This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

9th World Congress of Teledermatology, Imaging and AI for Skin Diseases - Abstracts (2021) (40)
Preprints (earlier versions) of this paper are available at https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/35400, first published .
Evaluation of Patient-Initiated Direct Care Mobile Phone–Based Teledermatology During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Evaluation of Patient-Initiated Direct Care Mobile Phone–Based Teledermatology During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Evaluation of Patient-Initiated Direct Care Mobile Phone–Based Teledermatology During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Authors of this article:

Jasleen Kaur1 Author Orcid Image ;   Priyanka Sharma1 Author Orcid Image ;   G P Thami1 Author Orcid Image ;   Maninder Sethi1 Author Orcid Image ;   Shruti Kakar1 Author Orcid Image
Article Authors Cited by (1) Tweetations Metrics

    Abstract

    Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India

    Corresponding Author:

    Jasleen Kaur, MBBS, MD

    Government Medical College and Hospital

    Sector 32

    Chandigarh, 160031

    India

    Phone: 91 172 260 1023

    Email: jasleenksandhu21@gmail.com


    Background: With advances in telecommunication, especially smartphones, teledermatology services offered by specialists are now being directly requested by the patients themselves. This model is known as patient-initiated, direct care teledermatology. It has been pushed to the forefront due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Objective: The objectives of this study were to determine patients’ satisfaction and dermatologists’ confidence when a diagnosis was made via direct care mobile phone–based teledermatology.

    Methods: Patients availing direct care teledermatology services during the COVID-19 pandemic at a tertiary care center were subjected to a questionnaire within 5 days of the teleconsultation to assess patient satisfaction and opinions regarding using this model during and beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. The dermatologists rated their confidence in making the clinical diagnosis on a scale from 1-10 for every case.

    Results: Of 437 participants, 419 (95.9%) were satisfied with this mode of teledermatology. An overwhelming majority (n=428, 97.9%) felt safe consulting the dermatologist via teleconsultation and not having to visit the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, 269 (61.6%) patients agreed that they would be happy to use a teledermatology service beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The dermatologists’ confidence score in making an accurate diagnosis ranged from 3 to 10, with a mean of 9.20 (SD 1.12).

    Conclusions: The high levels of patient satisfaction and dermatologists’ confidence scores indicate that direct care mobile phone–based teledermatology may be a useful tool in providing dermatological services in appropriate settings and its use should continue to be explored beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

    iproc 2021;7(1):e35400

    doi:10.2196/35400

    Keywords

    direct care teledermatology; teledermatology; hybrid teledermatology; patient satisfaction; physician confidence; COVID-19 

    Edited by T Derrick; This is a non–peer-reviewed article. submitted 02.12.21; accepted 03.12.21; published 10.12.21

    Copyright

    ©Jasleen Kaur, Priyanka Sharma, G P Thami, Maninder Sethi, Shruti Kakar. Originally published in Iproceedings (https://www.iproc.org), 10.12.2021.

    This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in Iproceedings, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.iproc.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.