Telehealth interventions to support self-care of stroke survivors: An integrative review

BACKGROUND: Self-care is essential for stroke survivors to recover from neurological disorders caused by stroke and to prevent recurrences. Self-care behaviors are activities that individuals undertake to prevent recurrence and complications, and have a positive effect on the quality of life of patients. Telehealth is an emerging technology through which self-care intervention can be provided from a distance. Review-based research is needed to determine the value and development of telehealth-based self-care interventions for stroke survivors. OBJECTIVE: Based on the middle range theory of self-care of chronic illness, to provide an effective guide when developing telehealth self-care interventions for stroke survivors by comprehensively understanding telehealth interventions to support self-care of stroke survivors. METHODS: An integrative review, this study was performed in accordance with Whittemore and Knafl's stages of an integrative review (problem identification, literature search, data evaluation, data analysis, and presentation of the results). The key search terms included combinations of concepts related to stroke survivors and self-care, and telehealth. The research year of searched publications was not limited, and five electronic databases (PubMed, Ovid-MEDLINE, Ovid-EMBASE, CINAHL and Cochrane Library) were searched. RESULTS: Four attributes were identified that represented telehealth's functions that appeared to be associated with a self-care intervention for stroke survivors. These included introducing the concept of interaction, monitoring, education, and store and forward. These self-care interventions were found to influence the behaviors of stroke survivors' self-care maintenance (physical activity and treatment adherence), self-care monitoring (blood pressure, healthy behaviors, health diet, psychological well-being, glucose control, and depression), and self-care management (sense of control, healthcare resource utilization, social integration, and support). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study can provide a guide for developing effective telehealth self-care intervention by identifying the attributes of telehealth self-care intervention for stroke survivors.