JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, several healthcare service programs that aim to provide healthcare telemedicine services have been introduced in Libya. Although they were newly introduced, many physicians have participated in these services to provide care and advice to their patients remotely, that is without the need to be present in person in the clinic. Therefore, there is a need to assess the physicians’ awareness, knowledge, attitude, and skills of the usage of telehealth services.

Objective:

We aimed to provide an overview of the physicians’ awareness, knowledge, attitude, and skills of telemedicine.

Methods:

A cross-sectional study was conducted using a web-based survey to obtain responses from healthcare workers in Libya during May 2020. The questionnaire consisted of questions on the physicians’ basic characteristics, ability to use a computer, and awareness, knowledge, attitude, and skills of telemedicine.

Results:

Totally, 673 healthcare workers participated in this study. The awareness and skill levels of the respondents were found to be 56% and 36.8%, respectively, while the knowledge and attitude levels were found to be 86.5% and 82.6%, respectively, which were high. There were no significant differences in the awareness, knowledge, attitude, and skill scores among physicians who worked in public hospitals, private hospitals, or both types of hospitals (employment status). We observed statistically significant differences in the mean awareness, attitude, and computer skill (P <0.05) scores, where the distribution of the scores, based on the ability to use computers, of the groups was not similar. There were no significant differences in the knowledge scores among the three groups. We found that those with professional computer skills showed significantly higher scores than those with high awareness levels [χ2(3) = 14.468, P ≤0.001]. We found that those with higher computer skills showed significantly higher attitude levels [χ2(3) = 13.46, P = 0.001]. Additionally, there were significant differences in the mean computer skill scores of the groups [χ2(3) = 199.62, P ≤0.001].

Conclusions:

The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to remain ongoing for a significant time; hence, policy programs, such as telemedicine services, which aim to address the obstacles to medical treatment created due to physical distancing steps, will be continued for a long time. Therefore, there is a need to train and support healthcare workers and initiate governmental programs that provide adequate and supportive healthcare services to patients in developing countries.