People’s Experiences and Satisfaction With Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Abstract

Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has rapidly been adopted to deliver health care services around the world. To date, studies have not compared people’s experiences with telehealth services during the pandemic in Australia to their experiences with traditional in-person visits. Objective This study aimed to compare participants’ perceptions of telehealth consults to their perceptions of traditional in-person visits and investigate whether people believe that telehealth services would be useful after the pandemic. Methods A national, cross-sectional, community survey was conducted between June 5 and June 12, 2020 in Australia. In total, 1369 participants who were aged ≥18 years and lived in Australia were recruited via targeted advertisements on social media (ie, Facebook and Instagram). Participants responded to survey questions about their telehealth experience, which included a free-text response option. A generalized linear model was used to estimate the adjusted relative risks of having a poorer telehealth experience than a traditional in-person visit experience. Content analysis was performed to determine the reasons why telehealth experiences were worse than traditional in-person visit experiences. Results Of the 596 telehealth users, the majority of respondents (n=369, 61.9%) stated that their telehealth experience was “just as good as” or “better than” their traditional in-person medical appointment experience. On average, respondents perceived that telehealth would be moderately useful to very useful for medical appointments after the COVID-19 pandemic ends (mean 3.67, SD 1.1). Being male (P=.007), having a history of both depression and anxiety (P=.016), and lower patient activation scores (ie, individuals’ willingness to take on the role of managing their health/health care) (P=.036) were significantly associated with a poor telehealth experience. In total, 6 overarching themes were identified from free-text responses for why participants’ telehealth experiences were poorer than their traditional in-person medical appointment experiences, as follows: communication is not as effective, limitations with technology, issues with obtaining prescriptions and pathology results, reduced confidence in their doctor, additional burden for complex care, and inability to be physically examined. Conclusions Based on our sample’s responses, telehealth appointment experiences were comparable to traditional in-person medical appointment experiences. Telehealth may be worthwhile as a mode of health care delivery while the pandemic continues, and it may continue to be worthwhile after the pandemic.

Telehealth in Times of COVID-19: Spotlight on Austria

“…The data show that the majority of the respondents (90%) were satisfied or very satisfied with the help or treatment they received via phone, email, chat, or video services, as the process was easy to manage and worked well. These findings are in line with previous research reporting high satisfaction rates with the use of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic in different settings, for example in the context of gastroenterology [ 22 ] and epilepsy patients [ 23 ] in the United States, or among Australian adults [ 24 ]. Moreover, high satisfaction with the use of telehealth was also observed in earlier studies prior to the COVID-19 pandemic [ 25 , 26 ].…”

How Australian Health Care Services Adapted to Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Survey of Telehealth Professionals

“…According to the same survey "almost half (49%) reported they were likely to use telehealth services in the future." A separate national study of people's experiences and satisfaction with telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia by Isautier et al (22) found that "telehealth appointments were reported to be comparable to traditional in-person medical appointments by most of our sample (p. 2).…”

The Association between Future Anxiety, Health Literacy and the Perception of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…It should be added that an earlier study performed in a representative sample of the Polish population suggested that attitudes to key public health interventions were related to the level of HL but not eHL (measured with Pl-eHEALS) [95]. Furthermore, eHL was not a significant predictor of the quality of telehealth experience during the COVID-19 pandemic in the sample of patients from Australia [96]. In agreement with the findings described in our paper, Kubb & Foran did not observe a meaningful contribution of eHL to a parent's change of stress level when searching the web for current somatic health issues related to their own or their children's symptoms [97].…”