ArticleBMJ open2026
Direct-to-consumer commercial virtual care: a scoping review.
Article in BMJ open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe literature examining direct-to-consumer (DTC) commercial virtual care has expanded rapidly over the past decade. Our objective was to synthesise the nature and range of evidence on DTC commercial virtual care.
designScoping review. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE ALL, EMBASE Classic+Embase, CINAHL, HealthSTAR, PsycINFO, CENTRAL and grey literature sources. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: We included original research studies published in English or French between 1 January 2016 and 30 April 2025 that assessed DTC commercial virtual care in all contexts and in all populations. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Screening titles and abstracts, and full-text manuscripts, and extracting data was done in duplicate. We analysed quantitative data using descriptive statistics and reported findings in tables. We provided a narrative summary of textual data.
resultsAfter excluding duplicates, we identified 8055 studies for title and abstract screening; 691 articles for full-text screening; and 103 studies meeting our inclusion criteria. 32 studies (31.1%) reported financial ties to the virtual care industry. 67 (65.0%) studies were conducted in the USA. Studies were largely quantitative (87/103 (84.5%)) or mixed methods (8/103 (7.8%)) studies and used cross-sectional (85/95 (89.5%)) designs. Most quantitative studies were descriptive, reporting on quality of care, health outcomes, platform characteristics and patient views, with only 24 of the 95 quantitative studies (25.3%) including a control or comparison group. 18 of these 24 studies (75.0%) compared the quality of care, costs and/or utilisation to other models of care and reported variable findings. The rest compared patient characteristics. Few studies assessed clinician perspectives or addressed privacy-related ethical concerns.
conclusionsDespite a large number of studies assessing DTC commercial virtual care, we have little insight into impacts on quality of care, health outcomes, health system utilisation and privacy-related ethical concerns. The financial ties with industry suggest that there may be bias in the body of research literature.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.