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Benefits of and barriers to telehealth for the informal caregivers of elderly individuals in rural areas: A scoping review.
- Source :
- Australian Journal of Rural Health; Aug2022, Vol. 30 Issue 4, p442-457, 16p, 1 Diagram, 3 Charts
- Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- Introduction: Maintaining care for elderly individuals in rural areas is heavily dependent on support from informal caregivers. Many informal caregivers of the elderly in rural areas feel burdened and urgently require professional support. Interests in telehealth that can provide support irrespective of geographical location have been increasing. Objective: To identify the benefits of and barriers in telehealth engagement for rural caregivers to provide evidence for service improvement. Design: A scoping review method was used following PRISMA‐ScR guidelines and Arksey and O'Malley's five‐stage framework. Five databases were searched. The search terms were chosen based on the target intervention (i.e. telehealth), target population (caregivers of elderly individuals) and target context (rural areas). Two authors independently assessed the eligibility of studies and extracted data from eligible studies. Findings: Of 4220 retrieved studies, 19 articles met the inclusion criteria. This study identified four benefits of and two barriers to telehealth for rural caregivers. Four subthemes were identified as the key benefits in using telehealth for caregivers: decrease in psychological distress, increase in care efficiency, increase in social support and increase in access to resources, while inadequate telehealth infrastructures and caregivers' own reasons were the primary barriers in using telehealth for those populations. Conclusions: Telehealth was shown to significantly benefit rural caregivers. Future research can be designed and conducted for overcoming the barriers to telehealth. Additionally, the benefits identified by this review need to be translated from research into practice for rural caregivers' care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- SERVICES for caregivers
MEDICAL quality control
CINAHL database
ONLINE information services
PSYCHOLOGY information storage & retrieval systems
HEALTH services accessibility
RURAL health services
SOCIAL support
SYSTEMATIC reviews
QUALITY assurance
RESEARCH funding
ACCESS to information
LITERATURE reviews
MEDLINE
TELEMEDICINE
ELDER care
PSYCHOLOGICAL distress
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 10385282
- Volume :
- 30
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Australian Journal of Rural Health
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 158550849
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/ajr.12869