Roles Caregivers Take on in Pediatric Rehabilitation Telehealth Services: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Background:

Caregivers and children continue to use pediatric rehabilitation telehealth services (PRTS) post-pandemic. Understanding how caregivers support children during PRTS can help us fully integrate caregivers for positive outcomes. This scoping review describes the roles caregivers take on during PRTS.

Methods:

We searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and ERIC for research published January 2005 to July 2023. We included English articles on the effect of PRTS. We excluded qualitative and non–peer-reviewed literature.

Results:

Thirty-four articles met inclusion criteria. Caregivers were gatekeepers, technicians, implementers, trainees, collaborators, telehealth consumers, and supervisors in PRTS. Caregivers took on roles throughout PRTS, and roles varied by type of PRTS delivered.

Conclusions:

Caregivers take on multiple roles to support children during PRTS. Our results can inform clinical decisions about how to integrate and support caregivers in PRTS. Future research should explore strategies that support caregiver role taking to maximize caregiver involvement and outcomes in PRTS.

Plain Language Summary

The Roles Caregivers Play to Support Their Children During Pediatric Telehealth Services

Caregivers and children continue to use telehealth services because they are convenient for busy family schedules and result in positive child outcomes. Since caregivers impact how children participate in therapy and the goals they achieve, we need to understand what caregivers do to support their children during telehealth interventions. Therefore, we reviewed published articles on telehealth services for children to describe the roles caregivers play during telehealth interventions. We searched medical, health, psychology, and education databases for articles published between January 2005 and July 2023. We included articles written in English that reported the results of telehealth services for children. We excluded articles that reported caregiver perceptions of telehealth services for children because those articles described how caregivers participated in interviews or focus groups, not the telehealth intervention. Thirty-four articles were included in this review. Caregivers shared information with providers and made decisions for the family (gatekeepers), managed telehealth technologies (technicians), participated in formal training to learn interventions (trainees), carried out the interventions (implementers), worked with providers to identify challenges and solutions (collaborators), accessed and engaged with telehealth technology to complete the intervention (telehealth consumers), and watched over child during sessions for safety (supervisors). Caregivers took on roles before, during, and after the telehealth intervention. The roles they played varied by the type of telehealth intervention provided. Our results can help occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) make decisions about the best ways to involve caregivers in telehealth services for children. Future research should explore factors and strategies that support caregivers as they take on roles during telehealth services for children.