Objectives: Social isolation and lockdowns made telemedicine to gradually penetrate daily practice. Telemedicine has been used successfully in many areas of medicine such as psychiatry but is new in obstetrics and gynecology. This study aimed to investigate whether a telemedicine model would be feasible in choosing patients who needed face-to-face visits during the pandemic.
Materials and methods: Telephone calls were conducted with patients with endometriosis who were admitted to our endometriosis clinic before the pandemic. The primary outcome was to appropriately triage the patients who could postpone their routine visit without any risk and those who needed an in-clinic appointment.
Results: Seventy-nine patients were included in the study. Among 58 patients who could be reached, 55 accepted to participate in the study. The mean length of the telephone calls was 8.17 min. Nine patients required an in-clinic appointment (16.4%), whereas 46 (83.6%) patients were managed with the phone call. Compliance with hormonal agents for the treatment of endometriosis-associated pain was 11/17 (64.7%). The most commonly asked questions by patients were about cervical screening, fertility cryopreservation, and the medical treatment options of endometriosis.
Conclusion: Telemedicine visits can never replace in-clinic practice but can help with a considerable degree of efficacy in the management of patients with endometriosis.
Keywords: Endometriosis; pain; telehealth; telemedicine; televisit; treatment compliance.
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