Adoption and Attitudes of eHealth Among People Living With HIV and Their Physicians: Online Multicenter Questionnaire Study

BACKGROUND: The development of electronic health (eHealth) has offered the opportunity for remote care provision. eHealth addresses issues for patients and professionals favoring autonomy and compliance, respectively, while fostering closer links both between patients and health care professionals and among health care professionals themselves. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the patterns of use, benefits, and perceived obstacles in eHealth among people living with HIV (PLHIV) and their caring physicians at hospitals. METHODS: An online multicenter observational survey was conducted October 15-19, 2018 in 51 medical units across France by means of self-administered questionnaires to collect sociodemographic and medical data, and perceptions of eHealth. Multiple correspondence analysis followed by mixed unsupervised classification were performed to analyze data of the respondents. RESULTS: A total of 279 PLHIV and 219 physicians responded to all parts of the questionnaire. Three groups of PLHIV were identified based on multivariate analysis. Group 1 comprised “eHealth believers” (121/279, 43.4%), who were more frequently above 60 years old and more likely to be receiving treatments other than antiretrovirals. Group 2, the “technology skeptics” (86/279, 30.8%), comprised more women with at least one child. Group 3, the “internet adopters” (72/279, 25.8%), were more frequently under 49 years of age, men who have sex with men, and more likely to use mobile apps for obtaining wellness/health information and related subjects. Three groups of physicians also emerged. Group 1 comprised those “strongly confident in eHealth” (95/219, 43.4%), who more frequently used mobile apps for wellness/health information and were more likely to accept prescription assistance software. Group 2 comprised physicians “strongly opposed to eHealth” (80/219, 36.5%), frequently asserting that eHealth challenges confidentiality. Group 3 were “open to eHealth” (44/219, 20.1%), comprising a higher proportion of infectious disease specialists, and were more likely to believe that medical apps are useful for patient education and information. No link was found between the groups of PLHIV and physicians. CONCLUSIONS: The literature on eHealth mainly classifies people as enthusiasts and skeptics; however, we identified a third profile among both PLHIV and physicians, albeit without a direct link between them. For PLHIV, this third group is attentive to eHealth for improving their health condition, and for physicians, this group considers eHealth to offer benefits to patients and their own practice.