Telemedicine satisfaction in patients with movement disorders

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the satisfaction after a telemedicine consultation in comparison to previous experiences in face-to-face visits in persons with a movement disorder. Background: SARS-COV2 virus pandemic has established the need to quickly change the way of providing medical care. Telemedicine has shown promise for management of chronic disorders, included neurological conditions, get in particular importance in movement disorders (MD), where the combination of disease progression, mobility limitations, and the sparse distribution of MD specialists increase the difficulty to access. Design/Methods: A cross-sectional study, including subjects from three different private outpatient and a public tertiary referral center in Mexico. April 2020 and May 2020. After a successful connection written informed consent form and satisfaction survey was sent via email (Google Forms) for the subject to fill out anonymously. The questionnaire has been previously used by Hanson et al. and consist of 20 items assessing the satisfaction and ease of use-related items, setup-related items, and quality-of-service-related items. Results: A total of 175 teleconsultations were successfully performed. Age range, 60% were ≥60 years, 24% were 45 to 59 years old, and the remaining <45 years. 50% had a college or post grade degree, 7.4% advanced technician degree, 13.7% bachelor degree. The mean time used to prepare the teleconsultation was 14.3 ± 14.2 minutes (range 0 to 90 minutes). A total of 94 (53.8%) considered that the teleconsultation visit involved much less time in comparison to face-to-face visits. 92% were satisfied or very satisfied with neurologist ability to communicate recommendations 164 (93.7%) of the subjects indicated that the teleconsultation was valuable, and 90.9% considered that they would recommend teleconsultation to another patient with similar health conditions. Conclusions: Results indicate that patients with movement disorders see telemedicine as a convenient and potential tool;this study found satisfaction of the patients towards the telemedicine.