A Study On Telehealth Practice Intention And Its Correlated Factors Of Community Medical Staff In Changsha City

Objective To investigate the situation of telehealth practice intention, computer attitudes(CA) and computer self-efficacy(CSE) of medical staff in communities of Changsha, and explore the relationship among these three variables and the factors influencing telehealth practice intention, in order to provide theoretical basis and practical instruction for telehealth development and computer-skill training for medical staff in communities.Methods 250 health carers, including nurses, doctors and managers, from 21 community health centers in Changsha City were recruited by stratified cluster sampling to fill in the questionnaire, and 228 effective records were obtained (response rate: 91%). The basic information, telehealth practice intention questionnaire, Computer Attitude Scale (CAS) drawn up by Loyd and Computer Self-efficacy Scale (CES) drawn up by Murphy were used in this survey. Descriptive analysis, independent-samples t Test, completely randomized design analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 11.0.Results1. The mean score of the practice intention to telehealth was 13.96. There were statistically significant differences of telehealth practice intention in different groups divided by age, academic background, frequency of computer using, and whether having a computer at home(p<0.05).2. The mean score of the attitudes toward computer was 100.83, and the mean score of computer self efficacy was 73.79.3. Pearson correlation analysis showed that there were positive correlations among telehealth practice intention, computer attitude and computer self-efficacy(P<0.001).4. The main influencial factors of the telehealth practice intention were computer liking (b'=0. 339) , mainframe skills (b'= 0. 251) , academic background (b' =0. 149) andwhether having a computer at home (b'=0. 097) .Conclusion1. Community nurses, doctors and managers have greater practice intention for telehealth, with the mean score was 13.96. And the influential affectors were computer liking, mainframe skills, academic background, whether having a computer at home, age and frequency of computer using.2. The mean score of the community medical staff's attitudes toward computer was 100.83, and the mean score of computer self efficacy was 73.79.3. The telehealth practice intention, computer attitude and computer self-efficacy have interactions among each other.