Acceptability of Pediatric Telerehabilitation Interventions Provided by Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists—A Scoping Review

Abstract

Aims

The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the available literature and identify gaps regarding the acceptability of telerehabilitation interventions provided by pediatric physical therapists and occupational therapists.

Methods

We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA-ScR) framework to guide this scoping review. We systematically searched eight scholarly databases (CINAHL, Medline, SPORTDiscus, AMED, APA PsychInfo, SCOPUS, PEDro, OTseeker), five gray literature databases (MedlinePlus, Gray Literature Report, OpenGrey, National Institute for Health, ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global [PQDT]), conducted a manual search of selected references and contacted international experts. We included articles published between 2000 and 2021. Acceptability was defined in accordance with the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability of Sekhon et al.

Results

From a total of 1567 unique references, 123 were deemed eligible for full-text review. Eighteen studies published between 2011 and 2021 were included in this review. Even though every aspect of the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability was assessed from a variety of angles, a complete appreciation of the concept is still lacking for pediatric telerehabilitation.

Conclusions

This review highlights important gaps in our knowledge regarding the acceptability of pediatric telerehabilitation interventions and supports the need for further research focusing on the subject.

Keywords:

• Acceptability
• caregivers
• occupational therapy
• physical therapy
• scoping review
• telerehabilitation

Acknowledgements

The assistance of Mireille Léger-Rousseau, librarian at Sherbrooke University regarding the research strategy was greatly appreciated.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosalie Dostie

Rosalie Dostie is a paediatric physiotherapist. She is currently finishing her master's studies at the University of Sherbrooke with a focus on telerehabilitation. More precisely, she is interested in how to provide acceptable care to ensure adherence, program completion and optimal outcomes for children and their families. Rosalie has worked on several projects over the past few years with the aim of developing and optimizing interventions offered to children with developmental difficulties and aims to reduce access barriers to interventions for children with disabilities.

Isabelle Gaboury

Pre Isabelle Gaboury is professor and director of research at the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Sherbrooke University. She completed her PhD in interprofessional collaboration within Canadian integrative health care programs. She uses her expertise as a methodologist in quantitative and qualitative methods as well as improvement advisor to improve interprofessional collaboration within healthcare teams.

Chantal Camden

Pre Chantal Camden is an Associate Professor at the school of Rehabilitation at Sherbrooke University. She is a physiotherapist by background and completed her PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from the University of Montréal and her Post-Doctoral training at CanChild. Her research focuses on developing, implementing and evaluating evidence-based interventions and service delivery models for children with disabilities. She is also involved in using multimodal web-based services to develop community-based services. She was part of the organizing committee of the first eHealth Summit for therapists in pediatrics.