Awareness and attitude of primary healthcare patients towards telehealth in Cairo, Egypt

BACKGROUND

Telehealth is delivering health care services remotely from healthcare facilities using telecommunications and virtual technology. Egypt is aiming to reach Universal Health Coverage; this increases the demand for telehealth in routine health services. Telehealth helps in increasing access to areas with no available medical services as patients can be monitored remotely.

OBJECTIVE

To measure the awareness of telehealth among attendees of primary health care units and their acceptance of applying telehealth.

METHODOLOGY

This was a cross-sectional study among attendees of primary health units. Ethical issues were considered.

RESULTS

A sample size was calculated to be 162 and 170 valid Arabic interview questionnaires were filled by attendees. The awareness percentage of telehealth among attendees was 64.7% while the willingness to implement telehealth was 78%. Both awareness and willingness were significantly associated with age groups, residence, socioeconomic status, and presence of computer with internet access. Age, residence, and possession of a PC were the only adjusted predictive factors for knowledge about telehealth among patients in the multivariable analysis.

CONCLUSION

Large percentages of attendees to primary health care centers are aware of telehealth and are willing to implement it. The major cause of refusal to implement telehealth was ignorance of using telecommunication devices and the desire to be in close contact with the physicians.

Awareness and attitude of healthcare workers towards Telehealth in Cairo, Egypt

BACKGROUND

Telehealth is delivering health care services remote from health-care facilities using telecommunications. Egypt is aiming for Universal Health Coverage; this increases the demand for telehealth in routine health services.

OBJECTIVE

To measure the awareness of telehealth health care workers of primary health care units and to evaluate the effect of an orientation programme on primary health care workers' awareness and acceptance of the application of telehealth.

METHODOLOGY

This was an intervention study amongst health care workers. A self-administrated valid questionnaire for health care workers was designed, the questionnaire consists of different domains of knowledge in addition to advantages, disadvantages, security and necessity perceptions. Each domain consists of Likert scale questions of 5 points. The questions were scored as the worst answer (1) and the best (5). A total of 109 questionnaires were filled by participants who spent at least 6 months in primary health care units. Then the health care workers attended an orientation programme and the questionnaire was re-filled once more. A total of 104 was recollected. Ethical issues were considered.

RESULTS

50.5% of the health care workers were aware of telehealth; 66.7% of health care workers with master's degree were aware of telehealth in comparison to 31.8% amongst those with a diploma, 64.3% of physicians were aware of telehealth, while 29.6 of nurses were aware [Correction added on 08 April 2021 after first online publication: '9.6%' has been amended to '29.6%' in the preceding sentence]. The score of knowledge and attitude increased from 130 ± 23.538 to 156.49 ± 18.456 after the educational programme.

CONCLUSION

Half of the health care workers were aware of telehealth; the orientation improved the Healthcare Workers' knowledge and attitude.