Collecting and summarising earlier research within a specific clinical field is common and expected when developing new interventions. In the eHealth@Hospital-2-Home project, a literature review of patient experiences with eHealth interventions informed the research questions and shaped the design of the intervention.
Since 2021 Professor Anne Marie Lunde Husebø, who is a registered nurse, has held a professor position in health sciences, currently at Dept. of Public Health and UiS and at the Research Department at Stavanger University Hospital. She completed her PhD in 2015 which was focused on exercise and breast cancer. Her master’s degree was in in health and social sciences and focused on the users’ perspective.
Her research interests centre on psycho-social aspects of living with long-term chronic conditions, like cancer and heart failure. She has managed projects which have mainly focused on treatment burden, quality of life aspects (e.g., fatigue), social support, healthcare services development and digital health. She is the eHealth @ Hospital -2- Home project manager.
She also was the lead author on a literature review paper on the experience of people with eHealth who have colorectal cancer. You can read the full paper here:
Prof Mia explains that review papers are a part of the development of any complex intervention, but for the ehealth@Hospital-2-Home, it worked together with the review paper on the eHealth experiences of those with heart failure (see list of other publications at the end) to help design the intervention. Collecting and summarising earlier research within a specific clinical field is common and expected when developing new interventions.
Review studies help inform research questions and designs, and, as in this case, decide on the content, functions, and delivery mode of remote patient monitoring interventions.
Working with the included scientific papers gave insight to the digital patient and nurse platforms to be used in the project, but also provided a summary on knowledge of effects from remote patient follow-up after a hospitalization, and how the patients engaged in the digital platforms.
Article Summary
In brief, the literature review highlights how people with colorectal cancer (CRC) have unmet support needs following surgery and hospital discharge. Especially around the higher demands on them to perform specific self-management tasks. Digital health interventions may be a way of fulfilling those unmet needs. An integrative review was performed, focused on the components of eHealth interventions, their impact, and user experiences.
Using a framework synthesis approach the 26 articles demonstrate that eHealth interventions are supported by healthcare professionals and delivered through a combination of technologies. The content of the interventions included health monitoring, education, and counselling. The impact of such interventions demonstrated improved physical activity levels and psychological states. While people with CRC were satisfied with the eHealth interventions, how they engaged with the interventions was not well reported.
This review demonstrated that eHealth interventions have the potential to positively impact on anxiety and physical activity levels for people with CRC after a hospital discharge. A key component to the intervention’s success is the support and oversight of healthcare professionals.
What are the next steps for this line of research/inquiry?
The review paper provided knowledge on patient experience with remote patient monitoring helped in the design of the eHealth @ Hospital -2-Home intervention, which is currently being tested in a randomized controlled trial. This trial includes people with CRC and those with heart failure. Now that the review has been published, we hope that it will be helpful to other researchers who are interested in supporting people with CRC.
We plan to use it to help in the interpretation of results from our study, especially the findings from the qualitative interviews with study participants who have tested the intervention for 6 weeks following hospitalization. It may also help to inform new research questions to be part of future grant applications.
Read more about the project:
Protocols:
Literature Reviews:
Intervention design: