Please take part in the TECH study online survey!
We want to hear about your experiences of teleconsultations in dermatology! Please take part in the TECH study survey if you are 13-16 years old or a parent of a child with eczema. The survey takes 10-15 minutes to do. For more information and to take part click here: https://nottingham.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/the-tech-study
The Teleconsultations for Eczema in Children (TECH) study is investigating the effectiveness and acceptability of teleconsultations for follow-up care of eczema in children and young people. This study will help us to understand experiences and views of teleconsultations from the patient and parent perspective and will inform future research in this field.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, many children and young people have had teleconsultations in dermatology. A teleconsultation is a remote appointment with the healthcare professional by phone or video, instead of going to the hospital. Many patients find them convenient and flexible, but disadvantages include the doctor or nurse not being able to examine the skin and technical problems. The Department of Health wants hospitals to continue providing teleconsultations. This study will explore whether teleconsultations are effective for following up children with eczema and whether they are acceptable to patients and parents.
This study will explore the experiences and views of children, young people and their parents who have had teleconsultations for eczema, through an online survey and interviews. The researchers have also carried out a survey with doctors and nurses providing teleconsultations for children and young people in dermatology departments, to find out more about how teleconsultations are being carried out in different hospitals and their experiences. They are also working with a health economist to explore the costs involved with different types of appointments. We hope the research findings will help inform future research in this field, but also help to improve teleconsultations for young people and children in the future.
The TECH study is being carried out by a team of doctors dermatology trainees and dermatologists across the UK, who took part in the UK Dermatology Clinical Trials Network (UK DCTN) trainee groups programme in 2021. Our research team also includes a patient representative, qualitative researcher and health economist. The study is funded by the UK DCTN 2021 Themed Call Award, which was co-funded by the National Eczema Society and British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Dermatology. The study is also funded by two Health Education England Topol Digital Fellowships, which were awarded to Dr Natalie King Stokes and Dr Aoife Daly. We are grateful for the support from our funders to enable us to carry out this research.