Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Browse

Factors influencing the delivery of telerehabilitation for stroke: a systematic review

Download (932.36 kB)
Version 2 2022-07-29, 08:55
Version 1 2022-06-01, 15:40
journal contribution
posted on 2022-07-29, 08:55 authored by Aoife StephensonAoife Stephenson, Sarah Howes, Paul Murphy, Judith E Deutsch, Maria Strokes, Katy Pedlow, Suzanne McDonoughSuzanne McDonough
Objective: Despite the available evidence regarding effectiveness of stroke telerehabilitation, there has been little focus on factors influencing its delivery or translation from the research setting into practice. There are complex challenges to embedding telerehabilitation into stroke services and generating transferable knowledge about scaling up and routinising this service model. This review aimed to explore factors influencing the delivery of stroke telerehabilitation interventions, including platforms, technical requirements, training, support, access, cost, usability and acceptability.
Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science and Cochrane Library and Central Registry of Clinical Trials were searched to identify full-text articles of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and protocols for RCTs published since a Cochrane review on stroke telerehabilitation services. A narrative synthesis was conducted, providing a comprehensive description of the factors influencing stroke telerehabilitation intervention delivery.
Results: Thirty-one studies and ten protocols of ongoing studies were included. Interventions were categorised as synchronous telerehabilitation (n = 9), asynchronous telerehabilitation (n = 11) and tele-support (n = 11). Telephone and videoconference were the most frequently used modes of delivery. Usability and acceptability with telerehabilitation were high across all platforms, although access issues and technical challenges may be potential barriers to the use of telerehabilitation in service delivery. Costs of intervention delivery and training requirements were poorly reported.
Conclusions: This review synthesises the evidence relating to factors that may influence stroke telerehabilitation intervention delivery at a crucial timepoint given the rapid deployment of telerehabilitation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It recommends strategies, such as ensuring adequate training and technical infrastructure, shared learning and consistent reporting of cost and usability and acceptability outcomes, to overcome challenges in embedding and routinising this service model and priorities for research in this area.

Funding

Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (School of Physiotherapy)

European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 687228, MAGIC PCP

History

Comments

The original article is available at https://journals.plos.org/

Published Citation

Stephenson A, et al. Factors influencing the delivery of telerehabilitation for stroke: A systematic review. PLoS One. 2022;17(5):e0265828.

Publication Date

11 May 2022

PubMed ID

35544471

Department/Unit

  • School of Physiotherapy
  • Library

Publisher

PLOS

Version

  • Published Version (Version of Record)