Abstract Objective Assessment of mood and quality of life (QoL) is important for Parkinson’s disease (PD) deep-brain stimulation (DBS) surgical candidacy, as it helps to identify psychological risk factors and guide post-surgical care needs for optimized prognosis. This study examines whether telehealth-psychological evaluations (TH) are as feasible as in-office assessments, and whether switching testing modalities affects symptom reporting. Method We retrospectively reviewed charts of 76 consecutive PD-DBS surgical candidates (age 64.2±9.3) who completed self-report questionnaires as part of routine pre- and post-DBS workup. Measures included the Beck Depression Inventory-2, Starkstein Apathy Scale, and Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire-39. Scores at pre- and post-surgery timepoints were compared between TH and in-office groups. Difference scores for each questionnaire were calculated by subtracting post-surgical from pre-surgical raw scores, and then compared between participants in stable (same testing modality; n=45) and switched (different modalities; n=31) groups. Independent-samples t-tests evaluated group differences, and Two One-Sided Tests (TOST) assessed statistical equivalence. Results At the post-surgical timepoint, t-tests revealed higher PDQ-39 communication scores in the TH group (t=2.47, p=.018). The stable modality group had higher post-surgical scores in PDQ-39 emotional well-being (t=2.12, p=.040) and communication (t=2.31, p=.027) domains than the switched modality group. However, TOST confirmed equivalence across all mood and behavioral measures (all p-values .001), suggesting these differences were within acceptable margins (±0.5 SD). Conclusion Mood and QoL assessed via TH is comparable to in-office evaluations, although PDQ-39 communication and emotional well-being scores should be interpreted with caution. These findings support the clinical feasibility of remote mood and QoL assessments in PD-DBS candidates.
Zhang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.