Social acceptance and population confidence in telehealth in Quebec

BACKGROUND: Access to healthcare in remote areas is difficult and telehealth could be a promising avenue if accepted by the population. The aim of this study is to assess social acceptance and population confidence in telehealth in the Province of Quebec. METHODS: We conducted a survey using a questionnaire assessing the social acceptance of and confidence level in telehealth. Two strategies were used: 1) paper questionnaires were sent to two hospitals in Quebec; and 2) online questionnaires were randomly sent by a firm specialized in online survey to a representative sample of the population of the Province of Quebec. Respondents were all residents of the Province of Quebec and 18 years and older. Questions were scored with a four-level Likert scale. RESULTS: A total of 1816 questionnaires were analyzed (229 written and 1,587 online questionnaires). The socio-demographic variables in our samples, especially the online questionnaires, were fairly representative of Quebec’s population. Overall, social acceptance scored at 77.71% and confidence level at 65.76%. Both scores were higher in the case of treatment (3 scenarios were proposed) vs. diagnosis (p < 0.05). No difference was found when respondents were asked to respond for themselves and for a member of their family, which demonstrates a true interest in telehealth in Quebec. In addition, we found a significant difference (p < 0.05) between written and online questionnaires regarding social acceptance (80.75% vs. 77.33%) and confidence level (74.84% vs. 64.55%). These differences may be due to social desirability or avidity bias in the written questionnaires. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the population in Quebec encourages the development of telehealth for real time diagnosis and long distance treatment for regions deprived of healthcare professionals. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0727-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.