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Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey

BACKGROUND: The global incidence in the treatment of transgender people is increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many consultations had to be cancelled, postponed, or converted to a virtual format. Telemedicine in the management of transgender health care could support physicians. OBJECTIVE: The...

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Autores principales: Hertling, Stefan, Hertling, Doreen, Martin, David, Graul, Isabel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8647970/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34591783
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30278
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author Hertling, Stefan
Hertling, Doreen
Martin, David
Graul, Isabel
author_facet Hertling, Stefan
Hertling, Doreen
Martin, David
Graul, Isabel
author_sort Hertling, Stefan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The global incidence in the treatment of transgender people is increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many consultations had to be cancelled, postponed, or converted to a virtual format. Telemedicine in the management of transgender health care could support physicians. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the acceptance, use, and barriers of telemedicine in transgender health care in times of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany. METHODS: This prospective cross-sectional study was based on a survey of gynecological endocrinologists and transgender patients undergoing gender-affirming hormone treatment in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and regression analyses were performed to show correlations. RESULTS: We analyzed responses of 269 transgender patients and 202 gynecological endocrinologists treating transgender patients. Most believed that telemedicine was useful. Physicians and patients rated their knowledge of telemedicine as unsatisfactory. The majority of respondents said they did not currently use telemedicine, although they would like to do so. Patients and physicians reported that their attitudes toward telemedicine had changed positively and that their use of telemedicine had increased due to COVID-19. The majority in both groups agreed on the implementation of virtual visits in the context of stable disease conditions. In the treatment phases, 74.3% (150/202) of the physicians said they would use telemedicine during follow-ups. Half of the physicians said they would choose tele-counseling as a specific approach to improving care (128/202, 63.4%). Obstacles to the introduction of telemedicine among physicians included the purchase of technical equipment (132/202, 65.3%), administration (124/202, 61.4%), and poor reimbursement (106/202, 52.5%). CONCLUSIONS: Telemedicine in transgender health care found limited use but high acceptance among doctors and patients alike. The absence of a structured framework is an obstacle for effective implementation. Training courses should be introduced to improve the limited knowledge of physicians in the use of telemedicine. More research in tele-endogynecology is needed. Future studies should include large-scale randomized controlled trials, economic analyses, and the exploration of user preferences.
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spelling pubmed-86479702021-12-20 Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey Hertling, Stefan Hertling, Doreen Martin, David Graul, Isabel JMIR Public Health Surveill Original Paper BACKGROUND: The global incidence in the treatment of transgender people is increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many consultations had to be cancelled, postponed, or converted to a virtual format. Telemedicine in the management of transgender health care could support physicians. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the acceptance, use, and barriers of telemedicine in transgender health care in times of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany. METHODS: This prospective cross-sectional study was based on a survey of gynecological endocrinologists and transgender patients undergoing gender-affirming hormone treatment in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and regression analyses were performed to show correlations. RESULTS: We analyzed responses of 269 transgender patients and 202 gynecological endocrinologists treating transgender patients. Most believed that telemedicine was useful. Physicians and patients rated their knowledge of telemedicine as unsatisfactory. The majority of respondents said they did not currently use telemedicine, although they would like to do so. Patients and physicians reported that their attitudes toward telemedicine had changed positively and that their use of telemedicine had increased due to COVID-19. The majority in both groups agreed on the implementation of virtual visits in the context of stable disease conditions. In the treatment phases, 74.3% (150/202) of the physicians said they would use telemedicine during follow-ups. Half of the physicians said they would choose tele-counseling as a specific approach to improving care (128/202, 63.4%). Obstacles to the introduction of telemedicine among physicians included the purchase of technical equipment (132/202, 65.3%), administration (124/202, 61.4%), and poor reimbursement (106/202, 52.5%). CONCLUSIONS: Telemedicine in transgender health care found limited use but high acceptance among doctors and patients alike. The absence of a structured framework is an obstacle for effective implementation. Training courses should be introduced to improve the limited knowledge of physicians in the use of telemedicine. More research in tele-endogynecology is needed. Future studies should include large-scale randomized controlled trials, economic analyses, and the exploration of user preferences. JMIR Publications 2021-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8647970/ /pubmed/34591783 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30278 Text en ©Stefan Hertling, Doreen Hertling, David Martin, Isabel Graul. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 03.12.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://publichealth.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Hertling, Stefan
Hertling, Doreen
Martin, David
Graul, Isabel
Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey
title Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey
title_full Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey
title_fullStr Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey
title_full_unstemmed Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey
title_short Acceptance, Use, and Barriers of Telemedicine in Transgender Health Care in Times of SARS-CoV-2: Nationwide Cross-sectional Survey
title_sort acceptance, use, and barriers of telemedicine in transgender health care in times of sars-cov-2: nationwide cross-sectional survey
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8647970/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34591783
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30278
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