Outpatients’ Opinion And Experience Regarding Telepharmacy During The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Enopex Project
Margusino Framiñán, Luis, Cecilia M. Fernández-Llamazares, Eva Negro-Vega, Begoña Tortajada-Goitia, Lizeaga, Garbiñe, Gabriel Mercadal-Orfila, C. Almeida, Morillo Verdugo, Ramón Alejandro
Abstract
Background: Telepharmacy, as a remote pharmaceutical care procedure, is being used \nworldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of preserving the health of patients \nand professionals. Its future development should incorporate the assessment of patient \nperception, but no research study has investigated it. \nObjective: The objective was to poll the opinions and experiences of outpatients with \ntelepharmacy through a purpose-developed questionnaire and to assess it’s quality through an \ninternal validity and reliability analysis. \nMethods: Cross-sectional observational study of adult patients who used telepharmacy \nservices during the COVID-19 lockdown period in Spain. The subjects answered a 24-item \nquestionnaire, after giving their informed consent. Place of delivery, informed pharmacotherapeutic follow-up, opinion about telepharmacy, future development, ethics/satisfaction, and \ncoordination constituted the six questionnaire categories. After assessing the adequate \nsample size with the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test, the Bartlett sphericity test analyzed the \nvalidity of the questionnaire. The intraclass correlation coefficient and Cronbach’s α coefficient calculations verified the reliability and internal consistency. \nResults: A total of 9442 interviews were administered to patients from 81 hospitals, of \nwhich 8079 were valid (52.8% female). A 54.1% were aged between 41–65 years; 42.7% \nhad been in treatment for more than 5 years; 42.8% lived between 6–31 miles from the \nhospital. As many as 96.7% of patients were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with telepharmacy, 97.5% considering it complementary to their usual follow-up; 55.9% expressed \na preference for being followed up face to face when visiting the hospital. 75.6% said they \nhad rather receive their medication at home. The sample size obtained was deemed appropriate [the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test (0.789) and Bartlett’s sphericity test (p<0.005)]. The \nreliability analysis resulted in a Cronbach α = 0.7. \nConclusion: Patients have shown high satisfaction with telepharmacy and the ENOPEX \nquestionnaire is a tool with sufficient validity and reliability to be used in the evaluation of \nthe care that patients receive through telepharmacy.