Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: May 16, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: May 15, 2024 - Jul 10, 2024
Date Accepted: Sep 27, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Characteristics, barriers, and facilitators of virtual decision-making capacity assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic: An online survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
With a growing elderly population, the number of persons with dementia is expected to rise. Consequently, the number of persons needing decision-making capacity assessments (DMCA) will increase. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted how we deliver patient care including DMCAs.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to determine the characteristics, barriers, and facilitators of con-ducting virtual decision-making capacity assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
We conducted an online survey among healthcare providers who perform DMCAs in Alberta from March 2022 to February 2023. The survey consisted of 25 questions on demographics, preferences, and experience in conducting DMCAs virtually, and risks and barriers to doing virtual DMCAs. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Results:
There were 31 respondents with a mean age of 51.1 years (SD: 17.7). The respondents consisted of physicians (45.2%), occupational therapists (29.0%) and social workers (16.1%), with a majority (93.6%) based in Edmonton. 54.8% were interested in conducting DMCAs virtually; however, only 25.8% had administered DMCAs virtually. Barriers, and facilitators to virtual DMCAs relate to patients’ characteristics and environment, technology and technical support, and assessors’ ability to perform DMCA’s virtually.
Conclusions:
Conducting DMCAs virtually is a relatively infrequent undertaking. Barriers and facilitators to adequate assessment need to be addressed given that virtual assessments are time saving and expand reach Clinical Trial: Not applicable
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.