Level of patient satisfaction with online psychiatric outdoor services

The COVID-19 global pandemic exposed gaps in the treatment of common physical and mental disorders that had to do with things like lockdowns, poor convenience, fear of contracting COVID, and economic constraints. Hence, to address these treatment gaps while also limiting exposure to the COVID-19 infection, telemedicine in the form of telephone and internet consultations has increasingly become the recourse around the world. Our center adopted this trend and also launched a telepsychiatry initiative in order to better cater to the needs of patients with pre-existing mental health disorders and to ensure regular follow-ups and compliance with prescription regiments.

The present study aimed to assess the level of patient satisfaction with the online psychiatric services/telepsychiatry.

The sample consisted of 100 patients with pre-existing mental health disorders. This was a cross-sectional study lasting 6 months. The DigiDoc app by Hospital Information Software (HIS) software, which is used to manage a patients appointment schedule, relevant clinical and lab details, along with follow-up prescriptions, was used to follow the selected patients for the purpose of this study. This software also provides a digital platform for video calls for online consultation. The Client Satisfaction Questionnaires-8 (CSQ-8) was employed to collect patient data for analysis.

The mean total CSQ-8 score of the study sample was 21.015.80 (832), which corresponds to a low-to-moderate level of satisfaction with online psychiatric services/telepsychiatry. Most patients (45%) reported low satisfaction levels, followed by 37% who reported moderate levels of satisfaction. Only 18% of patients reported higher satisfaction with telepsychiatry.

Despite the psychiatrists ability to provide adequate professional advice and psychoeducation through online psychiatric services, patients level of satisfaction proved moderate-to-low. This suggests a need to design standard protocols and guidelines in the search and provision of consultation services on online psychiatric service platforms that could help enhance patients levels of satisfaction.