Open AccessRemote mental health clients prefer face-to-face consultations to telehealth during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
Author(s) -
Andrew Amos,
Jocelyn Middleton,
F Gardiner
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
australasian psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1440-1665
pISSN - 1039-8562
DOI - 10.1177/10398562211043509
Subject(s) - telehealth , pandemic , mental health , social distance , indigenous , telemedicine , covid-19 , psychology , health care , medicine , telepsychiatry , nursing , psychiatry , political science , ecology , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , biology
Objective: To guide the efficient and effective provision of mental health services to clients in Central West and Far North Queensland, we surveyed preferences for face-to-face or in-person contact.Methods: A clinician-designed survey of contact preferences was offered to 248 clients of mental health services in Far North and Central West Queensland in mid-2020. With the onset of COVID-19, the survey was modified to measure the impact of the pandemic.Results: Just over half of the services’ clients participated in the survey (50.4%), of whom more were female (63.2%). Of the participants, 46.3% in Far North and 8.6% in Central West Queensland identified as Indigenous. Strong resistance to telehealth before the pandemic across groups (76%) was moderated during COVID-19 (42.4%), an effect that appeared likely to continue past the pandemic for Central West clients (34.5%). Far North clients indicated their telehealth reluctance would return after the pandemic (77.6%).Conclusions: Our results suggest that remote Australians strongly prefer in-person mental health care to telehealth. Although the COVID-19 pandemic increased acceptance of telehealth across regions while social distancing continued, there was evidence that Indigenous Australians were more likely to prefer in-person contact after the pandemic.