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The Effectiveness of Using Telemedicine to Follow-up Breast Cancer During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

The coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 outbreak has brought to the agenda that telemedicine (TM) services, which are rapidly spreading in the world, can be effective in reducing face-to-face medical appointments for cancer follow-up and breast cancer screening. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of TM use in the follow-up of women diagnosed with breast cancer during the COVID-19 epidemic. The literature search was carried out in four electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Science Direct, and PsycInfo) until April 14, 2020. Electronic searches started on March 22, 2020, and ended on April 14, 2020. Search terms included were tele-health or telephone and pandemic or SARS-COV-2 outbreak. Search was limited to English language and full-text articles. A total of 334 articles matching the search criteria were identified by the researchers. Five articles with no restrictions in research design met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. In these studies, it was determined that TM services are an effective method for relieving outpatient services in breast cancer follow-up, breast imaging, screening, routine follow-up, and examinations. In addition, these studies concluded that TM services save time, increase access to care, provide improvement, and increase satisfaction levels. It was observed that the demand of women with breast cancer to benefit from TM services was affected by sociodemographic factors (advanced age and low education level, etc.). It is recommended that TM services be taken into account in the realization of individual care and follow-up services for women with breast cancer.