Review on the role of social support in health information systems

Social support is the physical and emotional comfort given to someone in times of need or crisis and it is exceptionally important for maintaining good physical and mental health. Despite the contribution and intelligence of technology, which has led to the availability and offer of various types of social support systems, they are still not widely known to many. These support systems are currently available in many versions such as in tablets and smartphones where many health information systems have been created specifically to accommodate to the necessity of current mobile healthcare consumers. This paper systematically reviews the role of social support provided via health information systems. Related studies found in different databases such as IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Springer, ScienceDirect, Cambridge University Press, John Wiley and Sons, were picked out for the review. A total of one hundred and forty four studies were evaluated and filtered in line with the objective of this study that is to analyze the types of social support provided and its role in health information systems. Results obtain from the study reveals that social support is a vital component to be incorporated in any novel health information system. The results from this study will be used to create a social support framework that could be useful to the health application developers and healthcare stakeholders in designing a social support based self-care application to manage more effectively specific diseases and medical conditions.