Alzahrani Hayat S, Alharbi Sarah A, Alsadan Yara I, Alghosn Nouf S, Almazyad Sarah M, Alotaibi Nowayer, Almansour Mohammed, Aldossari Khaled K, Demyati Eyad, Abulreesh Razan Y
Department of Nursing, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
J Educ Health Promot. 2023 Jun 30;12:217. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_819_22. eCollection 2023.
The first COVID-19 case in Saudi Arabia was reported on March 2, 2020. The Saudi government introduced the "937" service number as one of the telemedicine services for COVID-19 information. Telemedicine uses telecommunication and information technologies in the medical field to deliver healthcare services and improve patients' health status. This study aims to estimate the frequency of teleclinics usage during COVID-19, assess awareness of teleclinics, and assess acceptance of teleclinics during COVID-19 in the Saudi population.
The cross-sectional study used a convenient sample encompassing the 1,583 Saudi and non-Saudi adult population of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and was conducted online between August 2020 and April 2021. A self-administrated online questionnaire was distributed to all participants and data were collected on sociodemographics, knowledge of use of teleclinics, and its acceptance. Analysis of quantitative data by -test and association of qualitative variables by Chi-square test was conducted. Regression analysis was performed on the significant values of univariate analysis. Data were analyzed by SPSS 25.
Most (92.5%) participants were female and had a university education (65.9%). The main reason for using teleclinic was experiencing a new complaint (27.3%), next, for medications refill (13.2%), with COVID-19-related issues being the least common reason for using teleclinic (8.2%). The result shows that 77.1% of participants had a good level of acceptance of teleclinic. The regression analysis showed that number of teleclinics utilization, as an advantage it is more convenient, and recommending this service to someone else was significantly associated with acceptance of teleclinics in future.
As per the findings, the experience of using teleclinic positively impacts the level of acceptance of teleclinic among the population. The adoption of telemedicine for healthcare delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic helped limit the spread of the infection and reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19 for both patients and healthcare providers. In the future, telemedicine can be used as an alternative to minor complaints and follow-up checkups. In this way, the burden of healthcare system can also be overcome.
沙特阿拉伯于2020年3月2日报告了首例新冠肺炎病例。沙特政府推出了“937”服务号码，作为新冠肺炎信息远程医疗服务之一。远程医疗利用医疗领域的电信和信息技术提供医疗服务并改善患者健康状况。本研究旨在估计新冠肺炎疫情期间远程诊所的使用频率，评估对远程诊所的认知度，并评估沙特人群在新冠肺炎疫情期间对远程诊所的接受度。
这项横断面研究采用了便利抽样，涵盖了沙特阿拉伯利雅得的1583名沙特和非沙特成年人群，于2020年8月至2021年4月在线进行。向所有参与者发放了一份自行填写的在线问卷，并收集了社会人口统计学、远程诊所使用知识及其接受度的数据。对定量数据进行t检验分析，对定性变量进行卡方检验分析。对单因素分析的显著值进行回归分析。数据采用SPSS 25进行分析。
大多数（92.5%）参与者为女性，拥有大学学历（65.9%）。使用远程诊所的主要原因是出现新的症状（27.3%），其次是药物 refill（13.2%），与新冠肺炎相关的问题是使用远程诊所最不常见的原因（8.2%）。结果显示，77.1%的参与者对远程诊所的接受程度较高。回归分析表明，远程诊所的使用次数、其更方便的优势以及向他人推荐这项服务与未来对远程诊所的接受度显著相关。
根据研究结果，使用远程诊所的经历对人群中远程诊所的接受程度有积极影响。在新冠肺炎疫情期间采用远程医疗提供医疗服务有助于限制感染传播，降低患者和医疗服务提供者接触新冠肺炎的风险。未来，远程医疗可作为轻微症状和后续检查的替代方式。通过这种方式，还可以减轻医疗系统的负担。
