Veterinary telemedicine in Portugal : potential clients perspective

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Diogo Carvalho
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/38874
• topic: Telemedicine; Veterinary; Survey; Interest; Client opinion; Portugal; Telemedicina; Veterinária; Questionário; Interesse; Opinião de clientes; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

In Portugal, veterinary telemedicine is only recently considered an acceptable practice and although there is some research on the opinion of Portuguese veterinary surgeons, the opinion of the potential clients is mostly unknown. This research aims to better understand if there is an interest in a veterinary telemedicine service in Portugal. An online survey was used to better understand the opinion of potential clients. Most of the participants agreed that they would be more interested in the service with their regular veterinarian versus a new veterinarian. It was also observed that the main benefits of telemedicine in the eye of the participants are less stress to the animal, advice if hospitalization is necessary and allowing access to veterinary care for hard-to-reach groups and that main drawbacks are risk of missed diagnoses, lack of physical exams and the need for hospitalization anyway. A narrow majority agreed that they would only use a veterinary telemedicine service for follow-up consults. The participants mostly agreed that they would be interested in using wearable devices and smartphone applications for veterinary care. Half price was how much most of the participants were willing to pay for a veterinary telemedicine consult compared with a regular hospital visit. If covered by a pet insurance, the participants, would be more inclined to use the service. When asked if they have more confidence in Human telemedicine compared with veterinary telemedicine, most of the participants disagreed. Overall, the results showed that there is an interest in veterinary telemedicine in Portugal.