Nursing students' awareness, knowledge, and attitudes regarding telehealth and telenursing use for high-quality healthcare: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND

Increasing technology use in healthcare has led to a focus on improving aspects of telehealth delivery to facilitate healthcare. Thus, students' understanding of the importance of telehealth and telenursing must be improved, as this plays a crucial role in shaping the future of healthcare. This study aimed to examine nursing students' awareness, knowledge, and attitudes regarding telehealth and telenursing use for high-quality healthcare.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted on a convenience sample of 204 nursing students attending a public university in Saudi Arabia. An online questionnaire, supplemented by additional instruments, was used for data collection. The required bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to analyze the collected data.

RESULTS

The study revealed that nursing students exhibited moderately high levels of awareness, knowledge, and attitudes regarding technology use for high-quality healthcare. Significant differences in the mean frequencies of internet use and knowledge (p < .05) and technology proficiency and knowledge (p < .05) were reported. The Pearson coefficient correlation test demonstrated that awareness was associated with knowledge (r = 0.350, p < .001), attitude (r = 0.660, p < .001), and years of technology use (r = -0.157, p = .025). Furthermore, attitude was significantly associated with knowledge (r = 0.295, p < .001) and years of technology use (r = -0.150, p = .032). In the regression, the awareness, knowledge, and attitude models were all significant (p < .05).

CONCLUSIONS

The study's findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions to enhance nursing students' technological proficiency and awareness of telenursing. The predictive relationships among awareness, knowledge, and attitude also emphasize the need for a comprehensive and integrated educational approach. Future qualitative research studies should explore nursing students' perceptions of telenursing and how this could lead to high-quality healthcare.