The Effect of Telemedicine on The Recovery of Patients with Chronic Gastrointestinal Disease: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

Gastrointestinal diseases are associated with significant healthcare costs and complications worldwide. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the effect of telemedicine on improving symptoms, reducing disease burden, and improving quality of life (QoL) in patients with gastrointestinal diseases.

Methods and Materials:

 A systematic review of randomized controlled trial studies was explored by searching keywords in the title, abstract, and keywords of the studies in Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed scientific databases between the years of 2012 and 2022. A gray literature search was also conducted using the Google search engine to identify the most recent possible evidence. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Clinical trialas or randomized controlled trials that used telemedicine or telehealth methods to improve QoL and disease activity in patients with gastrointestinal diseases and those articles whose full text was available in English were considered to meet the inclusion criteria.

At first, 963 studies were extracted by searching the database. 870 articles were identified after removing duplicates. After screening the full text of the articles, nine studies met the inclusion criteria. The number of participants included 2092 people in the input studies. The duration of the intervention in each study varied from 6 weeks to 12 months. The technologies used included a robot-based platform 33%, remote monitoring 44%, and a mobile-based application 22%. In 22% of the studies, telemedicine interventions improved the QoL, 33% of the studies showed a decrease in the number of outpatient visits and hospital admissions, and 22% of the studies showed improvement in symptom management in patients. In addition, 11% of the studies showed cost-effectiveness and effectiveness, and 11% of the studies reported a reduction in the use of health care resources.

The results of the present systematic review showed that in the majority of studies, telemedicine interventions had better results than traditional interventions; however, a telemedicine program can supplement or replace in-person medical visits to improve the QoL, it can reduce the burden of disease in patients with gastrointestinal diseases and it can improve the patient’s health.