Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Oct 8, 2025
Date Accepted: Dec 22, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Communication Strategies for Promoting Patient Engagement in Telemedicine: A Systematic Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
The rapid growth of telemedicine offers convenience, flexibility, and accessibility for patients to have healthcare services worldwide. To succeed in telemedicine, healthcare practitioners and telemedicine tools must engage patients through effective communication. However, a research gap exists in understanding the communication strategies employed in telemedicine and how they effectively engage patients.
Objective:
This study aims to identify communication strategies influencing patient engagement in telemedicine with provider-patient interactions as well as how included studies evaluate patient engagement through a systematic review.
Methods:
We searched the literature comprehensively using three databases, Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus, from inception to August 2025. We included articles that examined communication strategies affecting patient engagement in telemedicine with provider-patient interactions. We used content analysis to identify texts that were related to Theme 1: the communication strategies affecting patient engagement; and Theme 2: evaluation of patient engagement. Coded texts were analyzed to develop subthemes and themes of identified communication strategies. Methods for evaluating patient engagement were summarized. We used Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool to assess the quality of research included in this study.
Results:
This study systematically reviewed 28 peer-reviewed articles, revealing three overarching themes of effective communication strategies that enhance patient engagement: interpersonal communication strategies, with six subthemes (building relationships, supportive attitude, interactive dialogic loop, nonverbal communication, professionalism and accuracy, and tailored communication); team-level communication strategies, with three subthemes (training and preparation, teamwork and care coordination, and cultural and linguistic sensitivity); and system-level communication strategies, with three subthemes (usefulness of information, ease of use, and data privacy and security). We also found that included studies predominantly used qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews and focus groups, to collect patient engagement data.
Conclusions:
This study systematically reviewed 28 peer-reviewed articles, revealing three overarching themes of effective communication strategies that enhance patient engagement: interpersonal communication strategies, with six subthemes (building relationships, supportive attitude, interactive dialogic loop, nonverbal communication, professionalism and accuracy, and tailored communication); team-level communication strategies, with three subthemes (training and preparation, teamwork and care coordination, and cultural and linguistic sensitivity); and system-level communication strategies, with three subthemes (usefulness of information, ease of use, and data privacy and security). We also found that included studies predominantly used qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews and focus groups, to collect patient engagement data.
Citation
