RESEARCH PAPER
Telemedicine in HIV care in times of COVID-19 pandemic: a patient satisfaction survey study
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1
Department of Adults' Infectious Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland
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Polish Stem Cells Bank, (PBKM, Polski Bank Komórek Macierzystych sp. z o.o, Warszawa)
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Pawel.Mierzejewski@gilead.com, Polska
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Clinic for Infectious and Tropical Diseases, University Clinical Center of Serbia, Serbia
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Fundation of Social Education, FES, Polska
Submission date: 2024-08-21
Final revision date: 2025-01-03
Acceptance date: 2025-01-31
Online publication date: 2025-02-03
Corresponding author
Justyna Dominika Kowalska
Department of Adults' Infectious Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw, Wolska 37, 01-201, Warsaw, Poland
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ABSTRACT
Background: Until SARS-CoV-2 outbreak telemedicine services in HIV care in Poland were not covered by public health insurance. Therefore experience in this form of healthcare delivery is scarce and its acceptance by patients uncertain. Objective: We aimed to investigating the opinion of people living with HIV on the first application of telemedicine in HIV care in Poland. Material and methods: The survey consisted of the qualitative (carried out through online interviews using the Computer-Assisted Web Interview technique) and quantitative module (20 questions:five open- and 15 closed-type questions). Four nongovernmental organizations supporting people living with HIV in Poland, participated in the distribution of invitations. Results: 156 respondents answered, 25% women, 58% over 50 years old, 53% heterosexual. Most were tested for HIV in public healthcare (51%) or voluntary testing(32%) and diagnosed over 5 years ago. 77/156(49.3%) had opinion about telemedicine, of those 22/77(28.6%) answered that they thought that telemedicine had a future and 29/77 (19%) that it did, but under certain conditions (this constitutes 66.2% of those with opinion). 26/77(33.8%) indicated that in their opinion telemedicine had no future. Respondents who had negative opinion were more likely to be from rural areas and of lower level of education. In logistic regression models we found that that having a primary education increased the odds of not having an opinion (OR=5.37 [2.44 to 11.82], P<.0001). Factors decreasing the odds of not having an opinion were difficulties in getting a visit (0.35 [0.15 to 0.81], P=0.01) and access to telemedicine only (0.20 [0.06 to 0.72], P=0.01). Conclusions: Although over 60% of respondents with opinion identified potential for telemedicine in HIV care, half of them indicated specific conditions necessary to introduce it. The evaluation of HIV management via telemedicine, as well as patients’ and providers’ acceptance to this form of care needs to be supervised and corrected to patients’ reported outcome measures.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Irena Przepiórka (The Association of Volunteers Against AIDS “Be with us”, Warsaw, Poland), Paweł Woźniakowski (Solidarity “PLUS” Association, Wandzin, Poland) and Robert P. Łukasik (Unification “Positive in the rainbow”, Warsaw, Poland) for their support in dissemination of questionnaires among the community of people living with HIV in Poland.
FUNDING
This work was supported by Gilead Sciences Poland. The funder did not have any influence on the study design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the manuscript or decision to publish. The specific roles of all authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The funder do not alter adherence to journal’s policies on sharing data and supplementary materials.