Patients’ Satisfaction on Virtual Clinic in Primary Health Care Centers in Prince Sultan Military Medical City, 2020-2021: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Settings and background: With technology evolvement and COVID-19 Pandemic Virtual clinics are increasing nowadays, there is no single qualitative study in Saudi Arabia that make us knows patients’ opinion about this service, and this is what our study is about. Methods: It is a semi-structured phone interview of 36 participants who attended the virtual clinic in Prince Sultan Military Hospital in 2020, selected purposefully, then the interviews were transcribed then analyzed by thematic analysis. Results: 20 of the participants were males (55.5%) and 16 of them were females (44.4%), 6 were above or equal to 60 years of age (16.6%) and 30 participants were below 60 years of age (83.3%). In Theme 1: (Were the steps taken in the referral process to this service clear?) 75% (n=27) of them answered positively, 22.2% (n=8) answered negatively and one participant was neutral. In Theme 2: (Comparing to previous regular clinic visits, how did you find receiving information about your health in this clinic?) 27.7% (n=10) think it is better than regular clinic, However, 19.4% (n=6) think it is worse than the regular clinic, and the majority 55.5% (n=20) think they are the same. In Theme 3: was (Describe for us your experience in getting the medications form the pharmacy after the clinic) 77.7% (n=28) of participants were satisfied and 2 patients were not satisfied, remaining 6 did not take medicines. Conclusions: Virtual clinic is a good method in reducing costs and time in delivering health care, in patients’ opinions. In general, virtual clinic had high satisfaction rate among who benefit from the service. However, there are some concerns need to be addressed like referral or booking process for virtual clinic services.