Patient satisfaction with telemedicine in a prison environment

Prison inmates were surveyed about their perceptions of the use of videoconferencing in clinical consultations. A 14-item questionnaire was used to assess satisfaction with the patient-physician clinical interaction. Of the 299 inmates surveyed immediately after their teleconsultations, 221 completed questionnaires that were suitable for analysis (74%). Only 9% of patients indicated that they were not satisfied with the teleconsultation. They rated the telemedicine context well above the midpoint of the scale (16) on both an information-exchange and a patient-comfort dimension, with means of 29 and 24, respectively. There was a significant difference (P<0.01) in the patient-comfort dimension in terms of the location of the prisoners. No significant differences were found in patient satisfaction related to the specialty of the physician. The results suggest that many contextual factors must be considered to understand the communicative implications of patient satisfaction with telemedicine.