• Laurent M Willems, Yunus Balcik, Anna H Noda, Kai Siebenbrodt, Sina Leimeister, Jeannie McCoy, Ricardo Kienitz, Makoto Kiyose, Raphael Reinecke, Jan-Hendrik Schäfer, Johann Philipp Zöllner, Sebastian Bauer, Felix Rosenow, and Adam Strzelczyk.
• Epilepsy Center Frankfurt Rhine-Main and Department of Neurology, University Hospital and Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; LOEWE Center for Personalized Translational Epilepsy Research (CePTER), Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
• Epilepsy Behav. 2020 Nov 1; 112: 107483.

IntroductionWhen the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic reached Europe in 2020, a German governmental order forced clinics to immediately suspend elective care, causing a problem for patients with chronic illnesses such as epilepsy. Here, we report the experience of one clinic that converted its outpatient care from personal appointments to telemedicine services.MethodsDocumentations of telephone contacts and telemedicine consultations at the Epilepsy Center Frankfurt Rhine-Main were recorded in detail between March and May 2020 and analyzed for acceptance, feasibility, and satisfaction of the conversion from personal to telemedicine appointments from both patients' and medical professionals' perspectives.ResultsTelephone contacts for 272 patients (mean age: 38.7 years, range: 17-79 years, 55.5% female) were analyzed. Patient-rated medical needs were either very urgent (6.6%, n = 18), urgent (23.5%, n = 64), less urgent (29.8%, n = 81), or nonurgent (39.3%, n = 107). Outpatient service cancelations resulted in a lack of understanding (9.6%, n = 26) or anger and aggression (2.9%, n = 8) in a minority of patients, while 88.6% (n = 241) reacted with understanding, or relief (3.3%, n = 9). Telemedicine consultations rather than a postponed face-to-face visit were requested by 109 patients (40.1%), and these requests were significantly associated with subjective threat by SARS-CoV-2 (p = 0.004), urgent or very urgent medical needs (p = 0.004), and female gender (p = 0.024). Telemedicine satisfaction by patients and physicians was high. Overall, 9.2% (n = 10) of patients reported general supply problems due to SARS-CoV-2, and 28.4% (n = 31) reported epilepsy-specific problems, most frequently related to prescriptions, or supply problems for antiseizure drugs (ASDs; 22.9%, n = 25).ConclusionUnderstanding and acceptance of elective ambulatory visit cancelations and the conversion to telemedicine consultations was high during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown. Patients who engaged in telemedicine consultations were highly satisfied, supporting the feasibility and potential of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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