Nuove possibilità di valutazioni psichiatriche con sistemi web-based: uno studio pilota

Introduction. Telepsychiatry has raised to a role of growing importance, promoting experiments to provide rural areas clinical services and consultations, and to determine its reliability and feasibility to different clinical situations. In this study we describe a pilot experiment of psychiatric assessment of subacute patients via teleconferencing systems. Methods. 8 patients have been evaluated via web-based telecommunication systems. A general psychopathological assessment has been performed by a psychiatrist connected in videoconference to patients, using the Expanded version of BPRS (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale). A second and original instrument, a toolbox called PERPS (Panama EmeRgency Psychiatric Scale), has been used to summarize urgency, severity, treatment strategy and need for involuntary commitment. Evaluations have been compared with those made by "control" psychiatrists and ICCs (Intraclass Correlation Coefficients) between couples of measures have been calculated. A second couple of evaluations has been performed by a normal face-to-face examination and used as a general comparison between ICCs. Results. For some BPRS factors and for all PERPS items, almost no differences have been found between ICCs from online and teleconferencing examinations. A slight difference has been found for thought disturbance and mood disturbance, and this could be hypothesized as a light bias of the instrument. Conclusions. Our study suggests that it may be possible and easy to perform psychiatric evaluations of mixed subacute patients by a web-based teleconferencing system.