Abstract
Objectives: Telepsychiatry has been demonstrated to be an effective and acceptable way to deliver psychiatry services to remote and rural areas. This paper describes the initial evaluation of the Child and Adolescent Psychological Telemedicine Outreach Service (CAPTOS) in New South Wales and the changes made to the service after the initial evaluation.
Methods: The evaluation investigated patients’, rural clinicians’ and CAPTOS psychiatrists’ satisfaction with the quality of the service and the technology.
Results: There were 136 rural families, 20 rural clinicians and eight psychiatrists. Overall, satisfaction was high with the rural families and clinicians being the most satisfied (95–99% very or mostly satisfied). CAPTOS psychiatrists felt that they were usually able to perform an adequate consultation (87%) but few (16%) felt the consultations were as satisfactory as a face to face consultation. Because of the initial evaluation, and the ongoing collaboration with rural clinicians, further services were developed using the technology and the developing professional networks. These initiatives included telenursing, professional skills development, sabbaticals for rural clinicians and a clinical skills workshop for rural clinicians.
Conclusions: This study confirms telepsychiatry as a useful service for remote and rural children and families. The results also suggest some reasons why urban clinicians show the least enthusiasm for the service. Ways of addressing some of the limitations of the service are suggested, and the expansion of CAPTOS to meet the needs of rural clinicians is discussed.