mHealth technologies have become an integral part of healthcare delivery, supporting remote monitoring, disease management, preventive care, and lifestyle interventions.(p1),(p2),(p3) For clarity of scope, here, we define mHealth applications as smartphone- or wearable-based software used in high-income countries for disease management or wellness, explicitly including both regulated medical-device apps and consumer-facing apps.(p4) We also note that reimbursement and regulatory frameworks (e.g., Germany’s DiGA, France’s PECAN, and Belgium’s ‘pyramid’ model) act as significant contextual moderators of trust, integration, and sustained use. In principle, mHealth tools offer practical solutions to ongoing challenges in accessibility, continuity of care, and patient engagement. However, the implementation of these measures has proven to be inconsistent and often has a limited practical scope.

To inform this narrative synthesis, a structured literature search was conducted across major databases (e.g., Scopus, PubMed, and Dimensions). Here, we present a narrative synthesis informed by this structured search rather than a PRISMA-style systematic review or meta-analysis. For transparency, the detailed search strategy and selection process are provided in Appendix S1 in the supplemental information online. Study characteristics are available in Appendix S2 in the supplemental information online, and a quality assessment using the CASP framework is detailed in Appendix S3 in the supplemental information online.