The Effectiveness of Telenursing Interventions on Patient Outcomes for Colorectal Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

To systematically review existing telenursing interventions for patients with colorectal cancer and determine the effects of such interventions on health-related quality of life and health care service utilization. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis after protocol registration. International databases, including PUBMED, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and CENTRAL and Korean databases, were searched. The last search was conducted on June 8, 2021. Two authors independently selected relevant studies, evaluated their methodological quality, and extracted data. A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was conducted using the statistical software STATA 16.0. Of the 223 articles retrieved, 7 were included for narrative synthesis and 3 were used for the meta-analysis. There were 857 patients in the telenursing group and 842 patients in the conventional group. Three studies applied theoretical frameworks for designing the intervention. The effect of telenursing intervention was not different from that of usual care. However, both readmission rates and emergency department visits were lower in the telenursing group than in the usual care group, although these trends were not statistically significant. These findings indicate that telenursing intervention did not differ from usual care in terms of health-related quality of life while reducing readmission and emergency department visits in a nonstatistically significant manner. Therefore, telenursing interventions could serve as a partial alternative to current face-to-face interventions for patients with colorectal cancer.