Child and Adolescent Telepsychiatry: Utilization And Satisfaction

Abstract

Access to psychiatric care for children and adolescents is limited outside of urban areas. Telepsychiatry provides one mechanism to bring needed services to youth. This investigation examines whether telepsychiatry could be successful in providing needed services. Using interactive video teleconferencing at 384 kilobits per second, psychiatrists based at a regional childrens hospital provided consultation and management services to patients at 4 sites across Washington State located 75150 miles from the childrens hospital. Twelve-month review of billing records provided utilization data. Surveys of parents satisfaction over 12 months examined whether parents would accept and be satisfied with the care rendered to their children. Over the study year, 387 telepsychiatry visits were provided to 172 youth 221 years old with a mean of 2.25 visits per patient. The demographic and diagnostic profile of this sample was consistent with usual outpatient mental health samples. Parents endorsed high satisfaction with their childrens telepsychiatric care, with an indication of increasing satisfaction upon return appointments. Parents demonstrated some differential satisfaction, tending to higher satisfaction with their school-aged childrens care and lower satisfaction with their adolescents care. Telepsychiatry offered through a regional childrens hospital was well utilized and parents were highly satisfied with their childrens care. The stage is now set for integrating telepsychiatry into a system of care that meets youths overall needs and for controlled studies demonstrating the efficacy of telepsychiatry with youth.

Teletherapy Delivery of Caregiver Behavior Training for Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…10 In the context of this article, teletherapy refers to the use of videoteleconferencing (VTC) to deliver interactively psychosocial interventions that are usually provided in-person. Multiple studies have reported the feasibility, acceptability, and tolerability of providing teletherapy to youth, [11][12][13][14][15][16] but few studies have examined the efficacy of teletherapy with caregivers and youth. Reese et al 17 used a pre-to post-intervention study design to examine the efficacy of a Group Triple P Positive Parenting Program (''Group Triple P'') for families with children diagnosed with attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and behavioral problems.…”

Telemedicine uptake among Genetics Professionals in Europe: room for expansion

“…A common goal of telemedicine applications throughout various medical disciplines is to provide an effective, efficient, and patient-friendly way of care. [1][2][3] Moreover, it can reach patients who are difficult to reach by conventional 'in-person' care methods, for example, due to large distances and traveling costs. 4,5 Telemedicine has been introduced in various medical disciplines, including clinical genetics, where it has been referred to as telegenetics.…”

Telemedicine for Improved Delivery of Psychosocial Treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

“…In studies without a comparison group, researchers often concluded that users were generally satisfied when engaging in psychotherapy over telemedicine Myers, Valentine, & Melzer, 2008;Simpson, Bell, & Britton, 2006;Simpson et al, 2003;Simpson et al, 2002), and studies that compared VC to in-person psychotherapy reported similar satisfaction levels between the conditions (Cluver et al, 2005;King et al, 2009;Morgan et al, 2008;Nelson, Barnard, & Cain, 2003;Ruskin et al, 2004). When sources of dissatisfaction arose, they primarily involved technical challenges, but such issues appeared to have little impact on overall satisfaction levels (e.g., Cowain, 2001;).…”