Shannon van Hoorn

183 Patient experiences with VBHC interventions at the HIV outpatient clinic 6 others, can lead to a decreased quality of life and treatment adherence 4,10-17. Overall, these findings confirm that informing the patient beforehand on the aim and relevance of an intervention, as well has how the intervention can contribute to better care provision is essential for its overall success 18-20. With regards to the patient experiences with the change in consultation schedule, we found that patients prefer a telephone consultation instead of a face-to-face consultation if everything is going well or to discuss routine aspects of care. The acceptance of a remote consultation, the mentioned benefits of a remote consultation, the preference for a telephone consult and the barriers for a video consultation are consistent with findings of previous studies on the use of telehealth in HIV care 21,22. Strengths and limitations As far as we know, this is the first study focusing on patient experiences with the provision of care at an HIV outpatient clinic and provides a unique insight into patient experiences but also preferences with care provision. This study, however, has several limitations. Firstly, the interviews were conducted by three medical students that had limited to no previous experiences in qualitative research and conducting interviews. This inexperience was noted during an interim analysis after the first few interviews in which the students did not follow the complete interview guide and neglected to ask follow-up questions for clarifications on the answers given by the patients. This resulted in variation in which questions were answered by the patients, the richness of the answers given by the patients and the need to include more patients to obtain data saturation. After the first few interviews, the students therefore received additional training on qualitative research and conducting interviews. Secondly, the findings of this study might not be representative for all patient experiences at our HIV outpatient clinic because of potential selection bias. This study primarily included patients that completed the quality of life questionnaire before their face-to-face consultation at the HIV outpatient clinic. During the study period, only 39 percent of all the patients at the HIV outpatient clinic complete the generic quality of life questionnaire before their consultation. To ensure that all patients received the same level of care and attention, the domains of the quality of life questionnaire were discussed

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