Telehealth approaches for improving depression and anxiety among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: This study aimed to systematically review the efficacy of telehealth approaches in alleviating depressive and anxiety symptoms in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist. Databases including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were searched for RCTs from database inception to June 2024. All statistical analyses were performed using RevMan 5.3. The standard mean difference (SMD) was used to pool the fixed effects of continuous outcomes.

Results: Seven RCTs comprising 1174 participants were included in this review. The pooled analysis demonstrated that, compared with the control group, telemonitoring significantly affected anxiety among patients with COPD (SMD = -0.12, 95 % confidence interval [CI]: [-0.24, -0.01], p = 0.04), whereas the effect on depression was not significant (SMD = -0.10, 95 % CI: [-0.22, 0.02], p = 0.09).

Conclusion: Telemonitoring effectively reduced anxiety in patients with COPD but had no significant effect on depression. The relatively small number of studies suggests that this area of research is still developing. Additional high-quality, enriched, and more widely distributed intervention studies are needed to further assess the effectiveness of telehealth approaches on mental health among patients with COPD.