KNOWLEDGE, PRACTICE, ATTITUDE, AND BARRIERS RELATED TO THE USE OF TELEHEALTH IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Introduction: Recommendations to restrict social activities to avoid the transmission of COVID-19 virus results innovative ways to provide services to patients. Telehealth is an opportunity for patients to stay connected with dentists or doctors. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the respondents’ knowledge, practice, attitude, and barriers related to telehealth. Material and methods: Cross-sectional studies with snowball sampling were conducted among Indonesian society, with a criteria of being aged 18 years and over and not medical staff. Sample size obtained included 320 participants, who were requested to complete an online questionnaire about their socio-economic status, knowledge, and practice questions with yes and no answer option. Questions on attitudes and barriers were included in 5-point Likert scale. Results: The study showed an inter-class correlation coefficient (ICC) score of questionnaires that indicated good (0.671) and excellent agreement (0.839). A total of 429 respondents were willing to completed the questionnaire via a Google form. Most of the respondents were women (72%), aged 18-29 years (73.3%), with non-college education (59%), and living in Java Island (71.6%). More than 50% of respondents had never read or heard about telemedicine and teledentistry. Most of them agreed about the simplicity of contacting a dentist or doctor and the convenience of using telehealth. Conclusions: Although most of the respondents did not hear, read, and use telehealth, most respondents’ attitude towards the use of teledentistry or telemedicine was positive and had no barrier. Infrastructure and regulations need to be prepared by the government to be able to implement telehealth.