An evidence map of systematic reviews on models of outpatient care for patients with chronic heart diseases.

BACKGROUND

Chronic heart disease affects millions of people worldwide and the prevalence is increasing. By now, there is an extensive literature on outpatient care of people with chronic heart disease. We aimed to systematically identify and map models of outpatient care for people with chronic heart disease in terms of the interventions included and the outcomes measured and reported to determine areas in need of further research.

METHODS

We created an evidence map of published systematic reviews. PubMed, Cochrane Library (Wiley), Web of Science, and Scopus were searched to identify all relevant articles from January 2000 to June 2021 published in English or German language. From each included systematic review, we abstracted search dates, number and type of included studies, objectives, populations, interventions, and outcomes. Models of care were categorised into six approaches: cardiac rehabilitation, chronic disease management, home-based care, outpatient clinic, telemedicine, and transitional care. Intervention categories were developed inductively. Outcomes were mapped onto the taxonomy developed by the COMET initiative.

RESULTS

The systematic literature search identified 8043 potentially relevant publications on models of outpatient care for patients with chronic heart diseases. Finally, 47 systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria, covering 1206 primary studies (including double counting). We identified six different models of care and described which interventions were used and what outcomes were included to measure their effectiveness. Education-related and telemedicine interventions were described in more than 50% of the models of outpatient care. The most frequently used outcome domains were death and life impact.

CONCLUSION

Evidence on outpatient care for people with chronic heart diseases is broad. However, comparability is limited due to differences in interventions and outcome measures. Outpatient care for people with coronary heart disease and atrial fibrillation is a less well-studied area compared to heart failure. Our evidence mapping demonstrates the need for a core outcome set and further studies to examine the effects of models of outpatient care or different interventions with adjusted outcome parameters.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO (CRD42020166330).