Table 1.
Included reviews.
| Study | Number of applicable PRISMAa criteria met, n/N (%) | Type of review | Population | Intervention | Comparison | Relevant outcomes captured | Study designs included | Outcome of internet-based psychosocial oncology interventions |
| Agboola et al [34] | 15/21 (71) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Patients with cancer | Telephone-based interventions (N/Ab), telephone-based interventions in conjunction with web-based systems, and web-based interventions | Any | Depression and QoLc | RCTd | Among internet-based interventions, 4/4 (100%) found improvements in depression and 2/2 (100%) found improvements in health-related QoL. |
| Beatty and Lambert [31] | 16/21 (76) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Adults (aged ≥18 years) with a chronic physical health condition | Self-help internet-based psychosocial therapeutic interventions; within cancer: only iCBTe | Any | Distress, QoL, and well-being | RCT, quasi-randomized trial, or feasibility RCT study | Did not find significant improvements in distress, QoL, or well-being. |
| Chen et al [35] | 23/27 (85) | Meta-analysis | Patients with breast cancer | Telehealth intervention, defined as that delivered by telephone (N/A), internet-based interfaces, or other remote information systems, which can overcome the barriers of time and distance (N/A) | Usual care alone | QoL, depression, anxiety, distress, and perceived stress | RCT | Meta-analysis found a significant between-group effect for depression but not for QoL. |
| Forbes et al [36] | 21/21 (100) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Prostate cancer survivors | Web-based interventions designed to improve supportive care outcomes | Included single-arm studies and studies with any comparison group | Cancer-related distress, health-related QoL, and depressive symptoms | Single-arm feasibility or acceptability study or randomized trial | Mixed findings for significant between-group effects on distress (1/2, 50% studies). Significant pre-post effects for both depression and QoL but no significant between-group effects for depression and mixed effects for QoL. |
| Fridriksdottir et al [21] | 13/21 (62) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Adult patients with cancer | Internet or web-based interventions | Any type of control group (standard care or wait-list or usual face-to-face care or different types of internet-based intervention) | Distress, anxiety, and depression | RCT, pilot RCT, or quasi-experimental studies | Mixed evidence for between-group effects anxiety. Few studies finding significant intervention effects for distress (2/6, 33% studies) and depression (2/7, 28% studies). |
| Goliță and Băban [37] | 19/21 (90) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Adults (aged >18 years) diagnosed with cancer in curative treatment or survivorship phase | Web-based psychotherapeutic interventions | Wait-list, placebo, usual-care, treatment-as-usual, or standard-of-care conditions | Psychological distress and QoL | RCT | In all, 8/11 (73%) studies found significant between-group effects for distress, and 4/10 (40%) studies found significant between-group effects for QoL. |
| Griffiths et al [17] | 13/21 (62) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Individuals part of internet support groups (studies relevant to cancer separated out in results) | Online support groups with a discussion focus on health or psychology | Any or none | Depressive symptoms | Quantitative or qualitative studies | In all, 4/4 (100%) studies without a control group found significant pre-post effects for depression, and 1/3 (33%) with a control group found significant between-group effects. |
| Hong et al [38] | 15/21 (71) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Adult cancer survivors | Web-based support or resources | Any or none | Distress, QoL, stress, depression, health-related QoL, psychological well-being, and emotional well-being | Quantitative or qualitative studies | No positive outcomes found for distress, QoL, or well-being compared with control. |
| Ihrig et al [39] | 17/21 (81) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Men diagnosed with prostate cancer and their caregivers and significant others | Web-based peer-to-peer support within online support groups or other forms of interactive peer-to-peer communication in social media | Any (eg, face-to-face support groups, psychosocial interventions, standard care, other, or none) | QoL | Not specified | In all, 1/1 (100%) study investigating QoL found significant between-group effects at 6 weeks but not 8 weeks. |
| Larson et al [40] | 20/27 (74) | Systematic review and meta-analysis | Adult patients with cancer, in active treatment | Telehealth or telemedicine, including, but not limited to, telephone calls (N/A) and web-based interventions; focused on emotional support or self-management of symptoms through counseling, educational intervention, or telepsychiatry | Any or none | QoL | Not specified | In all, 1/3 (33%) studies found significant pre-post effects for QoL. |
