Modern communication technology skills of patients with multiple sclerosis

There is an increasing trend for the use of the Internet and other electronic communication types for health purposes (e.g. information websites, online communities, and Webbased health education programmes) with the highest use among young women and city dwellers.1,2 Due to its preponderance in young females (about 70%) showing first symptoms between the ages of 20 and 40 years, patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) may be proper representatives for upcoming eHealth trends. To substantiate this assumption, we investigated the current use of new types of communication by MS patients. Thereby, we sought to draw a conclusion on which electronic communication type could be the most promising one for medical MS management. We hypothesized that the majority of MS patients would already be using an array of electronic communication devices. Therefore, we developed a questionnaire containing 18 items on the frequency and nature of personal computer, website, email and mobile phone use by MS patients, as well as demographic characteristics. A full version of this questionnaire and some findings from our multicentre survey have been recently published.3 In the current study, we focused on the aspects of patients’ technology skills and on the increase of the number of included patients. Out of 1116 patients who enrolled in the anonymous survey, a total of 1096 patients (98.2%) with clinically definite MS according to the McDonald criteria completed the relevant item set of the paper-based, self-developed questionnaire during outpatient clinic visits in several neurological outpatient centres in Germany between 2009 and 2010. The majority of study patients were female (71.2%) and showed a mean age of 41.52 years (SD: 10.81; range: 17–73), equalling well to typical population statistics of patients with multiple sclerosis. Patients’ disease duration averaged 9.28 years (SD: 6.33). Within the survey population, more than nine in 10 MS patients owned a computer, a mobile phone and had regular access to the Internet (Table 1). Eighty-eight per cent of MS patients used a computer at least once a week. Similar percentages were measured for a weekly use of the Internet (86.7%), emails (82.4%) and mobiles phones (85.1%), which should be an appropriate minimal frequency for the use in medical management. Eighty-three per cent of patients said they could acquaint themselves quickly with new software and six in 10 patients reported that they had already installed new computer programs. Some patients said they would use text-based chats (13.3%) or video-based chats (8.1%). MS-related information seeking on the Internet was reported for 41.7% of MS patients. Our results give evidence that MS patients are very familiar with the regular use of modern communication technology (computers, websites, emails and mobile phones). The majority of patients reported relevant information and communication technology skills such as installing software and acquainting with new software. Furthermore, four in 10 MS patients retrieved health information online. Our findings are in line with results from Lejbkowicz et al. and Hay et al., even if the rates of 471882 MSJ19910.1177/1352458512471882Multiple Sclerosis JournalHaase et al. 2013