Patient efficacy in telehealth is moderated by distress among patients with cancer: A cross-sectional survey study.

Abstract

1590 Background: The COVID-19 pandemic increased the use of telehealth to reduce exposure, which was critical for patients with cancer. The extent to which patients with cancer view telehealth visits as meeting their medical needs was investigated using a cross-sectional survey. Methods: Patients currently receiving cancer treatment at a single cancer institute who had had at least one telehealth visit were emailed an online survey. Response rate was 5% (94/1944). The survey measured patients’: 1) Emotional Thermometer (i.e. distress, anger, depression, anxiety, and need for help on a 0-10 scale); 2) Telehealth usability questionnaire (TUQ; 21-items with various subscales, like interaction quality; α=0.98).); and 3) Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions (PEPPI-5) scale (five items, e.g., “How confident are you in your ability to make the most of your visits with your doctors?”). Respondents completed the PEPPI-5 for in-person visits and for telehealth visits. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all measures. A generalized linear model was estimated predicting PEPPI-5 for telehealth visits from emotional thermometer and TUQ scores. The interaction between emotional thermometer and TUQ scores was estimated to test the hypothesis that emotional distress moderated the relationship between TUQ and efficacy in patient-provider interactions during telehealth visits. Results: Across all five thermometers, 30.8% (28/91) reported a high score on at least one metric. The most frequently reported high score was for anxiety, 23.3% (21/90) and least frequently reported high score was for anger, 12.2% (11/90). The mean TUQ score was 5.5 (SD=1.5) and mean PEPPI-5 score for telehealth visits was 8.1 (SD=2.4). As shown in Table, emotional thermometer scores did moderate the relation between TUQ and patient self-efficacy during telehealth visits. For high emotional thermometer scores, self-efficacy decreased as TUQ scores decreased. Conclusions: For patients experiencing high emotional distress, low comfort and ability with telehealth usability resulted in low patient self-efficacy in communicating with providers and getting medical needs met. Telehealth is a convenient and effective modality; however, in times of emotional distress for patients who are not familiar with telehealth, in-person clinic visits may result in greater patient self-efficacy.[Table: see text]