Jessica Gold, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
DrFirst surveyed 1,000 Americans over the age of 18 and found that while 44% of them have now used telehealth services during the pandemic, including 25% for therapy, 73% of men and 39% of women reported multitasking during their visits.
The types of distractions were varied with the most common being surfing the web, checking e-mail, or checking texts (24.5%), watching the news, TV, or a movie (24%), scrolling through social media (21%), eating a snack or meal (21%), and playing a video game (19%).
Respondents also indicated doing telehealth appointments with their doctor while smoking a cigarette (11%), drinking an alcoholic beverage (9.4%), or driving (10%).
One could hardly imagine any patient smoking in a doctor’s office openly in person, though it does perhaps give a bigger picture of a person in context.
Read the full piece in Forbes.
