Table 2.

Patient feedback from the qualitative interviews

RE-AIM domain	Patient qualitative feedback
Mental health care via VTH reaches Veterans who experience several barriers to care, e.g.: Distance to VA facility; available transportation Health conditions that make travel difficult Parking at the VA facility Negative perceptions of VA Work schedules that make scheduling in-person treatment difficult	“I also have social anxiety and panic attacks so that the shuttle with 14 strangers for 2½ hours and … we all have different appointments so I have to stay … all day until all of the other Veterans’ appointments to be done and then we have to ride the shuttle back. And so that just creates a whole lot of other problems for me…” Patient 1
	“I think everybody needs therapy but if I had to travel for that, that’s not my main problem and so I probably would not do it.” Patient 6
	“She [i.e. the provider] would actually be available to talk to me about 6:00 because that gave me enough time to get up at 5:00 and get myself together and then I’ll be talking to her and then once we got through, it was 7:00 so I would leave and go to work. So she made it to work just so she could talk to me early.” Patient 7
Veteran feedback identifies factors that positively (+)/negatively (−) influence the effectiveness of VTH as a mode of mental health care delivery, e.g.: Technology does not affect patient/provider rapport (initial or occasional in-person sessions are helpful, however) (+) Patient comfort in home environment (+) Providers’ abilities to work around minor technological issues (+) Certain skills (e.g., meditation) do not translate well over VTH (−) Certain topics/issues may be better to discuss in-person than over VTH (−)	“Being in the home made it [i.e. VTH] comfortable because I hate hospitals in the first place. My feeling behind going to the doctor’s office, it makes me nervous, and being in the comfort of my own home added that extra comfort.” Patient 4
	“I just had a feeling … that yeah well this is easy to talk about you know over the internet and some things maybe felt a little less comfortable speaking about and you wish that ‘Oh, I wish I was there in person. I would feel more comfortable.’” Patient 6
	“There were several times you know during the course of the services that like I said we had some hiccups in the system to where not only me getting frustrated but the therapist was really getting frustrated. … You know but we would you know we worked through it.” Patient 8
Veteran feedback on VTH is positive overall with ease of set-up/use and comfort with technology promoting adoption; use of tablets and improving how providers share information in sessions are potential factors to increase Veteran uptake of VTH	“I am comfortable with the computer but it was something she was telling me to do that I did not know how to do and I had to get my niece to show me and then she called me back and my niece had showed me what to do so I could get on there.” Patient 7
	“I have got 5 of the guys that were up under me [in the military], I have got them involved in it. … So I kept telling them that they need to go see if they can get signed up for it, and a couple of them did …” Patient 4
	“It’s [i.e. VTH] one of the best things since sliced bread.” Patient 8