| McAlpine et al [41] | 15/21 (71) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Adult cancer survivors | Web-based interactive intervention for patient education, to connect patients with each other or connect patients with their health care clinicians | Any or none | QoL, distress, and stress | Not specified | In all, 1/1 (100%) study found favorable results for stress, 1/2 (50%) found favorable results for anxiety, and 3/6 (50%) studies found favorable results for depression. In addition, 0/2 (0%) studies found favorable results for distress, and 2/5 (40%) studies found favorable results for QoL. |
| Moradian et al [42] | 13/21 (62) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Adult patients with cancer (aged >18 years) receiving chemotherapy | eHealth, web, and app-based interventions | Any | Health-related QoL, distress, anxiety, and depression | Randomized or nonrandomized controlled trials and pre-post or quasi-experimental intervention studies with a comparison group | Only studies reviewing distress and depression found significant between-group effects. In all, 0/1 (0%) studies found significant between-group effects for QoL, and 1/2 (50%) study found significant between-group effects for anxiety. |
| Paul et al [43] | 11/21 (52) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Patients with common chronic conditions | Web-based interventions designed to improve psychological well-being or QoL | Any or none | Depression, anxiety, QoL, psychological well-being, emotional well-being, and social well-being | Not specified | In all, 2/2 (100%) studies found significant pre-post improvements in depression, stress, and QoL, and 0/2 (0%) studies found positive effects for well-being. |
| Qan’ir and Song [44] | 18/21 (86) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Patients with prostate cancer | Technology-based interventions | Any | Depression, anxiety, and QoL | RCT or quasi-experimental research design | In all, 1/4 (25%) study found significant improvements for anxiety, 2/6 (33%) studies found significant improvements for depression, and 1/6 (17%) study found significant improvements for health-related QoL. A study found significant between-group improvement for depression. |
| Seiler et al [45] | 25/27 (93) | Systematic review with meta-analysis | Cancer survivors | eHealth or mHealthf interventions | Any or none | Health-related QoL, depression, and psychological distress | RCT, cross‐sectional survey, prospective case‐control or cohort study, pilot study, longitudinal observational study, or qualitative survey | Meta-analysis found a significant between-group effect for depression and health-related QoL. In all, 1/2 (50%) study found a significant decrease in distress. |
| Toivonen et al [33] | 19/21 (90) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Individuals with chronic physical health conditions | Web-based mindfulness-based interventions | Any or none | Stress and psychological distress | RCTs, non-RCTs, and uncontrolled studies | A study found significant pre-post effects for psychological distress. Another study found significant between-group effects for stress. |
| Triberti et al [46] | 15/21 (71) | Systematic review with narrative synthesis | Patients with breast cancer | Internet-based interventions, support groups, and apps | Any or none | QoL, depression, stress, anxiety, and emotional well-being | Not specified | Overall positive effects found for depression, anxiety, stress, QoL, and emotional well-being. |
| Wang et al [47] | 25/26 (96)g | Systematic review and meta-analysis | Patients with cancer | Internet-based psychoeducation interventions | Standard or usual care or a conditional control group | QoL, depression, and distress | RCT or clinical controlled trial | Meta-analysis found significant between-group effects for depression but not distress or QoL. |
| Xu et al [16] | 26/27 (96) | Systematic review and meta-analysis | Adult patients with cancer | eHealth-based health care | Non–eHealth-based control conditions | QoL | RCT | Meta-analysis did not find significant between-group effects for QoL. |
| Zhu et al [48] | 14/21 (67) | Integrative review | Women with breast cancer | Internet and app-based support and symptom management programs | Any or none | QoL and depression | Quantitative or qualitative studies | In all, 1/2 (50%) study found significant pre-post effects for QoL. A study found that QoL improved more in the control group. A study found a significant between-group effect for depression. |
aPRISMA: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.
bN/A: not applicable.
cQoL: quality of life.
dRCT: randomized controlled trial.
eiCBT: internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy.
fmHealth: mobile health.
gItem 23 (“Give results of additional analyses, if done [eg, sensitivity or subgroup analyses, meta-regression; see Item 16]”) was not applicable as no additional analyses were conducted in this review.