Development and Validation of an Instrument in Spanish to Evaluate Patient Satisfaction in Telemedicine Consultation During COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic prompted health organizations to use telemedicine as an option to continue providing medical services. There is no telemedicine patient satisfaction survey validated in Spanish. Aim of the study: To develop and validate a telemedicine patient satisfaction survey and know the level of satisfaction with this type of consultation implemented at Hospital Clinica Nova during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This was a qualitative study implemented in a private hospital in Monterrey, Mexico, of patients who attended telemedicine from April to August 2020. Content validity was obtained by a two-round Delphi study with the participation of 11 experts. We conducted six patient interviews for the apparent validity of the items. The questionnaire was administered to 120 patients for statistical analysis. We made an item reduction by interitem and item-total correlation analyses, stability validation by a test-retest, a test of reliability by Cronbach's alpha, and extraction of factors by a factorial analysis. Results: We obtained a validated nine-item questionnaire, eight items on a Likert scale (range 1-7), and one for a Net Promoter Score (NPS). Two factors explained the structure of the questionnaire and it had an Cronbach alpha = 0.86. The mean population satisfaction score was 6.35 and 43% in NPS. Discussion: In general, good satisfaction results were obtained, and most patients considered telemedicine as good as face-to-face consultation. Conclusions: The scale developed was valid and reliable for the hospital population. However, due to the characteristics of the items, it may apply to other Spanish-speaking health organizations that use telemedicine for patient care.