Supplemental for: Patients’ Experiences of Remote Neurology Consultations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Telemedicine has been widely implemented during the COVID-19 global pandemic to enable continuity of care of chronic illnesses. We modified our general neurology clinic to be conducted using remote audio-only telephone consultations. We included all patients over a 10-week period who agreed to both a telephone consultation and a questionnaire afterwards in order to ascertain the patient’s perspective of the experience. There were 212 participants consisting of men (43.8%) and women (56.2%). The mean ± standard deviation of age was 47.8 ± 17.0 (range 17–93) years. For the most part, patients found remote consultations either “just as good” (67.1%) or “better” (9.0%) than face-to-face consultations. Those who deemed it to be “not as good” were significantly older (52.3 ± 17.9 years vs. 46.6 ± 16.6 years, p =0.045) or were more likely to have a neurological disorder that required clinical examination, namely, a neuromuscular condition (66.7%, p = 0.002) or an undiagnosed condition (46.7%, p = 0.031). At the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, most patients were satisfied with remote consultations. The positive feedback for remote consultations needs to be verified outside of this unique scenario because the results were likely influenced by the patients’ apprehension to attend the hospital amongst other factors.

在新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）全球大流行期间，远程医疗（Telemedicine）已被广泛应用，以保障慢性疾病患者的照护连续性。本研究将普通神经内科门诊调整为仅支持音频的远程电话问诊模式，纳入了为期10周内的所有同意接受电话问诊并在问诊后填写问卷的患者，以了解患者对该问诊体验的主观评价。本研究共纳入212名参与者，其中男性占43.8%，女性占56.2%；参与者的年龄均值±标准差为47.8±17.0岁，年龄范围为17至93岁。绝大多数患者认为远程问诊要么与线下面诊"效果相当"（67.1%），要么效果优于线下面诊（9.0%）。认为远程问诊效果"较差"的参与者年龄显著更大（52.3±17.9岁 vs. 46.6±16.6岁，p=0.045），且更有可能患有需要临床检查的神经系统疾病，具体为神经肌肉疾病（66.7%，p=0.002）或未确诊疾病（46.7%，p=0.031）。在COVID-19全球大流行的高峰期，大多数患者对远程问诊表示满意。但由于本次研究结果可能受患者因疫情不愿前往医院等多种因素影响，因此远程问诊的正面评价需在其他场景中进一步验证。