Mirasghari Fatemeh, Ayatollahi Haleh, Velayati Farnia
Department of Health Information Management, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Health Management and Economics Research Center, Health Management Research Institute, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Digit Health. 2025 Mar 17;11:20552076251325969. doi: 10.1177/20552076251325969. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.
Telemedicine services have been recognized as a safe and affordable method for providing continuous healthcare services, especially to patients with chronic diseases. Despite all advantages, the use of this technology has faced several challenges particularly during COVID-19. The aim of this study was to investigate physicians' and patients' with diabetes perspectives about challenges of using telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This survey study was conducted in 2023. The participants were endocrinologists, internal medicine specialists, general practitioners (GPs), and patients with diabetes in five teaching hospitals located in one of the underprivileged areas in Iran. Data were collected using a 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Kruskal-Wallis test.
In this study, 95 questionnaires were completed by 60 patients with diabetes (30%), 21 GPs (70%), 10 internal medicine specialists (66.6%), and 4 endocrinologists (80%). The results showed that technical (4.42 ± 0.57), clinical (4.25 ± 0.52), organizational (4.23 ± 0.56), and individual (4.02 ± 0.42) challenges were the most important challenges, respectively. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the perspectives of the specialists, GPs, and patients with diabetes in terms of individual, clinical, technical, and organizational challenges.
Since the use of telemedicine for patients with diabetes faced several challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to consider practical solutions to overcome these challenges in order to improve quality of services and increase the use of this technology, particularly in underprivileged areas. Moreover, the effectiveness of these services in different contexts, and for people with different economic conditions should be investigated in the future.
远程医疗服务已被视为提供持续医疗服务的一种安全且经济实惠的方法，尤其是对慢性病患者而言。尽管有诸多优势，但这项技术的应用面临着一些挑战，特别是在新冠疫情期间。本研究的目的是调查医生和糖尿病患者对新冠疫情期间使用远程医疗所面临挑战的看法。
这项调查研究于2023年开展。参与者包括内分泌科医生、内科专家、全科医生（GPs）以及位于伊朗一个贫困地区的五家教学医院的糖尿病患者。使用5级李克特量表问卷收集数据，并采用描述性统计和克鲁斯卡尔 - 沃利斯检验进行分析。
在本研究中，60名糖尿病患者（30%）、21名全科医生（70%）、10名内科专家（66.6%）和4名内分泌科医生（80%）共完成了95份问卷。结果显示，技术挑战（4.42±0.57）、临床挑战（4.25±0.52）、组织挑战（4.23±0.56）和个人挑战（4.02±0.42）分别是最重要的挑战。然而，在个人、临床、技术和组织挑战方面，专家、全科医生和糖尿病患者的看法存在统计学上的显著差异。
由于在新冠疫情期间糖尿病患者使用远程医疗面临诸多挑战，有必要考虑切实可行的解决方案来克服这些挑战，以提高服务质量并增加这项技术的应用，特别是在贫困地区。此外，未来应研究这些服务在不同背景下以及对不同经济状况人群的有效性。
