Healthcare provider-to-patient perspectives on the uptake of teleconsultation services in the Nigerian healthcare system during the Covid-19 pandemic era
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19592271 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ifeanyi Jude Ezeonwumelu (0000-0003-4007-2212, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, corresponding author), Ifeanyi Jude Obijiaku (0000-0002-1735-5356, University of Benin Teaching Hospital), Chukwudi Martin Ogbueche (0000-0001-8350-667X, Glasgow Caledonian University), Reunlearn360 Cohort, Ucheoma Nwaozuru (0000-0002-0680-0928, Wake Forest University, corresponding author) |
| Editors | Joao Tiago da Silva Botelho |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | e0000189 |
| Publication date | 2022-02-09 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | PLOS Global Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2767-3375 • E-ISSN: 2767-3375 |
| Publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000189 |
| PMID | 36962178 |
| OpenAlex | W4210873693 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
The urgency to curtail the devastating effects of the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic has led to the implementation of several measures to limit its spread, including movement restrictions and social distancing. As most developing countries rely solely on hospital visitations for their medical needs, this impediment to assessing healthcare services compounded by low uptake of telehealth services could result in dire consequences. This is a cross-sectional study among Healthcare providers (HCP) and Healthcare consumers (HCC) in Nigeria. We administered a pre-validated self-administered online questionnaire comprising questions to assess the knowledge, use, perceptions, and benefits of telemedicine among study participants. Descriptive statistics were used to examine participants’ perceptions on telemedicine use and to summarize participants’ characteristics. A total of 158 healthcare providers and 1381 healthcare consumers completed the online survey. Ninety percent of HCP reported that they used some form of telemedicine to deliver health care, and 63% of HCC had received healthcare through telemedicine. A significant proportion of HCP (62%) and HCC (69%) agreed that telemedicine would improve healthcare consultation experience and satisfaction. However, fewer (21%) HCP agreed that they liked that there would be no physical contact with patients using telemedicine. In contrast, 52% of HCC agreed that they liked that there would be no physical contact with healthcare providers while using telemedicine. The majority of the participants believed that benefits of telemedicine would include: being a safe way for healthcare delivery during pandemics (HCP = 62%, HCC = 83%), affordability (HCP = 62%, HCC = 82%), and time-saving (HCP = 54%, HCC = 82%,). Teleconsultation services have been shown to aptly complement face-to-face hospital visits in ensuring effective triaging in hospitals and providing adequate healthcare delivery to patients regardless of geographical and physical barriers. These results support telemedicine use for the provision of healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic
2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Business · Disease · Health care · Healthcare system · Pandemic · Pathology · Political science · Telemedicine · COVID-19 diagnosis using AI · Medicine · Mobile Health and mHealth Applications · Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation · Virology
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |