Journal of General Practice

Patients Attitudes About Electronic System Messaging with Physicians

Abstract

Neil J. Farber, Lisa Wastila, Lori Brown, John Fontanesi

Objectives: To conduct a survey of patients who have and have not signed on to an electronic messaging system about their attitudes toward electronic messaging with physicians. Methods: A convenience sample of 500 patients in a university general internal medicine faculty practice completed a survey which used 12 hypothetical scenarios involving clinical problems using electronic messaging or telephone/in office visit to communicate with physicians. The number of correct responses to scenarios was used to compare electronic messaging users and non-users using student’s T test. Results: About 2/3 of respondents had signed up for the electronic messaging system. A large portion of respondents (27-59%) incorrectly used electronic messaging in the hypothetical scenarios. Patients who had signed up for electronic messaging were significantly more likely to appropriately use electronic messaging than those who had not signed up for it (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Patients may have different attitudes from those of physicians about the use of electronic messaging for symptoms of an urgent nature and receiving sensitive test results. Those patients who have not signed up for electronic messaging are particularly at risk for misperceptions. Practice Implications: All patients using electronic messaging should be educated and given guidelines about its appropriate use.