Doctor-patient communication: a comparison between telemedicine consultation and face-to-face consultation.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to compare doctor-patient communications in clinical consultations via telemedicine technology to doctor-patient communications in face-to-face clinical consultations.


METHODS
Five doctors who had been practicing internal medicine for 8 to 18 years, and twenty patients were enrolled in this study; neither doctors nor patients had previous experience of telemedicine. The patients received both a telemedicine consultation and a face-to-face consultation. Three measures--video observation, medical record volume, and participants' satisfaction--were used for the assessment.


RESULTS
It was found that the time spent on the telemedicine consultation was substantially longer than the time spent on the face-to-face consultation. No statistically significant differences were found in the number of either closed or open-ended questions asked by doctors between both types of consultation. Empathy-utterances, praise-utterances, and facilitation-utterances were, however, seen less in the telemedicine consultations than in the face-to-face consultations. The volume of the medical records was statistically smaller in the telemedicine consultations than in the face-to-face consultations. Patients were satisfied with the telemedicine consultation, but doctors were dissatisfied with it and felt hampered by the communication barriers.


CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that new training programs are needed for doctors to develop improved communication skills and the ability to express empathy in telemedicine consultations.
Liu
Xiao
X
Medical Informatics and Decision Sciences, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi, Japan.
Sawada
Yoshie
Y
Takizawa
Takako
T
Sato
Hiroko
H
Sato
Mahito
M
Sakamoto
Hironosuke
H
Utsugi
Toshihiro
T
Sato
Kunio
K
Sumino
Hiroyuki
H
Okamura
Shinichi
S
Sakamaki
Tetsuo
T
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003142:Communication; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D009819:Office Visits; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D017216:Telemedicine; D013997:Time Factors