Table 2.

Patient characteristics and recruitment procedures of included studies

Author(s) (year)	Age, mean (s.d.), years			Female sex, n (%)	Inclusion criteria	Recruitment procedures	Number of participants	Lost to follow-up, n (%)
	Overall	Control	Intervention
Blixen et al. (2004) [20]	NS	69.9 (5.9)	71.7 (6.3)	12 (38)	Dx OA, $\ge$60 years old	Letter sent to patients seen in two rheumatology clinics in previous 6 months	32	2 (6)
Pariser & O’Hanlon (2005) [12]	64.4 (7.5)	NS	NS	68 (80)	Dx of RA or OA, $55$years old	Patients from two rheumatology clinics	85	NS
Stinson et al. (2010) [16]	14.6 (1.5)	14.4 (1.3)	14.8 (1.7)	31 (67)	Dx JIA, English- and French-speaking adolescents aged 12–18 years who completed baseline online assessment	Patients from four tertiary care rheumatology clinics	46	6 (13)
Poulsen et al. (2015) [22]	54.2 (17–81)a	NS	NS	NS	NS	Patients invited at time of clinic appointment and offered a survey	108	0 0
Vallejo et al. (2015) [18]	51.6 (9.9)	53.5 (8.6)	49.8 (11.0)	60 (100)	Dx FM with adequate reading comprehension and access to computer, $18$years old	Patients from one rheumatology unit in major city	60	7 (12)
Kessler et al. (2016) [19]	NS	NS	NS	NS	NS	Surveys offered to parents and guardians of children seen at a routine follow-up appointment in a paediatric rheumatology clinic	338	NS
Salaffi et al. (2016) [17]	NS	50.2 (16.3)	49.2 (15.2)	31 (70)	Dx RA, disease onset <1 year, CDAI $\ge 22$, $\ge$18 years old	NS	44	3 (7)
Ramelet et al. (2016) [13]	13.1	NS	NS	NS	NS	Patients invited in rheumatology clinic of a tertiary referral hospital	55	3 (5)
Taylor-Gjevre et al. (2018) [21]	56.4 (11.5)	53.1 (12.2)	58.4 (10.7)	68 (80)	Dx RA who reside ≥100 km outside Saskatoon or Regina	Participants identified through Saskatoon rheumatology databases and invited via telephone call or clinic visit	85	31 (36)
O’Brien et al. (2018) [25]	NS	60.2 (13.9)	63.0 (11.1)	74 (62)	Dx knee OA, with knee pain lasting >3 months and average pain intensity score >3/10, classified as overweight or obese (BMI >27 or >40 kg/m2, respectively) and $\ge$18 years old	Patients on waiting list for outpatient orthopaedic consultation at a tertiary referral hospital	120	15 (13)
de Thurah et al. (2018) [26]	NS	60.7 (11.1)	60.5 (13.5)b 61.6 (13.5)c	189 (64)	Dx RA >2 years, $\ge$18 years old and Danish language	All consecutive patients with a Dx of RA between May 2014 and July 2015 from two rheumatology clinics were invited to participate	294	19 (6)
Zhao & Chen (2019) [15]	55.5 (10.6)	54.2 (10.1)	56.9 (11.1)	66 (72)	Dx RA,$\mathrm{ }\ge$18 years old and discharged home from hospital	Patients from a university- affiliated and government hospital	92	15 (16)
Song et al. (2020) [14]	55.2 (10.8)	53.2 (10.0)	57.1 (11.3)	55 (60)	Dx RA $\ge$18 years old, discharged from hospital to home and able to speak Chinese	Patients discharged from department of rheumatology in tertiary care hospital	92	15 (16)

^aRange. ^bAge of patients receiving telemedicine intervention by rheumatologist. ^cAge of patients receiving telemedicine intervention by nurse. CDAI: clinical disease activity index; Dx: diagnosis; NS: not specified.