The Significance of Physician-Patient Communication on Telemedicine Patients’ Health Outcomes: Evidence from Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The importance of physician-patient communication on patient health outcomes has been globally known. Poor communication in clinical settings, including in telemedicine visits, has been identified as a key barrier to successful medical consultation. This barrier is even more prevalent among people from linguistically and culturally diverse communities. This study investigated the influence of physician-patient communication on telemedicine patient health outcomes in Indonesia, a developing country with great linguistic and cultural diversity. This study utilized secondary data from a telemedicine utilization survey conducted during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Socioeconomic factors and communication features were included as predictors of patients’ health improvement. Logistic regressions were utilized to examine the significance of the communication features on patients’ health. The analysis results indicated that five communication features including the adequacy of consultation length, a timely physician response, the provision of an explanation of the medication and possible side effects, the patient’s ability to utter their physical condition and opinion regarding medication goals, and the patient’s ability to comprehend physician explanations and instructions were significantly associated with the patient’s health outcomes. Physicians and healthcare providers should focus on the provision of communication features revealed in this study to elevate the likelihood of improved health conditions in telemedicine patients.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

The ethics approval for this study was granted by the National Health Research Ethic Committee, Ministry of Health Republic of Indonesia with reference number KE.416/2020.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of Health Republic of Indonesia under grant number [HK/02.03/1/1800/2020].