Effectiveness of Telehealth Collaboration between Academic, Health Provider and Community towards People’s Participation for COVID-19 Self-reporting

Introduction

Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has been a major health issue in the world including Indonesia. This disease spread very fast in Indonesia with 1,298,608 positive cases and 35,405 people died. Self-assessment of COVID-19 and self-reporting of risks of infection are important to reduce infection in the community. However, there is also a need to perform physical distancing to reduce the spread of the disease. Thus, telehealth is considered a means to educate people about the importance of self-assessment and self-reporting of Covid-19 signs and symptoms. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of telehealth collaboration between academic, health provider, and community towards people’s participation for COVID-19 self-assessment and self-reporting in West Java, Indonesia.  

Methods

This study used a prospective cohort design with a time frame from 7th April to 13th July 2020. The samples were people in 26 sub-districts in West Java Province Indonesia. A Total of 6,578 people reported their condition through a website system. The telehealth was performed by 63 nursing students and 16 nursing lecturers in collaboration and partnership with health providers in community health centres and community leaders in 26-sub-districts. The 26 sub-districts comprised 3 groups with different levels of engagement: the first group consisted of 9 sub-district with a low level of telehealth engagement, second group 7 sub-district with a moderate level of telehealth engagement, and the third group 10 sub-districts with a high level of telehealth engagement. Data were analysed using one-way ANOVA test.

Results

The results showed that in the first group, 354 people were self-reported (mean=39.33). In the second group 1,111 people were self-reported (mean= 158.7). In the third group, 5,118 people were self-reported (mean= 511.8). The one-way ANOVA test showed that there is a significant difference between the three groups (F = 9.117; p=0.001).

Discussion

Collaboration and partnership between academics, health providers, and community leaders have been proven can improve people’s participation in COVID-19 self-reporting. Telehealth is an effective way to facilitate collaboration and partnership. However, in some areas of this study, telehealth is not optimal due to limited phone signals and limited people who owned smartphones.

Conclusions

Tele-health is effective as one alternative to reach out and educate people about the importance of self-reporting of COVID-19 signs and symptoms. Nurses and health professionals in community health centres can use telehealth in addition to direct face-to-face interaction.  

Lessons learned

Collaboration and partnership are important during pandemic COVID-19. Tele-health can become one of the means to reach out to educate people.

Limitations

Due to the circumstances during the early days of the pandemic, this study used a prospective cohort design, so that all activities were conducted without any efforts to control the samples.

Suggestions for future research

Further research can be conducted with a randomized controlled trial design and qualitative design to explore influencing factors for the people’s participation.