Original Article PATIENT ACCEPTABILITY AND SATISFACTION FOR TELEMEDICINE IN COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION:

The emergence of Covid-19 back in 2020 quickly caused a global crisis unparalleled in modern history which made humanity spring into action with the will to fight back, with social distancing being one of the biggest weapons. This measure, then, breathed a new life back into telemedicine, with the idea in mind that a computer virus is the only infection that telemedicine can possibly transmit. While there has been much research on telemedicine in pre-covid times, we saw only a limited amount of research set during the pandemic when, particularly, its use skyrocketed, which puts much emphasis on the need of our research.

METHODS:

We collected data from the Telemedicine clinic of University of Peshawar using questionnaires named TUQ(Telehealth Usability Questionnaire) and TSQ(Telehealth satisfaction Questionnaire), analyzed it using SPSS version 22 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) for windows and presented it in the form of histogram, pie charts, bar charts and frequency tables.

RESULTS:

The data revealed that a large number of patients, 157 out of 224, which is 70% were well satisfied upon using the services. The results of acceptability were no different, as 90.2% of participants, 202 out of 224, were agreed to the system being usable and acceptable, partly or strongly.

CONCLUSION:

This was a very strong result that suggested telemedicine potentially being the future. But our research targeted mostly literate people while the literacy rate of Pakistan in 62.3%. Furthermore, telemedicine is found to be great for stable OPD patients only but not for critical patients as those in the ICU.

KEY WORDS:
Telemedicine, Out Patient Department, Intensive Care Unit, Patient Satisfaction..