Evaluation of factors associated with trust in telemedicine in patients with inflammatory bowel disease during COVID-19 pandemic: a multicenter cross-sectional survey

OBJECTIVE: Telemedicine (TM) has had a powerful impact in recent years, par-ticularly on managing chronic diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Knowing pa-tients' expectations and concerns is essential to increase their confidence in this mode of med-ical care. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We interviewed a large cohort of IBD patients enrolled at two Italian tertiary referral centers to investigate their trust in TM. RESULTS: A total of 376 patients complet-ed the survey and were included in the study: 293 (77.9%) considered TM valuable for manag-ing their disease, and 307 (85%) wanted to have TM service at their center. However, only 99 pa-tients (26.3%) believed that TM guarantees the same level of care as the in-person visit. Among the socio-demographic variables, those inde-pendently associated with trust in TM were the higher education qualification (p=0.02) and the level of competence in information and commu-nication technologies (ICT) (p=0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlighted the importance of equipping IBD patients with ba-sic ICT skills to utilize TM services and increase their confidence in ICT with the help of caregiv-ers. Additionally, to improve the perceived val-ue of TM, it will be helpful to use additional tools such as telemonitoring of disease activity us-ing patients' reported outcomes or remote mea-surement of fecal calprotectin.