Effectiveness of telemedicine consultation among asthmatic adults and children: A meta-analysis
- Author:
Dawn Emerald Q. delos Santos-Sy
;
Cinderella P. Baruiz
;
Mary Ellen S. Lacia
- Publication Type:Other Types
- Keywords:
Telehealthcare
- MeSH:
Telemedicine;
Asthma
- From:
The Filipino Family Physician
2022;60(2):196-209
- CountryPhilippines
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Background:The circumstances surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the employment of telemedicine for administering care to patients and families. There is difficulty of seeking medical help among those with chronic and recurrent illness like asthma. The authors conducted a metanalysis to determine whether telemedicine for asthma management is effective
Objective:This study aimed to systematically review the effectiveness of telemedicine consultation among asthmatic adults and children in terms of: a) asthma control, b) quality of life, c) cost effectiveness, d) lung function and e) exacerbations.
Methods:A comprehensive search of randomized controlled trials was performed using the MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, clinical trial registries (e.g., clinicaltrials.gov, clinicaltrialregister.eu) and relevant websites. The authors were interested in studies that measured these outcomes: asthma control, quality of life, cost effectiveness, lung function and exacerbations. Three reviewers identified studies for inclusion in this meta-analysis. They extracted data then used fixed effect and random effect modelling.
Results:The authors identified 15 RCTs with total of 3,015 enrolled patients. A variety of telemedicine interventions were incorporated: telephone and Internet-based models of care. Most control used was the conventional face-to-face. Meta-analysis did not show a clinically important improvement in patients’ asthma control and lung function, there was no significant reduction in the number of hospital admission and visits to the emergency department over 12 months and not significantly cost effective. However, there was a significant improvement in the quality of life (95% CI [0.05, 0.29], p = 0.006).
Conclusion:Although nothing beats the advantage of physically seeing patients face-to-face, this study just supports the knowledge that telemedicine offers promising alternative to promote good communication between patients and caregivers, resulting in adherence to asthma management, which leads to better asthma control, improvement of patients’ quality of life, lung function, better cost-effectiveness and decrease in ER visits and exacerbation.
- Full text:PAFP-PDF-60-2-6-19.pdf
