1 Department of Health Services Research and Administration, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center , Omaha, Nebraska.
2 School of Health and Kinesiology, College of Education, University of Nebraska Omaha , Omaha, Nebraska.
Telemed J E Health. 2018 Jun;24(6):397-405. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2017.0112. Epub 2017 Nov 7.
In 2016, ∼1.7 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed. Cancer patients can have physical, functional, and psychosocial issues when dealing with cancer treatment. Telehealth has been effectively introduced to help deliver treatment to patients suffering from chronic disease; however, there is little consensus on its effectiveness in administering sociobehavioral cancer treatments. Thus, this study determines the benefits of telehealth-based interventions providing emotional and symptom support in improving quality of life (QOL) among cancer patients.
Two researchers conducted comprehensive searches on PubMed, SCOPUS, Medline, PsycINFO, ERIC, Psychology and Behavioral Collection, and Medline Complete. Key search terms included telehealth or telemedicine and QOL and cancer. Articles were included if they assessed a telehealth-delivered intervention for adult cancer patients and provided a QOL assessment. Data were extracted to calculate mean effect sizes for QOL measures on the effectiveness of telehealth relative to usual care (UC) for cancer treatments.
Out of 414 articles identified in our initial search, nine articles fit our inclusion criteria. Both telehealth (Hedges g = 0.211, p = 0.016) and standard of care (Hedges g = 0.217, p < 0.001) cancer treatment delivery methods demonstrated small, but statistically significant improvements in QOL measures. However, there were no statistically significant differences in effectiveness between the telehealth interventions and UC (p = 0.76).
The results indicate that telehealth interventions are as effective at improving QOL scores in patients undergoing cancer treatment as in-person UC. Further studies should be undertaken on different modalities of telehealth to determine its appropriate and effective use in interventions to improve the QOL for cancer patients undergoing treatment.
2016 年，约有 170 万例新癌症病例被诊断出来。癌症患者在接受癌症治疗时可能会出现身体、功能和心理社会问题。远程医疗已经被有效地引入，以帮助为患有慢性病的患者提供治疗；然而，对于其在管理社会行为癌症治疗方面的有效性，尚未达成共识。因此，本研究旨在确定基于远程医疗的干预措施在改善癌症患者生活质量（QOL）方面提供情绪和症状支持的益处。
两名研究人员在 PubMed、SCOPUS、Medline、PsycINFO、ERIC、心理学和行为学收藏和 Medline Complete 上进行了全面搜索。关键搜索词包括远程医疗或远程医疗和 QOL 和癌症。如果文章评估了针对成年癌症患者的远程医疗干预措施，并提供了 QOL 评估，则将其纳入研究。提取数据以计算远程医疗相对于癌症治疗常规护理（UC）对 QOL 测量的有效性的平均效应大小。
在我们最初的搜索中，共确定了 414 篇文章，其中 9 篇符合纳入标准。远程医疗（Hedges g=0.211，p=0.016）和标准护理（Hedges g=0.217，p<0.001）治疗方法均显示出 QOL 测量值的微小但具有统计学意义的改善。然而，远程医疗干预措施与 UC 之间在有效性方面没有统计学差异（p=0.76）。
结果表明，远程医疗干预措施在改善接受癌症治疗的患者的 QOL 评分方面与面对面 UC 一样有效。应该对不同模式的远程医疗进行进一步研究，以确定其在改善接受治疗的癌症患者 QOL 的干预措施中的适当和有效使用。
