Abstract
Purpose :
There has been an increase in the use of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. This review aimed to assess patient and physician perceptions towards the use of telehealth for vision care during the pandemic.
Methods :
We searched the electronic databases PubMed, Embase, and Scopus using a list of applicable MeSH terms during September 2022 to identify peer-reviewed studies that evaluated telehealth use in eye care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The search terms were a combination of 3 concepts: 1) COVID-19 or pandemic; 2) telehealth or telemedicine; and 3) eye care. Further screening of the references, citation tracking, and similar articles search of each study was conducted to identify additional relevant studies.
Results :
Our database search identified 16 relevant studies published between 2020 and 2022. Among these studies, 9 (56%) were from the patient’s perspective and 7 (44%) from the physician’s perspective. 7 (44%) of the studies were carried out in the United States, followed by 3 (19%) in the UK. The majority of the studies were conducted during the initial wave of the pandemic from March 2020-June 2020 (56%) and applied a cross-sectional study design (88%). Studies were carried out mostly in urban (n=77, 44%) locations and hospital settings (n=9, 56%).
Overall, patients were satisfied with the virtual encounters and thought they were equally effective to in-person visits, especially if it was a video visit. In general, patients believe telehealth is convenient, improves access to care, and is a beneficial triage tool. Patients’ concerns prevalent across most studies include lack of proper, detailed ancillary examination and challenges with technology. Physicians also acknowledged that telehealth is a convenient tool for assessing follow-up patients and expanding the capacity to see emergency cases. Physicians' primary concern was the lack of testing and imaging abilities.
Conclusions :
Our review identified various studies demonstrating that telehealth is emerging as a beneficial platform for both patients and physicians for eye care. However, the majority of the reported studies did not evaluate differences by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location, all of which may impact a patient’s or physician’s attitudes toward telehealth use in eye care.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.