Counseling of people with epilepsy via telemedicine: Experiences at a German tertiary epilepsy center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Driven by the challenges of alternative healthcare supply during the COVID-19 pandemic, acceptance and appreciation of telemedicine were assessed in a German tertiary epilepsy center. Two hundred thirty-nine patients with epilepsy (53% female, 35% seizure-free, 97% on antiseizure medication) answered a structured audit on telemedical counseling as part of individual outpatients' care. Overall 82% of the participants were satisfied with the telemedical appointment. The telemedical appointment was rated equal to onsite appointments in means of time (91%), comprehensibility (94%), and opportunity to get answers to current questions (92%). It was evaluated as good as onsite appointments regarding comprehension of the disease (88%) and impact on following the physician's advice (82%). The participants considered immediate convenience and shortfall of travel expenses as advantages of telemedicine, whereas lack of personal contact and diagnostics (electroencephalogram [EEG] recordings, blood analysis) were seen as disadvantages. About 73% of the participants would appreciate the opportunity of future telemedical counseling, but the majority (75%) wished to have further appointments onsite. Overall, people with epilepsy appear to be satisfied with telemedical counseling. However, patients greatly appreciate the medical services onsite and consider telemedicine as an add-on service rather than a substitute to visits onsite.

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Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that the audit was conducted in the absence of any financial or commercial interest that could be a potential conflict of interest. RvW has received fees as a speaker, consultant, or travel support by Cerbomed, Desitin, GW pharmaceuticals, Eisai, and UCB. SMH has received fees as a speaker, consultant, or travel support by Eisai, UCB, and Liva Nova. TB has received fees as a speaker and consultant by Eisai and UCB. CH has received grants from the EU, travel support by Desitin, honoraria for talks, counseling, and advisory boards by GW pharmaceuticals, EISAI, and UCB, as well as license fees by EISAI and UCB. RS has received fees as speaker or consultant from Bial, Cyberonics, Desitin, EISAI, LivaNova, Novartis, and UCB Pharma, and grants from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), the Bundesministerium für Gesundheit (BMG), and Marga and Walter Boll Stiftung. We confirm that we have read the Journal's position on issues involved in ethical publication and affirm that this report is consistent with those guidelines.