Validation of a conceptual model of service quality for Direct-to-consumer telemedicine consultation: preliminary results of the 1st round of a Delphi study

Purpose: A conceptual model to assess service quality of DTC telemedicine consultation was developed by the authors. The objective of this study is to validate and further refine this model.
Methodology: A Delphi study will be used to develop consensus and appraise the model with the participation of 10 patients, 10 teleconsultants, and 3 service quality academics. In round 1 conducted in November-December 2023, participants rated the initial 15 items and made suggestions, which will be incorporated in round 2. All panelists evaluated each service dimension (item) based on its potential positive and significant impact on service quality and its degree of relevance for the scale content validity. Consensus was defined a priori, as items that reach the pre-established cut-off (interquartile score of 1 or less, minimum of >70% of participants with a level of agreement ≥ 4 and an I-CVI of 0.78 or above).
Findings: In round 1 of the Delphi, 14 out of the 15 initial items met the consensus criteria. A lack of consensus was recorded for the Website design subdimension. The panel also identified some overlapping items (Website design/Ease of Use) and (Waiting time/Accessibility), indicating the need to reevaluate those subdimensions for Round 2.
Value: Results from Round 1 are encouraging in suggesting that a majority of the items will achieve consensus and the overall scale significant content validity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to aim at gaining consensus on a set of service quality for DTC telemedicine consultations.

Direct-to-Customer (DTC) telemedicine, Service quality, Scale validation, Delphi study