Awareness and Attitude Toward Telemedicine of Students at University of Paramedical Sciences

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Introduction: Telemedicine technology is no longer a futuristic concept and is increasingly integrated into health care. As the studies on attitudes toward telemedicine focus mainly on physicians and medical students, there is a need to evaluate the views of students in other fields of paramedical sciences. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate the awareness of and attitude towards telemedicine among the Paramedical Sciences students of Varastegan Institute for Medical Sciences in Mashhad.Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in May 2022. A standard questionnaire was used to evaluate the awareness of and attitude towards telemedicine. This questionnaire included 14 questions, including demographic information (5 questions), information related to exposure to telemedicine (5 questions), interest in telemedicine (2 questions), and plans for future use (2 questions). A proportional per-size sampling method was used for paramedical sciences students.Results: A total of 81 participants responded to the research questionnaire. Most of the students (70.4%) stated that they had seldom been exposed to telemedicine technology. However, 50 students (62.6%) agreed and strongly agreed that exposure to telemedicine in the classroom is an important educational aspect. Also, 37 students (45.7%) strongly agreed that telemedicine needs face-to-face education. A significant difference was observed between the field of study and interest after experiencing telemedicine among the students (p=0.04). Also, there was a significant difference between the academic semester and the level of interest in telemedicine among the students (p<0.001).Conclusion: The results of this survey show that the majority of paramedical sciences students still lack the experience of being exposed to it, despite the increasing development of telemedicine. Since the majority of them are interested in using telemedicine as an educational aspect, future studies are recommended to help the education and experience of exposure to telemedicine among paramedical science students.