Telemedicine and insomnia: a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis.

5 Repeated evidence

What this means for you: this is established.

Type of study: meta-analysis or systematic review
Studied in: people
Participants: not stated in the abstract
Published: 2022 in Sleep medicine
Cited: 13 times by other research
Who paid: Not declared. PubMed carries no conflict-of-interest statement for most articles; that is not the same as independent.
Source: PubMed 35151065 · doi 10.1016/j.sleep.2022.01.016

The plain-language write-up of this study is still being written. Below is the abstract exactly as the researchers published it.

Abstract by the researchers — original text

BACKGROUND: Telemedicine has been introduced as a new and effective method in dealing with public health challenges, improving access to health care, and reducing healthcare costs in today's world. Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder that can be managed with cognitive behavioural therapy, however, access to skilled therapists is an issue. Telemedicine improves access to care and thus, it may facilitate management of insomnia. The aim of this study was to assess whether telemedicine can be as effective as traditional in person sleep medicine service for the diagnosis, follow-up, and treatment of insomnia. METHODS: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, studies related to telemedicine and insomnia were identified and selected, using the keywords of telemedicine, insomnia, sleep disorder, treatment, non-pharmacological treatment. The international databases of Embase, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science (WoS), and Google Scholar were searched without a lower time limit, and until July 12, 2021. Data were analysed within the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (version 2) software, and the significance level of the test was considered P ˂ 0.05. RESULTS: A systematic review of 16 selected studies showed that telemedicine interventions have a positive effect on improving insomnia in different groups. The meta-analysis was performed on 2 studies. Based on the results, CBTI interventions based on telemedicine have a greater effect on improving chronic insomnia than face to face CBTI with an average difference of 2.05 ± 0.66 based on the random effects model. Moreover, the difference between the mean in the telemedicine intervention group and the non-intervention group was 0.65 ± 0.19, which shows the positive effect of the telemedicine intervention. CONCLUSION: The use of telemedicine in treatment of insomnia not only accelerates access to sleep services, but can also improve the efficiency of health services in terms of time and cost, as well as therapeutic effects.