RCOG World Congress 2023

Virtual Menopause Clinic - Patient’s Perspective

Objective

•Virtual menopause clinic services are gaining popularity1, 2. Our aim was to assess patient satisfaction following their one to one virtual menopause consultation.

Methods

•This is a prospective audit undertaken during the period July 2022 to December 2022.

•All newly referred patients who attended the virtual menopause clinic of a consultant were included in the study.

•The consultation was conducted over a live video link, lasting 30-40 minutes.

•The women were contacted on their mobile/telephone within a few weeks of their appointment and consented to give anonymous feedback regarding their experiences with the clinic.

The Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) Measure questionnaire of NHS Lanarkshire was used for this purpose3. Patients were asked to rate their scores to the ten questions on a scale of 1-5 (1=poor, 2=fair, 3=good, 4=very good, 5=excellent)

Results

•During the study period, 104 women attended the clinic and feedback was obtained from 60 women (58%).

•The average age of women was 51 years (range 41-63). 53% (32) of women were menopausal, 47% (28) were peri-menopausal.

•The GP referral letters were screened to ascertain reason for referral. 55% (33) of women were already on HRT at the time of the appointment, with 37% (22) of referrals made specifically for consideration of testosterone initiation.

•The responses to the ten questions answered by sixty women (600 questions in total) were analysed.

•44% (266) of the responses had the maximum score of 5, 29% (173) of the responses had a score of 4, 19% (112) of the responses had a score of 3, 6% (37) of the responses had a score of 2 and 2% (10) of the responses had a score of 1. (2 patients thought one question wasn’t applicable (N/A) to their consultation so were unable to give a score)

•In our study, out of the maximum score of 50 for the ten questions asked, the average score received was 41 (range 13-50).

Qualitative results

•The majority of the comments were positive. Some challenges that arose included technical issues, difficulties discussing sensitive matters over a virtual platform and delay with the patients starting the HRT due to prescription issues. Some patients thought that the consultation wasn’t long enough.

Conclusions

•Patient satisfaction with the virtual menopause consultation service was high with low rates of negative feedback.

•It is clear that the use of virtual clinics is a suitable option for assessment and management of patients in the menopause, offering benefits to the patients and saving costs to the health board.

• This study suggests that the use of virtual clinics for other aspects of gynaecology care could be considered.

•Further research could assess if offering the choice between virtual and in-person appointments improves patient satisfaction.

RCOG World Congress 2023

Virtual Menopause Clinic - Patient's Perspective

Poster Presenter

Authors

Affiliations

Part of Topic