Psychological Aspects of Wearable Health Technologies in Patients with Cardiovascular Disease: A Literature Review and Call to Action

This review summarizes the psychological effects of consumer wearables in patients with established cardiovascular disease (CVD) and helps to identify remaining challenges that must be resolved to support the appropriate implementation of wearables.

Consumer wearables (e.g., smartwatches, portable rhythm devices, rings, fitness bands, skin-surface patches) are increasingly used “off label” by patients and healthcare providers for ambulatory CVD monitoring and lifestyle modification. Emerging research suggests that while these technologies can motivate some patients to engage in healthy behaviors, they can also provoke adverse psychological reactions in others. Additionally, there are unintended, downstream consequences for clinicians and healthcare systems.

Wearables show great promise for enhancing CVD management by providing patients and clinicians with continuous data on key health metrics that can be used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Yet, the potential risks associated with their use must be acknowledged, rigorously investigated, and appropriately managed. Findings from this review emphasize the need for large, well-designed prospective studies and randomized trials to evaluate a broad range of wearable technologies and their influence on patients’ mental health, quality of life, and CVD self-management over longer time periods and in high-risk groups (e.g., women, minorities, and children), and to determine their impact on patient outcomes, provider burden, healthcare utilization and costs. Addressing these challenges is crucial for fully integrating wearable health technologies into clinical practice.