A literature review has been conducted to gain an overview of the evolution of personal health records (PHR) and their role for self-management. This paper presents this evolution overview, based on review of abstracts from relevant publications in addition to full-text review of reviews. A search in the Medline database for ‘PHR’ and ‘self-management’ identified 62 unique publications. Of these, 90 % met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The number of studies per year has increased heavily since the PHR and self-management context originated in the early 1990s. Nine studies described messaging functionality, eleven studies described shared access functionalities, and four described both. However, the general evidence remains sparse to document the value of PHR for self-management. Most PHRs are not based on patients' needs and do not support self-management. To be adopted by the users, and to be useful for self-management, PHRs need to be integrated with physicians' EHR systems and provide shared access both ways in addition to secure e-mail communication and educational modules.