Effects of eHealth for patients and informal caregivers confronted with cancer: A meta-review

Abstract

There is evidence for positive effects of eHealth on perceived support, knowledge, and information competence of cancer patients. For effects on other outcomes in cancer patients, findings are mainly inconsistent or lacking. This meta-review did not find relevant reviews focusing on or including the effects of eHealth on informal caregivers, which seems a rather unexplored area.

Telemedicine Use Among Caregivers of Cancer Patients: Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…In accordance with other literature reviews and meta-analyses [41,85], the present review found that family members who used telehealth tools reported an increased perception of social support [58,60,65,67] and less negative appraisal of illness and caregiving [52,54,67], even though the overall effect sizes were small. These findings meet the "Research Recommendations for Improving the Assessment of the Prevalence and Burden of Informal Cancer Caregiving" [86], emphasizing the need to direct attention towards the most vulnerable caregivers of cancer patients, such as those socially isolated, living in rural areas, or with low socioeconomic status.…”

“…This variability may be related to the enrolment of individuals in different disease stages, undergoing different treatments, or having different psychological and social characteristics, both for the patient and for the caregiver. In fact, it is known that different aspects of the disease or of the treatment may imply different caregiving burdens [41] as well as different psychological or relational issues [90][91][92][93][94].…”

“…Despite caregivers' requests for provision of support and information competence, a recent meta-review on the effects of eHealth for patients and informal caregivers confronted with cancer concludes that there is a paucity of systematic reviews on this topic and that web-based interventions focused on family members are still an unexplored area [41].…”

“…However, when it comes to telehealth interventions aimed at family members of adult cancer patients, the picture is less definite. Scoping reviews have been conducted only on web-based interventions or on the effects of eHealth tools for patients and informal caregivers confronted with the problem of cancer [41,45,46], while others have a broader focus on all implemented telehealth tools for family caregivers, but not specifically adopted in cancer care [39]. Therefore, there is still an emerging need of a more complete framework regarding implemented carers' telemedicine tools in all phases of cancer care.…”

Mobile Breast Cancer e-Support Program for Chinese Women With Breast Cancer Undergoing Chemotherapy (Part 2): Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

“…Access to a wide variety of knowledge related to breast cancer and chemotherapy may not relieve the women's anxiety and depression [30]. Still literature has inconsistent findings regarding the effects of eHealth on anxiety and depression for cancer patients [31], which needs to be addressed in the future research.…”