Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Chronic diseases as defined have long standing periods and slowly progress. These conditions are very costly for patients and countries health care systems. The Patients need long-term care and ongoing training and guidance about the treatment from the team. Tele nursing has the capacity to facilitate the access of the patients to these services at the lowest cost. The purpose of this study was to evaluate some common types of chronic disease in which tele nursing has been used and the outcomes of this type of care is reported. Methods: In this systematic review, the full texts of all articles in Persian and English related to reports of tele nursing in chronic diseases searched by these keywords: Tele nursing, follow-up with phone calls, chronic illness, nurses and cost effectiveness. Persian medical and allied health care databases included Magiran, Iran, Medex, SID, Nindex, Ministry of Health website and English-language articles on following international databases: ProQuest, PubMed, ELSEVIER, Ovid,Scopus retrieval of articles spanned From August 2004 until August 2014. Results: Of the 31 articles reviewed 8 articles were in Iranian journals and 23 articles were published in international journals. Focus of the 26 articles (84%) were on the use of remote nursing care and outcomes in chronic heart failure, type 2 diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. Conclusion: Providing tele nursing cares in chronic patients have led to increased efficiency in adherence to the treatment regimen, reduced mortality rates and costs, reduced depression and anxiety, decreased hospitalizations and improvement of quality of life in patients.