Telehealth strategies in the care of people with chronic kidney disease: integrative review.

Objective: to evaluate the evidence about telehealth strategies in caring for people with chronic kidney disease.
Method: integrative literature review. The search for primary studies was carried out in six databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, EMBASE, CINAHL, LILACS, and Scopus. The sample consisted of 48 articles published between 2000 and 2021. The telehealth strategy was applied by a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, nutritionis, and social workers. The type of study, country, strategy applied, setting, population, and professional were extracted from the articles. The studies were selected by reading the title and abstract (phase 1) and then reading them in full (phase 2), categorizing them by telehealth strategy. The results were summarized descriptively and the studies were classified according to their level of evidence.
Results: the home was the most representative in dialysis and conservative treatment. Six categories of telehealth strategies were identified: remote monitoring devices, teleconsultation, digital platforms, apps, multimodality strategies, and telephone contact.
Conclusion: using these strategies for the care of people with chronic kidney disease presents different forms and implementations, being feasible for the renal population at any stage of the disease and applicable by different health professionals with an emphasis on the home environment. The evidence shows that telehealth favors lower cost, accessibility to remote locations, and better monitoring of dialysis with positive resul in symptom control, risk reduction, and patient training.
Background: Telehealth in chronic kidney disease care is feasible and promising. (2) Telehealth is feasible for people at all stages of CKD. (3) Health promotion and monitoring were the most applied by telehealth. (4) Remote care can reduce costs, emergencies, and contac with the clinic. (5) Nurses mainly used telephone contact and teleconferencing.