The long lockdown and persisting fear of COVID-19 vulnerabilities of chronic disease patients had severely affected their normal treatment and physician visit cycles. This situation demanded an up rise and practice of the concept of telemedicine.

OBJECTIVES : The objective was to analyse the impact of telemedicine among chronic disease patients using a self-reporting numerical rating scale.

METHODS : A cross sectional comparative survey was designed to assess the impact of telemedicine during lock down days among the chronic disease patients by using a patient self-reported numerical rating scale. An anonymous online questionnaire was used to obtain the patient responses. A snowball sampling strategy was adopted to recruit patients into the study. Questionnaire was disseminated through social medias and the obtained responses were analysed.

RESULTS: A total of 299 respondents willingly took up and completed the survey questionnaire. Among the 299 patients who participated in the study, 43.84% had more than one chronic disease, of these 142(37.17%) patients had autoimmune rheumatic diseases. All patient reported outcomes were better among patients who utilized the telemedicine service than patients who did not had access to the same. The patient reported outcomes related to the overall well-being of the patients in the telemedicine group were 6.515±2.472. The patients who had no access to the telemedicine services reported to have overall well-being score of 7.166±2.548.

CONCLUSIONS : Telemedicine is one of the best available to promote health care and the Practice of telemedicine was also associated with better patient reported outcomes and quality of life.