Cited by 163Palliative Care and End-of-Life IssuesTelemedicine and Telehealth ImplementationPalliative and Oncologic Care

Digital health interventions in palliative care: a systematic meta-review

Open access
Finucane, Anne M., O’Donnell, Hannah, Lugton, Jean, Gibson-Watt, Tilly, Swenson, Connie, Pagliari, Claudia·2021·npj Digital Medicine

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Digital health interventions (DHIs) have the potential to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of palliative care but heterogeneity amongst existing systematic reviews presents a challenge for evidence synthesis. This meta-review applied a structured search of ten databases from 2006 to 2020, revealing 21 relevant systematic reviews, encompassing 332 publications. Interventions delivered via videoconferencing (17%), electronic healthcare records (16%) and phone (13%) were most frequently described in studies within reviews. DHIs were typically used in palliative care for education (20%), symptom management (15%), decision-making (13%), information provision or management (13%) and communication (9%). Across all reviews, mostly positive impacts were reported on education, information sharing, decision-making, communication and costs. Impacts on quality of life and physical and psychological symptoms were inconclusive. Applying AMSTAR 2 criteria, most reviews were judged as low quality as they lacked a protocol or did not consider risk of bias, so findings need to be interpreted with caution.

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  • Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was already evidence for the utility of digital health interventions for education and training, with online learning and video-conferencing playing a critical role.

    “Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was already evidence for the utility of digital health interventions for education and training, with online learning and video-conferencing playing a critical role.”

    From Feasibility of RESTORE: An online Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intervention to improve palliative care staff wellbeing. (2023) · cites this paper as [28]

    The Results > Education section (page not available in our copy) identifies online learning and videoconferencing as palliative-care education interventions and reports mainly positive evidence for digital education. It does not establish that either played a critical role; most reviews described interventions rather than evaluating outcomes, and evidence quality was generally not examined. (LLM, conf=0.85)

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [36]National Cancer Institute. Levels of Evidence for Supportive and Palliative Care Studies (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version https://www.cancer.gov/publications/pdq/levels-evidence/supportive-care (2020). 26389413
  2. [57]Avati A Improving palliative care with deep learning BMC Med. Inform. Decis. Mak. 2018 18 55 64 10.1186/s12911-018-0677-8 30537977 PMC6290509 · DOI

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Authors
Finucane, A. M., O’Donnell, H., Lugton, J., Gibson-Watt, T., Swenson, C., & Pagliari, C.
Affiliations
University of Edinburgh (GB)
Corresponding author
Finucane, Anne M.
Venue
npj Digital Medicine
Published
2021-04-06
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
64-64
ISSN
2398-6352 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3140442677
Cited by
163
References
68
Citations by year
2026: 32 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
FWCI
4.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • npj Digital Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • medRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • Marie Curie
  • University of Edinburgh
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative and Oncologic Care
Keywords
digital health interventions, palliative care, videoconferencing, electronic health records, telephone-delivered intervention, symptom management, patient education, shared decision-making, information sharing, quality of life, review quality, AMSTAR 2

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