of research and to identify barriers to and facilitators of e-learning. The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and PsycINFO electronic databases were searched through September 10, 2023. A descriptive analysis of study characteristics and a content analysis of barriers to and facilitators of MWL were conducted. Among the 2837 studies screened for eligibility, 38 were included. A relatively small number of articles used a comprehensive framework to explore barriers to and facilitators of e-learning or used indicators of MWL to assess application usability and user experience. Analyses of factors influencing the effectiveness of e-learning in health education identified key predictors across five domains: individual, task, technical, environmental, and interactive aspects. The incorporation of multifaceted influencing factors that contribute to optimizing the MWL should be a priority when using e-learning in health education. Future research should give more attention to investigating the generative mechanism of e-learning in health education to enhance targeted program design.