Quality of Life in Heart Patients Receiving Telerehabilitation: An Overview with Meta-Analyses

This overview is conducted to evaluate the effect of telerehabilitation on Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).

A comprehensive search was performed through the [MeSH] keywords (heart diseases, coronary disease, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass, heart failure, cardiac rehabilitation and telemedicine) until January 20, 2021 in databases of Science Direct, Medline/PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest, Google Scholar and Cochrane library. Finally, 20 reviews were entered into the analysis.

The results of meta-analyses showed that receiving telerehabilitation program by telemedicine method has a positive effect on the physical dimension and changing the mental status of patients following this intervention depends on age so that the use of these technologies in heart patients with younger ages promotes mental status. On the other hand, increasing the duration of the intervention 18 months or more affects the physical dimension and 12 months or more affects promoting overall HRQOL. Among the various types of Telemedicine methods, telephone support has a greater effect on promoting the physical dimension.

The ability to use virtual technology is less at older ages, so age conditions of patients should be considered in choosing this type of intervention. The living place of the people and the level of access to advanced care, seem to play an important role in changing outcomes and choosing this type of intervention because the main purpose of telerehabilitation is to provide treatment care in areas with low access levels.