CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 109Telemedicine and Telehealth ImplementationAutism Spectrum Disorder ResearchDigital Mental Health Interventions

Implementation of Telehealth Services to Assess, Monitor, and Treat Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Systematic Review

Open access
Valentine, Althea Z, Hall, Sophie S, Young, Emma, Brown, Beverley J, Groom, Madeleine J, Hollis, Chris, Hall, Charlotte L·2021·Journal of Medical Internet Research
DOI 10.2196/22619PMC PMC7819544

Published version of a preprint

Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Background: In response to COVID-19, there has been increasing momentum in telehealth development and delivery. To assess the anticipated exponential growth in telehealth, it is important to accurately capture how telehealth has been used in specific mental health fields prior to the pandemic. Objective: This systematic review aimed to highlight how telehealth has been used with clinical samples in the neurodevelopmental field, including patients with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), their families, and health care professionals. To identify which technologies show the greatest potential for implementation into health services, we evaluated technologies for effectiveness, economic impact, and readiness for clinical adoption. Methods: A systematic search of literature was undertaken in April 2018 and updated until December 2019, by using the Medline, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL Plus, EMBASE, and PsycInfo databases. Extracted data included the type of technology, how the technology was used (ie, assessment, treatment, and monitoring), participant characteristics, reported outcomes and authors’ views on clinical effectiveness, user impact (ie, feasibility and acceptability), economic impact, and readiness for clinic adoption. A quality review of the research was performed in accordance with the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Levels of Evidence. Results: A total of 42 studies met the inclusion criteria. These studies included participants and family members with autism spectrum disorders (21/42, 50%), attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (8/42, 19%), attention deficit hyperactivity or autism spectrum disorders (3/42, 7%), communication disorders (7/42, 17%), and tic disorders (2/42, 5%). The focus of most studies (33/42, 79%) was on treatment, rather than assessment (4/42, 10%) or monitoring (5/42, 12%). Telehealth services demonstrated promise for being clinically effective, predominantly in relation to diagnosing and monitoring NDDs. In terms of NDD treatment, telehealth services were usually equivalent to control groups. There was some evidence of positive user and economic impacts, including increased service delivery efficiency (eg, increased treatment availability and decreased waiting times). However, these factors were not widely recorded across the studies. Telehealth was demonstrated to be cost-effective in the few studies that considered cost-effectiveness. Study quality varied, as many studies had small sample sizes and inadequate control groups. Of the 42 studies, only 11 (26%) were randomized controlled trials, 12 (29%) were case studies or case series, 6 (14%) were qualitative studies, and 5 (12%) were noncomparative trials. Conclusions: Telehealth has the potential to increase treatment availability, decrease diagnosis waiting times, and aid in NDD monitoring. Further research with more robust and adequately powered study designs that consider cost-effectiveness and increased efficiency is needed. This systematic review highlights the extent of telehealth technology use prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the movement for investing in remote access to treatments. Trial Registration: PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42018091156; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42018091156

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2196/22619

Cites

66 of 66 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Valentine et al found telehealth services for neurodevelopmental disorders to be primarily equal to control groups and focused on studies conducted before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “while Valentine et al [40] found telehealth services for neurodevelopmental disorders to be primarily equal to control groups and focused on studies conducted before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

    From Effectiveness of Online and Remote Interventions for Mental Health in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2024) · cites this paper as [40]

    The Abstract’s Results say telehealth services were usually equivalent to control groups specifically for NDD treatment; the claim omits that limitation and presents the finding as applying to telehealth services more generally. The Introduction’s “Goal of This Study” confirms that the review focused on studies conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [3]Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition 2013 Washington, DC American Psychological Association

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Valentine, A. Z., Hall, S. S., Young, E., Brown, B. J., Groom, M. J., Hollis, C., & Hall, C. L.
Affiliations
  • University of Nottingham (GB)
  • University of Leicester (GB)
  • Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
Corresponding author
Valentine, Althea Z
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Medical Internet Research
Publisher
JMIR Publications Inc.
Published
2021-01-20
Volume
23
Issue
1
Pages
e22619
ISSN
1438-8871 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2196/22619
PMC
PMC7819544
OpenAlex
W3095549287
Cited by
109
References
66
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 10
FWCI
2.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Journal of Medical Internet Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR200263)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
Keywords
telemedicine, neurodevelopmental disorders, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, communication disorders, tic disorders, clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability, clinical adoption, telehealth implementation, remote assessment, remote therapy, remote monitoring, service delivery efficiency, waiting time, healthcare workers, COVID-19 pandemic
MeSH terms
Female, Humans, Male, Monitoring, Physiologic, Telemedicine, Qualitative Research, Neurodevelopmental Disorders

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review