Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased use of telemedicine The primary objective of the study was to evaluate attitudes and behaviors of licensed physicians in the region to telemedicine Methodology: A cross-sectional design using an electronic survey as the primary tool was done The questionnaire had a demographic component of the respondent (first part), covering age, specialty, and experience with telemedicine during the COVID pandemic, and a second part, which was in the form of a Likert scale, covering perceptions related to telemedicine The Likert scale itself had two main areas: (1) attitudes toward telemedicine and (2) perceived barriers Results: There were 392 valid responses of which 228 (58 1%) had used some form of telemedicine (other than standard phone calls) during the COVID-19 pandemic The most common platforms used telemedicine include WhatsApp (R) (211, 53 8%), atom (R) (131, 33 4%), Microsoft Teams (R) (27, 6 2%), Sehha App (65, 16 5%), Email (84, 21 4%) There was a strong agreement on the following statements: "Telemedicine can reduce unnecessary outpatient visits" (87 5%), "Effectiveness of telemedicine depends on the specialty" (89 5%), and "Telemedicine can be used to monitor chronic patients from home" (88 3%) Concerning the barriers to telemedicine, the ones having the most concordance were technological limitations (66 6%) and concerns of diagnostic reliability (66 1%) Conclusions: The responses from our study seem to suggest that while the attitudes toward telemedicine are positive, practicing physicians are concerned about a perceived lack of clarity regarding related legal frameworks and barriers such as technological issues, cultural factors, and diagnostic concordance
Telemedicine Practice in Saudi Arabia During the COVID-19 Pandemic