Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: Telerehabilitation for patients with musculoskeletal conditions was associated with lower healthcare resource consumption. As there are various features in telerehabilitation design and implementation, these services can benefit from patient engagement in service improvement, to meet their needs and preferences and improve the user adherence to services. Therefore, this study aims to identify the features of telerehabilitation that are deemed important to patients to inform future studies and service improvements.
METHODS: Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted among physiotherapists, supporting staff, and musculoskeletal patients who used telerehabilitation services. The interviews were guided by the domains of Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), namely characteristics of individuals, outer setting, inner setting, intervention characteristics, and process of implementation. Thematic analysis was applied to extract the important features.
RESULTS: For intervention characteristics, it was important for patients to access a mixture of telerehabilitation and in-person services for smoother physiotherapy assessments. Measures are needed during the telerehabilitation session to enhance the correction of the patient’s physical posture in exercises and monitor the progress of recovery. For process of implementation, patients benefited from an assessment for eligibility of receiving telerehabilitation, onsite technical support, and sufficient instruction of the exercises, while facing difficulties in time availability, setting the screen and the angle of web-camera, and expecting more individual interactions with physiotherapists. For inner setting, patients trusted public hospitals in service provision due to their reputation and service quality. Moreover, patient’s attitudes to telerehabilitation were influenced by their eligibility to waiver of copayments and their beliefs and compliance in exercising at home.
CONCLUSIONS: CFIR enables identifying a comprehensive list of features, involving the frequency of face-to-face services and availability of eligibility assessments and technical support. Potential solutions to the barriers including providing materials on postures and adding interactive sessions following the exercises can be explored in future studies.