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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/35438, first published .
A Validated Questionnaire to Evaluate Primary Care Pediatrician Satisfaction With the Use of Teledermatology

A Validated Questionnaire to Evaluate Primary Care Pediatrician Satisfaction With the Use of Teledermatology

A Validated Questionnaire to Evaluate Primary Care Pediatrician Satisfaction With the Use of Teledermatology

Authors of this article:

Juan Carlos Palazón Cabanes1 Author Orcid Image ;   G Juan Carpena1 Author Orcid Image ;   L Berbegal García1 ;   T Martínez Miravete2 ;   B Palazón Cabanes3 ;   I Betlloch Mas1, 4 Author Orcid Image
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    Abstract

    1Department of Dermatology, Alicante University General Hospital, Institute for Health and Biomedical Research, Alicante, Spain

    2Department of Pediatrics, Alicante University General Hospital, Institute for Health and Biomedical Research, Alicante, Spain

    3Department of Neurology, University Clinical Hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca, Murcia, Spain

    4Department of Dermatology, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, Alicante, Spain

    Corresponding Author:

    Juan Carlos Palazón Cabanes, MD

    Department of Dermatology

    Alicante University General Hospital

    Institute for Health and Biomedical Research

    Pintor Baeza, 11

    Alicante, 03010

    Spain

    Phone: 34 965 93 30 00

    Email: juancazu2@gmail.com


    Background: Teledermatology (TD) is a branch of telemedicine focused on the evaluation of cutaneous lesions by dermatologists remotely, in order to avoid unnecessary in-person consults that could be otherwise resolved by this method, and to shorten the time required for prompt evaluation of cutaneous diseases.

    Objective: This study aimed to create and validate a questionnaire to evaluate satisfaction with the use of TD among primary care pediatricians (PCPs) and to test the questionnaire in our health area before performing an intervention for the optimization of TD.

    Methods: We first created a questionnaire based on previous publications. Then, an expert consultation was made before drafting the final version of the questionnaire. We tested it twice among pediatricians of different health areas, with a 1-month gap between both evaluations. Internal consistency, reproducibility, and validity of the questionnaire were evaluated. Finally, the validated questionnaire was tested among the PCPs of our health area, to analyze their responses.

    Results: We registered 38 questionnaire responses. In all, 30 (78.9%) PCPs actively used TD several times within a month or a year; none of them used TD daily. Technical and health care quality of TD was mostly considered as good or very good. TD was regarded as similar or even better than face-to-face evaluation for most PCPs, whereas 7.9% (3/38) of PCPs thought TD was worse than conventional consults. Most PCPs considered TD as an effective, self-learning, and trustable tool, and 10.5% (4/38) of them identified that pictures captured by mobile phones were a barrier for its use, as it affects patient privacy. Technical problems, absence of exclusive devices for image taking, and delayed answers are some other barriers for TD that need to be overcome. Nonetheless, all PCPs were satisfied with TD, and all of them reported they would continue or start to use this tool.

    Conclusions: TD has demonstrated to be an efficient tool, as it reduces waiting time and costs for dermatology evaluation, and it increases satisfaction among professionals. With our proposed questionnaire, we validated that quality, usability, efficacy, and satisfaction related to TD in our health area had a positive consideration among PCPs in general, but there still are barriers to overcome.

    Conflict of Interest: None declared.

    iproc 2021;7(1):e35438

    doi:10.2196/35438

    Keywords

    teledermatology; pediatric dermatology; satisfaction questionnaire 

    Multimedia Appendix 1

    Questionnaire responses to evaluate quality, usefulness, limitations, and satisfaction with the use of teledermatology among primary care pediatricians.

    PNG File , 134 KB
    Multimedia Appendix 2

    Frequency of use of teledermatology by primary care pediatricians.

    PNG File , 62 KB

    Edited by T Derrick; This is a non–peer-reviewed article. submitted 03.12.21; accepted 03.12.21; published 17.12.21

    Copyright

    ©Juan Carlos Palazón Cabanes, G Juan Carpena, L Berbegal García, T Martínez Miravete, B Palazón Cabanes, I Betlloch Mas. Originally published in Iproceedings (https://www.iproc.org), 17.12.2021.

    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.