Table 1 Barriers of using health information technologies by women

Management barriers

Lack of adequate training

Lacked technical support by companies or organizations [23, 37, 54]

3

13

Lacked a training manual with technologies [37]

1

Lack of or inadequate knowledge and training for women about the health technologies [37]

1

Lack of insufficient resources

Lack of financial resources for development and maintenance [49, 54, 55]

3

Lack of planning, guidelines and protocols

Lack of long-term planning and estimation of the required resources [38]

1

Lack of precise and unique instruction and guideline for health technologies [37]

1

Environmental and sociocultural

Sociocultural challenges (such as institutional racism, discrimination by the healthcare system, and etc.) [23, 24, 29, 34, 35, 38, 40,41,42, 47, 53, 54, 56,57,58]

15

Sexual discrimination in technology (for reasons such as Less technological education of women than men, need permission to use technologies (from husband/ parents / partner), being under a conservative patriarchal regime, and etc.) [33, 34, 37, 46, 49, 53, 56, 58]

8

Inequality among women (including indigenous, those living in rural areas, ethnic and/or immigrant women, and women with partners other than men) [28, 29, 34]

3

Stigma surrounding the use of a digital mental health assessment [32]

1

Lack of social support [56]

1

Traditional beliefs [54]

1

Problems associated with bureaucracy [32]

1

Technological barriers

Design, implementation and execution

Poor design (for example anonymous nature of some mobile phone services or poor usability) [26, 30,31,32, 41, 42, 45, 52, 53]

9

4

Not using women’s individual preferences and values in designing health information technologies [33, 36]

2

Deficiencies and limitations of infrastructure, software, hardware, and network [25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56]

19

Incompatibility of different systems [55]

1

Legal and regulatory barriers

Violations, threats and concerns

Privacy, confidentiality, and security concerns [23, 25,26,27,28, 31,32,33,34,35,36, 38,39,40,41,42,43, 48,49,50,51,52,53, 55]

24

5

Non considering ethical, legal, and regulatory principles

Lack of clear rules for establishing and using health technologies and protecting the privacy and security [29, 55]

2

Lack of legal authority to create a unique health identifier for individuals [55]

1

Absence of clear policies and legal rules to limit the release of collected data anonymous sharing of data [27, 55]

2

Lack of legal authority to collect and use data [55]

Personal barriers

Inadequate training

Lack of literacy [24, 36, 37, 39, 43, 45, 46, 49, 51, 53, 58]

11

21

Lack of training in use of health technologies [32, 51, 52, 54]

4

Lack of awareness of the benefits of technologies and services provided through them [53]

1

Lack of technical skills and digital literacy [31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 40, 43, 49,50,51, 54, 55, 57]

13

Low interest and motivation

Poor economic status [24,25,26, 32, 34, 38,39,40, 42, 47, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58]

15

Fear of inefficiency [32, 34, 38, 40, 41, 49, 52, 53]

8

Limited access to various technologies (for example not having mobile phones) [24, 25, 31, 34, 37, 38, 40, 41, 46, 49, 51, 53, 54, 57]

14

Language barriers [38, 39, 45, 51, 57, 58]

7

Reluctance to use technologies (For example, due to encountering hardware and software problems and not being able to solve them) [30, 32, 37, 40, 51, 53, 56]

7

Experienced personal anxiety or stress [28, 32, 37, 41, 52]

5

Existence of physical challenges such as left-handedness, poor eye-hand coordination with the mouse, and having to sit closer because of eyeglasses [37, 40]

2

Lack of self-confidence [34, 37, 53]

2

Not allocating enough time to use of health technologies [23, 26, 32, 40, 42, 51, 53]

7

Lack of experience or bad experience using technologies [41, 51, 53]

3

Fear that technologies such as a tablet could be broken, lost or stolen [39]

1

Not using body language [41]

1

Safety concerns [35]

1

High cost of services provided through technologies [53]

1

Shyness of women to provide information to the therapist [53]

1

Resistance to technology [32]

1

Difficult interaction with the health providers by technologies [55]

1

Data and information management barriers

Inappropriate data collection methods

Using different methods to collect, disseminate and report data [55]

1

8

Restrictions on data collection due to privacy concerns [45]

1

Poor data quality

Uncertainty about the timeliness and completeness of the recorded data [46]

1

Failure to update databases to ensure timely information [36, 41]

2

Concerns about the reliability and validity of unstructured data [55]

1

Bias in the interpretation of recorded data [55]

1

Lack of accurate and reliable information

Inaccurate or incomplete information shared through digital means [29, 30, 47]

3

Lack of trust in information provided through technologies [49]

1