Acceptance of telerehabilitation in chronic pain: the patients' perspective

Chronic pain is considered a major public health problem. In addition to the physical and emotional burden that chronic pain brings, it gives rise to significant health care costs. Although conventional rehabilitation programs are effective, the use of telerehabilitation, providing remote care via communication technologies, is expected to offer several advantages over conventional clinic-based rehabilitation because it affords patients to rehabilitate within their own social environment. This can facilitate the care delivery process, increase access of care and improve patients' well-being and quality of life. However, despite the great potential of telerehabilitation, its intended benefits will only be realized when these treatments are accepted and used by patients as fully fledged alternatives to conventional care. Therefore, an understanding of patients' reasons for accepting or refusing relerehabilitation is crucial.

The aim of this thesis is to identify drivers and barriers related to patients' acceptance of exercise-based telerehabilitation for chronic pain. This will provide more insight into strategies that may improve telerehabilitation design and as such may facilitate the uptake of prospective telerehabilitation services.