Investigating the role of telehealth (TeleHealth) in HIV counseling

Telehealth is the provision of clinical and non-clinicalhealth services (such as assessment, diagnosis,education, consultation, treatment and monitoring)remotely (using electronic media such as mobilephones, SMS, telemetry, e-mail, televideo and etc.).Telehealth encompasses a broader dimension oftelemedicine (which narrowly refers to the delivery ofclinical medical services remotely), although bothterms are subsets of electronic health (eHealth). Thisstudy was conducted in order to investigate the roleof Telehealth in HIV counseling and education as wellas the treatment of AIDS patients in Fereydunshahr(Isfahan, Iran).MethodologyThis cross-sectional study was conducted in ananalytical manner on ۱۶۷ people who had visited atFereydunshahr health care center to receive HIV/AIDScounseling, education, or treatment, as well aspreventive treatment in cases of needle stick. Thesampling method was convenience and the durationof the research was ۱۸ months (from March ۲۰۲۲ tothe end of September ۲۰۲۳). All the calculations weredone with STATA software and the tests were doneconsidering the error level of ۰.۰۵.Results and DiscussionMost of the study samples had access to the Internet(۹۶%) and were willing to use telehealth services forHIV care (۷۹%). Reasons for not wanting to usetelehealth were include privacy concerns (۵%),mistrust of cyberspace and social media (۳%),problems working with telehealth (۳%), preference forface-to-face meetings (۶%) and Internet technologyaccess problems (۴%). Due to the tendency of themajority of participants to use telehealth services, theP-value in all statistical tests exceeded the ۰.۰۵ errorlevel and in the logistic regression ۹۵% C.I. wasEXP(B)=۰.ConclusionsDespite reported barriers, there is a high willingnessto use telehealth among people receiving HIV care.Telehealth compensates for geographical barriers andlimitations of access to facilities, reduces costs andestablishes equity in health care.

کلیدواژه ها:

HIV ، AIDS ، Telehealth ، Telemedicine