JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Background:

Telemedicine has emerged as a promising tool to enhance adherence and monitoring in patients with eating disorders (EDs). Traditional face-to-face cognitive therapies remain the gold standard; however, integrating telemedicine may provide additional support, improving patient engagement and retention. Given the increasing use of digital health interventions, it is crucial to assess their safety and effectiveness in complementing conventional treatments.

Objective:

To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of telemedicine as a complementary tool for cognitive face-to-face therapies to promote adherence and monitoring of ED patients.

Methods:

We explored Medline (Ovid), EMBASE (Embase.com), Web of Science (WOS), Cochrane Library, International HTA database (INAHTA), CINAHL (Ebsco) and PsycInfo (Ebsco), and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), in December 2024, to identify eligible systematic reviews, synthesis reports or meta-analyses studies that address telemedicine as a complementary therapy to face-to-face care in ED patients. Two independent researchers performed the critical appraisal following “A Measurement tool to Assess Systematic Reviews” (AMSTAR-2) to assess risk of bias.

Results:

We initially identified 1004 studies, but only five systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. Email, vodcasts, smartphone apps, and SMS text messaging were the principal telemedicine channels. Telemedicine interventions were safe, helpful and motivating; improved retention rates and patient-physician communication and reduced ED symptoms.

Conclusions:

Telemedicine interventions showed promising positive findings as a complementary tool for face-to-face ED treatment that must be interpreted cautiously. Limited number of systematic reviews selected and their moderate and critically low-quality underscore the need for further research in this area.