Telehealth improves quality of life of COPD patients: systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Telehealth is electronic information and telecommunications technology for medical personnel and doctors to handle patient health. This electronic information can include digital images, videos, or text files stored on a computer. Telehealth is beneficial for improving the general psychology of chronic patients. However, no assessment of the impact of telehealth on individuals suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has been done. As a result, in order to assess the impact of telehealth treatments on the quality of life of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, researchers reviewed the literature. Methods: The inclusion criteria were articles published in open access in English between 2014 and 2023, with the full text of the original article. COPD patients were the participants in this study, the intervention was telehealth, the outcome was quality of life, and the research design was a randomized controlled trial. This review has been registered on Prospero, registration number CRD42024496062. Results: The review was carried out in five databases: PubMed, Scopus, Proquest, Emerald Insight, and ScienceDirect. Articles that met inclusion criteria were assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist. Data was synthesized using Review Manager version 5.4. Ten RCT studies (1,297 patients) met the inclusion criteria. This review showed that there was a significant effect on the quality of life after intervention using telehealth, with moderate heterogeneity of 70% SMD = 0.27 CI 95%, (0.03, 0.50), (P 0.02). Conclusion: Telehealth interventions can improve patients' quality of life. Telehealth can be integrated into the medical service system to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients.