The Self-Efficacy of Physicians to Communicate With Patients via Telemedicine in Lieu of Face-to-Face Visits in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Observational Study.

Abstract

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has perpetuated the switch to increased use of telemedicine for initial consultations for physicians out of the necessity of reducing face-to-face contact. It has not been thoroughly studied whether physicians are as self-efficacious in their ability to communicate virtually versus in person considering the natural difficulty of obtaining some objective data points such as those coming from physical examination techniques via telemedicine.Methods: The Self Efficacy-12 (SE-12) questionnaire, a physician validated objective measure, was used to assess 101 physicians (96% response rate) from 29 specialties for their self-efficacy when communicating with patients when consulting virtually versus in person.Results: There was a significant 32.43% decrease (p=<0.01) in physician self-efficacy when a patient was evaluated via telemedicine for the first time.Conclusion: The significant decrease in self-efficacy provides initial evidence that initial consultations should be done in person to maximize physician self-efficacy when communicating with patients.