A Cross Sectional Study on Knowledge, Attitude and Skills of Telemedicine among Health Care Professionals at Tertiary Care Centre

Abstract

Background: IT enabled medical services such as Telemedicine and e-health is fast developing from the recent past which supports long distance health care services. The term is often used as an umbrella term that includes tele-health, electronic medical records, e-health and other components of health information technology. Aim: To assess the knowledge, Attitude, Skills towards health care professionals. Methodology: In this descriptive cross sectional study, questionnaire‐based study among various levels of health care professionals at tertiary care centre, in ananthapuram district, Andhra Pradesh. The sample size was 177 by using convenient sampling method. The health care workers willing to fill the questionnaire were considered to have consented to the study. The same was mentioned at the start of the questionnaire. This study was carried out from December 2022 to February 2023. Results: Out of 177 health care professional’s 52% females and 48% males. Most of the subjects belongs to 25 to 30 years were 58%. Least of the subjects 3.95% has no about telemedicine application, 22.59% heard about telemedicine applications and 73.44 know about the telemedicine application. Only 33.89% are in learner stage and 29.94% are experts in email sending. Ability of Microsoft usage is 49.2 %, 31.6% and 19.4% in learner, mediocre and expert level respectively. Only 9.6% has no idea on patient management through telemedicine, 56.49% heard about patient management through telemedicine and 33.89% knew that patient management can be done through telemedicine. Conclusion: Most of the study subjects lack of knowledge and skills towards telemedicine. So, need of training programmes among health care professionals and proper guidelines by government.