AUTHOR=Hmoud Mohammed , Salamatullah Hassan K. , Faidah Dania E. , Makkawi Seraj 

TITLE=Experience and perception of utilizing virtual clinic in neurological assessment in Saudi Arabia

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1111254

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2023.1111254

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=The World Health Organization defined electronic health as “the unified usage of information technology and electronic communications in the health sector”. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, out-patient encounters were largely shifted to virtual clinics due to the crisis caused by COVID-19. This study aimed to evaluate the neurology consultants', specialists', and residents' experience and perception of utilizing virtual services for neurological assessment in Saudi Arabia. 
This cross-sectional study was conducted by sending an anonymous online survey to the neurologists and neurology residents in Saudi Arabia. The survey was developed by the authors, and contained three main sections: demographics, subspecialty and years of experience after residency, and virtual clinics during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. 
A total of 108 neurology practicing physicians in Saudi Arabia responded to the survey. Overall, 75% experienced virtual clinic, 61% of them used phones for consultation. In neurology clinical practice, there was a significant difference (P < 0.001) regarding the teleconsultations for follow-up patients compared to the newly referred patients, being more suitable for the follow-up cases. Additionally, most neurology practicing physicians showed more confidence in performing history-taking tasks virtually (82.4%) than physical examination. However, it was found that consultants were significantly (P < 0.03) more confident to virtually perform the cranial nerve, motor, coordination, and extrapyramidal assessments than the neurology residents. Physicians deemed it more suitable to conduct teleconsultations for patients with headache and epilepsy than for those with neuromuscular and demyelinating diseases/multiple sclerosis. Also, they agreed that patients’ experiences (55.6%) and physicians’ acceptance (55.6%) were the two main limitations to implement the virtual clinics. 
This study revealed that the neurologists were more confident in performing history-taking in virtual clinics than physical exam. In contrast, consultants were more confident in handling the physical examination virtually than the neurology residents. Moreover, the most accepted clinics to be handled electronically were the headache and epilepsy clinics in comparison to the other subspecialities, being mainly diagnosed using history. Further studies with larger sample sizes are warranted to observe the level of confidence in performing different duties in neurology virtual clinics.