Patient satisfaction with partial hospital telehealth treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: Comparison to in-person treatment

Most research evaluating telehealth psychiatric treatment has been conducted in outpatient settings. There is a lack of research assessing the efficacy of telehealth treatment in more acute, intensive treatment settings such as a partial hospital. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, much of ambulatory behavioral health treatment has transitioned to a telehealth, or virtual, format. In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project, we compared patient satisfaction of partial hospital services delivered via telehealth to in-person treatment provided to patients treated prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. The sample included 240 patients who were treated virtually from May, 2020 to October, 2020, and a comparison group of 240 patients who were treated in the in-person partial program a year earlier. Patients completed self-administered measures of patient satisfaction after the initial evaluation and at the end of treatment. For both the in-person and telehealth methods of delivering partial hospital level of care, patients were highly satisfied with the initial diagnostic evaluation and were optimistic at admission that treatment would be helpful. At the completion of treatment, both groups were highly satisfied with all components of the treatment program and almost all would recommend treatment to a friend or family member. Thus, patient satisfaction was as high with telehealth partial hospital treatment as with in-person treatment.