Telehealth interventions for individuals with chronic illness: Research review and implications for practice

This article reviews outcome research on telehealth interventions for individuals with chronic illnesses. Only randomized controlled trials that provided data on specific health, quality of care, or clinical interview outcomes were selected. The overall findings suggested that telehealth interventions have shown promise as effective modes of treatment for people with chronic health conditions. Suggestions for improving the rigor and quality of future research are proposed, including the use of larger samples, conceptually meaningful control groups, cost analyses, strategies for enhancing ethnic minority recruitment, and experimental designs that examine interactions among different types of telecommunication technologies, specific health problems, and different patient populations. Implications for incorporating telehealth into psychological practice are also addressed.