Suitability for e-health of non-pharmacological interventions in connective tissue diseases: scoping review with a descriptive analysis

Objective Non-pharmacological interventions support patients with connective tissue diseases to better cope with and self-manage their diseases. This study aimed to map existing evidence on non-pharmacological interventions in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc) and mixed connective tissue diseases regarding content, feasibility and potential suitability in an e-health setting.Methods A literature search was performed in eight different databases in July 2020. The intervention’s content was extracted using the ‘Better reporting of interventions: template for intervention description and replication (TIDieR) checklist and guide’. A Sankey diagram and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data and illustrate the relationships between the interventions.Results Of 8198 identified records, 119 papers were eligible. One hundred and four of them (87.4%) were conducted between 2000 and 2020, mainly in the USA (SLE n=24 (21.2%), SSc n=16 (14.2%)), Brazil (SLE n=8 (7.1%), SSc n=5 (4.4%)) and Italy (SLE n=0 (0%), SSc n=12 (10.6%)). Fifty-two studies (SLE n=24 (21.2%), SSc n=28 (24.8%)) used multicomponent interventions. The single interventions were physical exercises (SLE n=16 (14.2%), SSc n=17 (15.0%)), coaching/counselling (SLE n=11 (18.0%), SSc n=0 (0%)) and education (SLE n=2 (1.8%), SSc n=3 (2.7%)). Primary outcomes focused on physical function (SLE n=1 (0.9%), SSc n=15 (13.3%)), mouth opening in SSc (n=4 (5.9%)) and physical capacity (SLE n=2 (1.8%), SSc n=1 (0.9%)). No interventions for mixed connective tissue disease were found.Conclusion There was a great variety in the intervention’s content due to differences in body structure, activity limitations and participation restrictions in SLE and SSc. These results highlight the need for personalised, multicomponent, non-pharmacological interventions, which could be delivered as e-health interventions.