Background Telemedicine is increasingly being leveraged, as the need for remote access to health care has been driven by the rising chronic disease incidence and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also important to understand patients’ willingness to pay (WTP) for telemedicine and the factors contributing toward it, as this knowledge may inform health policy planning processes, such as resource allocation or the development of a pricing strategy for telemedicine services. Currently, most of the published literature is focused on cost-effectiveness analysis findings, which guide health care financing from the health system’s perspective. However, there is limited exploration of the WTP from a patient’s perspective, despite it being pertinent to the sustainability of telemedicine interventions. Objective To address this gap in research, this study aims to conduct a systematic review to describe the WTP for telemedicine interventions and to identify the factors influencing WTP among patients with chronic diseases in high-income settings. Methods We systematically searched 4 databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, and EconLit). A total of 2 authors were involved in the appraisal. Studies were included if they reported the WTP amounts or identified the factors associated with patients’ WTP, involved patients aged ≥18 years who were diagnosed with chronic diseases, and were from high-income settings. Results A total of 11 studies from 7 countries met this study’s inclusion criteria. The proportion of people willing to pay for telemedicine ranged from 19% to 70% across the studies, whereas the values for WTP amounts ranged from US $0.89 to US $821.25. We found a statistically significant correlation of age and distance to a preferred health facility with the WTP for telemedicine. Higher age was associated with a lower WTP, whereas longer travel distance was associated with a higher WTP. Conclusions On the basis of our findings, the following are recommendations that may enhance the WTP: exposure to the telemedicine intervention before assessing the WTP, the lowering of telemedicine costs, and the provision of patient education to raise awareness on telemedicine’s benefits and address patients’ concerns. In addition, we recommend that future research be directed at standardizing the reporting of WTP studies with the adoption of a common metric for WTP amounts, which may facilitate the generalization of findings and effect estimates.

This research, using data from the Community Criminal Courts where a majority of elderly offenders are tried and sentenced, investigates the socio-economic profile of elderly offenders and the factors influencing their criminal motivation in Singapore. It revisits conceptualizations of offending in older age which until now has received scant attention even in Asian societies where ties to conventional institutions are thought to be “protective.” The majority of elderly offenders in this study were “revolving door prisoners” and were never in possession of any efficacious social capital that would have prevented them from committing a crime or enabled their re-entry process, a problem compounded by the study’s findings that almost 70% of the sampled offenders had experienced mental health issues. This would have spelled adverse consequences for their desistance and, conversely, their recidivist behavior, a finding that was consistent with many other studies that had examined the association between psychosis and crime.

BACKGROUND Telemedicine is increasingly being leveraged on, with the need for remote access to healthcare driven by the rise of chronic disease incidence and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also important to understand patients’ willingness to pay (WTP) for telemedicine and the factors contributing towards it as this knowledge may inform health policy planning processes like resource allocation or developing a pricing strategy for telemedicine services. Most of the published literature is focused on cost-effectiveness analysis findings to guide financing from health system’s perspective. However, there is limited exploration of the WTP from a patient’s perspective which is pertinent for sustainability of an intervention. OBJECTIVE To address this gap, we aimed to conduct a systematic review to describe the WTP for telemedicine interventions and to identify the factors influencing WTP among patients with chronic diseases in developed settings. METHODS We systematically searched 4 databases (PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, EconLit). Two authors were involved in the appraisal. Studies were included if they reported the WTP amounts and/or identified the factors associated with patients’ WTP, included patients above 18 years of age, those diagnosed with chronic diseases and were from developed settings. RESULTS 11 studies from 7 countries met the study’s inclusion criteria. The proportion of people willing to pay for telemedicine ranged from 19% to 70% across the studies, while the values for WTP amounts ranged from 0.885 USD to 821.25 USD. We found statistically significant correlation of age and distance to preferred health facility with WTP for telemedicine: while higher age was associated with lower WTP, longer travel distance was associated with higher WTP. CONCLUSIONS Based on our findings, the following are recommendations which may enhance WTP: exposure to the telemedicine intervention prior to assessing WTP, lowering of telemedicine costs, and providing patient education to raise awareness on telemedicine’s benefits and address patients’ concerns. Additionally, we recommend future research be directed at standardizing the reporting of WTP studies with adoption of a common metric for WTP amount ,which may facilitate generalization of findings and effect estimates.