Identifying Predictors of Patient Satisfaction with Telehealth Consultations in German-Speaking Countries: Standardized Online Questionnaire (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Telehealth services can contribute to fulfilling the long-standing promise of patient-centered care, by delivering high-quality care at a location convenient to patients or by increasing patient access to healthcare-related information. In German-speaking countries, telehealth consultations were not particularly widespread before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE We aimed at investigating the experience of patients in German-speaking countries with telehealth consultations, especially with respect to patient satisfaction (expressed as their willingness to have another telehealth consultation, main study outcome) and aspects related to patient empowerment. We hypothesized particularly video consultations to increase patient satisfaction and empowerment related aspects. METHODS A standardized online questionnaire composed of seven quickly answerable questions was used to conduct an online survey in line with published recommendations. To estimate the proportion of patients willing to have another telehealth consultation, the necessary minimum sample size to be studied was determined to be 384 (confidence: 95%; error: 5%; population proportion: 50%, definitive sample size: 411). RESULTS We reached a total of 28,814 followers via social media to obtain more than 5,735 clicks and views, resulting in 411 complete survey responses. 93% of the respondents having had video consultations, but only 32% of those having had phone consultations (66% of all 411) indicated that they would want to have another telehealth consultation again. By far the most important predictor of this main outcome was, whether patients understood the conversation with their healthcare provider. CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate a high acceptance of telehealth consultations by patients in German-speaking countries and emphasize the importance of patients to thoroughly comprehend the communication with their healthcare provider, a prerequisite for patient empowerment. They further provide evidence for video consultations to lead to higher patient satisfaction (reflected by a higher willingness to have another telehealth consultation), and to a higher degree of patient empowerment, than phone consultations.