Outpatient pharmaceutical care satisfaction survey through Telepharmacy during COVID-19 pandemic in Spain.

Objective: To present the results of a survey about the Telemedicine outpatients experience and satisfaction of a pharmaceutical care  program through Telepharmacy, carried out from hospital pharmacy  departments in Spain during COVID-19 Pandemic (ENOPEX survey), and  identify differences across regions in Spain.

Method: An analysis of results of the national survey ENOPEX on outpatient Telepharmacy services during the lockdown due to the COVID‑19 pandemic, analyzed by autonomous community in Spain. Data was collected in relation to point of delivery; pharmacotherapeutic follow-up; patient's opinion and satisfaction with Telemedicine; confidentiality; future development of pharmaceutical care, through Telepharmacy services;  and coordination with the patient care team. Four multilevel regressions were performed to evaluate the differences between Spanish regions on the most relevant variables of the study, using the R version 4.0.3 software.

Results: A total of 8,079 interviews were valid, 52.8% of respondents were  female, age was 41-65 years in 54.3% of participants; 42.7% had been  receiving treatment for more than 5 years; 42.8% lived 10-50 km  from the  hospital; the journey to hospital took more than one hour for 60.2% of  participants. Globally, 85.7% received medicines at home. However, medicines  were delivered at a community pharmacy in some communities, such as  Cantabria (95.8%), or at primary care centers as in Castile La Mancha  (16.5%). In total, 96.7% of participants were satisfied or very satisfied with  Telemedicine pharmaceutical care, through Telepharmacy services, with  differences across communities, with users in Andalusia reporting the highest  satisfaction (OR = 1.58), and users in Castile-León being less satisfied with  Telepharmacy services (OR = 0.66). Users in Catalonia are the ones more  clearly in favor of Telemedicine pharmaceutical care, through Telepharmacy  services as a complementary service, with an OR = 5.85 with respect to other  users. The Telemedicine most frequently mentioned advantage was that  Telepharmacy services avoided visits, especially in Cantabria (92.5%) and  Extremadura (88.4%). Most patients prefer informed delivery of medicines at  home when they do not have an appointment at the hospital: total of 75.6 %,  from 50.1% of users in Cantabria to 96.3% in Catalonia (p < 0.001). The users  less willing to pay for Telepharmacy services were the ones from Castile- León and Galicia, with users in Catalonia and Navarra showing higher  willingness.

Conclusions: In general terms, patients were satisfied with Telemedicine pharmaceutical care, through Telepharmacy services during the COVID‑19 pandemic, being mostly in favor of maintaining these services to avoid travels.