Establishing a telepsychiatry consultation practice in rural Georgia for primary care physicians: A feasibility report

摘要

Objective. One approach to solving mental health care disparity issues in rural areas is by establishing a telepsychiatry consultation practice for children, in which a psychiatrist sees a child via videoconferencing for a limited number of sessions and then provides a treatment plan to that child's primary care physician and family. Method. The present study offered a 2-session telepsychiatry consultation clinic, consisting of a psychiatric evaluation session and a recommendation session, with patients located remotely in rural Georgia. Results. Fifteen consultations with children aged 4 to 18 years (M = 9.73, SD = 3.39) with varying diagnoses were completed. Parental satisfaction with the telepsychiatry consultation model was high, overall mean of 4.58 (SD = 0.63) on a 5-point scale (n = 11). Conclusion. Establishing a child telepsychiatry consultation practice is feasible in rural areas. This report describes the benefits and challenges of our telepsychiatry consultation clinic with rural pediatric patients.