Primary health care nurse use of telehealth for women's sexual and reproductive health services: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Background: Primary health care nurses (PHCNs) deliver women's sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, and telehealth services are within their scope of practice. Despite the WHO resolution about eHealth in 2005 and increased use of telehealth during COVID-19, the extent to which PHC nurses have used telehealth technology to deliver SRH care in the international literature is not clear. Aim/Objectives: To explore how telehealth is used by PHCNs in the delivery of women's SRH care. Method(s) A scoping review of peer-reviewed primary research papers was undertaken following a Joanna Briggs Institute approach. Seven databases were searched including papers from 2005-December 2021 and published in English language. A grey literature search was used to identify current national or international policy or strategy documents about nurse roles in telehealth. Extracted data were then entered in NVivo and conceptual categories were mapped from descriptive summaries. Finding(s) Our database search yielded 745 papers and of these, eight papers met our inclusion criteria and were included in the review. The search of grey literature yielded 21 documents that met our inclusion criteria. Papers were largely from the United Kingdom (n=5), part of interventional trials (n=5) or used synchronous telehealth methods (n=5). Papers about patient perspectives described acceptability of SRH telehealth services (n=4). Grey literature revealed policy support for telehealth implementation as an approach to improving patient-centred care, were largely from the northern hemisphere (n=15) or outlined case studies of nurse use of telehealth (n=11). From all included documents, SRH care most commonly addressed pregnancy (n=6), cervical cancer screening (n=4), sexual health (n=3), and abortion (n=2). Implications Evidence about the use of telehealth by PHCNs for SRH care is lacking. Opportunities exist to address women's health policy and service gaps, and better describe and optimise PHCN involvement in telehealth care.