Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Nov 7, 2019
Date Accepted: Feb 7, 2020
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Revisiting Effective Communication between Patients and Physicians: Text-based IT-Mediated versus Face-to-Face
ABSTRACT
Background:
Research has shown that text-based communication via telemedicine will continue to be the primary mode of communication that patients and physicians use in the future. However, very few studies have examined patients’ perspectives regarding the increased use of text-based versus face-to-face (FtF) communication.
Objective:
The objective of our study is to understand and compare the potential differences in patients’ perceptions of communication effectiveness with their physicians through different modes of communication.
Methods:
We conducted an online national survey of 345 patients to explore the impact of different channels on effective communication and perceived health behavior and outcomes. We tested the impact of patients’ perceived communication and media effectiveness on their self-efficacy, communication satisfaction and perceived health outcomes, separately for text-based IT-mediated communication and FtF communication. Further we conducted a group comparison to identify significant differences across the two groups.
Results:
We found no significant differences between patients’ perceptions of effective communication using either IT-mediated versus FtF communication. However, We found significant differences in perceived media effectiveness: patients perceived FtF communication to be a more favorable medium. Interestingly we found no significant difference in terms of benefits and success of IT-mediated communication versus FtF.
Conclusions:
The results imply that patients can achieve the same level of communication effectiveness with their physicians using IT-mediated communication as they would in comparable FtF interactions, but patients view FtF communication to be a more favorable medium than IT-mediated communication. Clinical Trial: This study does not include a clinical trial. The Social and Behavioral Institutional Review Board of Florida International University has approved your study for the use of human subjects via the Expedited Review process. IRB Protocol Approval #: IRB-17-0203
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