IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pmed00/1003920.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visualising health risks with medical imaging for changing recipients’ health behaviours and risk factors: Systematic review with meta-analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Gareth J Hollands
  • Juliet A Usher-Smith
  • Rana Hasan
  • Florence Alexander
  • Natasha Clarke
  • Simon J Griffin

Abstract

Background: There is ongoing clinical and research interest in determining whether providing personalised risk information could motivate risk-reducing health behaviours. We aimed to assess the impact on behaviours and risk factors of feeding back to individuals’ images of their bodies generated via medical imaging technologies in assessing their current disease status or risk. Methods and findings: A systematic review with meta-analysis was conducted using Cochrane methods. MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were searched up to July 28, 2021, with backward and forward citation searches up to July 29, 2021. Eligible studies were randomised controlled trials including adults who underwent medical imaging procedures assessing current health status or risk of disease, for which personal risk may be reduced by modifying behaviour. Trials included an intervention group that received the imaging procedure plus feedback of visualised results and assessed subsequent risk-reducing health behaviour. We examined 12,620 abstracts and included 21 studies, involving 9,248 randomised participants. Studies reported on 10 risk-reducing behaviours, with most data for smoking (8 studies; n = 4,308), medication use (6 studies; n = 4,539), and physical activity (4 studies; n = 1,877). Meta-analysis revealed beneficial effects of feedback of visualised medical imaging results on reduced smoking (risk ratio 1.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01 to 1.23, p = 0.04), healthier diet (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0.30, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.50, p = 0.003), increased physical activity (SMD 0.11, 95% CI 0.003 to 0.21, p = 0.04), and increased oral hygiene behaviours (SMD 0.35, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.57, p = 0.002). In addition, single studies reported increased skin self-examination and increased foot care. For other behavioural outcomes (medication use, sun protection, tanning booth use, and blood glucose testing) estimates favoured the intervention but were not statistically significant. Regarding secondary risk factor outcomes, there was clear evidence for reduced systolic blood pressure, waist circumference, and improved oral health, and some indication of reduced Framingham risk score. There was no evidence of any adverse effects, including anxiety, depression, or stress, although these were rarely assessed. A key limitation is that there were some concerns about risk of bias for all studies, with evidence for most outcomes being of low certainty. In particular, valid and precise measures of behaviour were rarely used, and there were few instances of preregistered protocols and analysis plans, increasing the likelihood of selective outcome reporting. Conclusions: In this study, we observed that feedback of medical images to individuals has the potential to motivate risk-reducing behaviours and reduce risk factors. Should this promise be corroborated through further adequately powered trials that better mitigate against risk of bias, such interventions could usefully capitalise upon the widespread and growing use of medical imaging technologies in healthcare. In a systematic review and meta-analysis, Gareth Hollands and colleagues study the relationship between receipt of visual feedback of results following medical imaging procedures and risk-reducing health-related behaviors.Why was this study done?: What did the researchers do and find?: What do these findings mean?:

Suggested Citation

  • Gareth J Hollands & Juliet A Usher-Smith & Rana Hasan & Florence Alexander & Natasha Clarke & Simon J Griffin, 2022. "Visualising health risks with medical imaging for changing recipients’ health behaviours and risk factors: Systematic review with meta-analysis," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(3), pages 1-28, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:1003920
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003920
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003920&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003920?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andersson, Elin M. & Liv, Per & Nordin, Steven & Näslund, Ulf & Lindvall, Kristina, 2024. "Does a multi-component intervention including pictorial risk communication about subclinical atherosclerosis improve perceptions of cardiovascular disease risk without deteriorating efficacy beliefs?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 341(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:1003920. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosmedicine (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.