The Effect of Tele-Nursing Practices to the Schizophrenia Patient Care: A Systematic Review

Objective: This study is a systematic review that was conducted in an attempt to evaluate the tele-nursing interventions being used in the schizophrenia patient care and the efficiency of these interventions. Method: The study was conducted by checking the Pubmed, Cinahl, Science Direct, Wiley Interscience, Ulakbim Medicine Database and the Turkish Medline database. The English keywords were translated with "nursing by telephone" that is the only term involved in the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) index for English keywords and TST (Turkish Scientific Terms) for Turkish keywords. A total of six articles that met the inclusion criteria were involved in the evaluation. Results: According to the study findings that were evaluated within the scope of the systematic review, it was observed that the tele-nursing interventions were limited with Telephone Intervention Problem Solving-TIPS. It was determined that the TIPS intervention extended the time spent by schizophrenia patients in society and decreased the duration of days being spent at the hospital after every rehospitalization and the number of applications for rehospitalization. It was also observed to increase the adherence to the psychiatric medication and social functioning, decrease the level of psychiatric symptoms after the discharge. Besides, the face-to-face interviews being conducted before the TIPS intervention were observed to develop the verbal communication skills of patients. Conclusion: According to this systematic review, the quantitative limitation of relevant studies is limited with the phone applications of tele-nursing interventions; however, it has positive results.