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

Abstract

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.