Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Department of Community Medicine and Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2021 Apr 8;21(1):122. doi: 10.1186/s12911-021-01478-x.
Telerehabilitation has been considered a suitable alternative healthcare delivery system during the COVID-19 outbreak, and many studies have promoted its feasibility in delivering physical care to patients who live with pain and disability. Physiotherapists' perceptions and willingness are two key factors that influence the provision of remote physiotherapy.
To investigate physiotherapists' perceptions of and willingness to use telerehabilitation in Kuwait during the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore the barriers that may hinder the use of telerehabilitation in this sector.
The following methods were used: (1) a cross-sectional survey and (2) face-to-face semi-structured interviews. In the cross-sectional survey, an electronic questionnaire was sent to 747 physiotherapists who were working in the governmental health sector. The questionnaire included four sections: perceptions of telerehabilitation, comfort with technology, willingness to use telerehabilitation, and barriers to using telerehabilitation. Six interviews were conducted with physiotherapy managers to explore the barriers and facilitators of telerehabilitation practice.
In this study, descriptive data analysis was conducted, and a cross-tabulation technique was used to find the associations between the variables, in which chi-square tests were used to identify the significance of the results, where p < 0.05. Thematic content analysis was used for the interviews.
Only 273 completed questionnaires were received, giving a response rate of 36.5%. Most of the respondents (237; 86.8%) considered telerehabilitation a viable option to deliver healthcare to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. In spite of the lack of information and communication technology (ICT) (156; 57.1%), 89% (243) of the respondents were willing to integrate telerehabilitation into their conventional practice, as cultural and social norms were not against the use of telerehabilitation systems. The results indicate that the more the physiotherapists used the internet and email in their work and the more comfortable they were with technology, the more willing they were to use telerehabilitation systems (p = 0.01). The physiotherapy managers reported that patients' privacy and the confidentiality of their data were considered barriers.
In Kuwait, physiotherapists show overall positive perceptions towards and a willingness to use telerehabilitation to facilitate patients' access to physiotherapy services. There are several barriers to employing telerehabilitation. Accordingly, recommendations are suggested.
远程康复在 COVID-19 大流行期间被认为是一种合适的替代医疗保健提供系统，许多研究都提倡在为患有疼痛和残疾的患者提供物理治疗方面具有可行性。治疗师的看法和意愿是影响远程物理治疗提供的两个关键因素。
调查科威特治疗师在 COVID-19 大流行期间对远程康复的看法和使用意愿，并探讨可能阻碍该领域远程康复使用的障碍。
采用以下方法：（1）横断面调查和（2）面对面半结构式访谈。在横断面调查中，向在政府卫生部门工作的 747 名物理治疗师发送了电子问卷。问卷包括四个部分：对远程康复的看法、对技术的舒适度、使用远程康复的意愿和使用远程康复的障碍。对 6 名物理治疗经理进行了访谈，以探讨远程康复实践的障碍和促进因素。
本研究进行了描述性数据分析，并使用交叉表技术寻找变量之间的关联，其中使用卡方检验确定结果的显著性，p<0.05。使用主题内容分析对访谈进行分析。
仅收到 273 份完整的问卷，回复率为 36.5%。大多数受访者（237 人；86.8%）认为远程康复是在 COVID-19 大流行期间向患者提供医疗保健的可行选择。尽管缺乏信息和通信技术（ICT）（156 人；57.1%），但 89%（243 人）的受访者愿意将远程康复纳入其常规实践，因为文化和社会规范并不反对使用远程康复系统。结果表明，治疗师在工作中更多地使用互联网和电子邮件，并且对技术更舒适，他们就越愿意使用远程康复系统（p=0.01）。物理治疗经理报告说，患者的隐私和数据的保密性被认为是障碍。
在科威特，治疗师对远程康复表示总体上持积极的看法，并愿意使用远程康复来方便患者获得物理治疗服务。远程康复存在一些障碍。因此，提出了建议。
