Frequency of Modification of Pharmacological Treatment Is Equivalent for Virtual and In-Person Psychiatric Visits

During the coronavirus pandemic there was a rapid adoption of telehealth services in psychiatry, which now accounts for 40% of all visits. There is a dearth of information about the relative efficacy of virtual and in-person psychiatric evaluations.

We examined the rate of medication changes during virtual and in-person visits as a proxy for the equivalence of clinical decision-making.

A total of 280 visits among 173 patients were evaluated. The majority of these visits were telehealth (224, 80%). There were 96 medication changes among the telehealth visits (42.8%) and 21 among the in-person visits (37.5%) (z = -1.4, p = 0.16).

Clinicians were equally as likely to order a medication change if they saw their patient virtually or in person. This suggests that remote assessments yielded similar conclusions to in-person assessments.