Health information technology and health care activists: Where is the place of Iranians?

Abstract

BackgroundThe level of knowledge and using health information technology by clinicians, students and staff has always been one of the essential issues in the field of health.ObjectiveThe objective of the present study was to evaluate HIT knowledge, attitude, and practice habits among health care professionals and students in educational hospitals in Iran.MethodsThis case study was carried out in 2016 on 539 personnel of 65 educational hospitals in Iran entailing three subgroups of physicians (n=128), medical students (n=97), and health record staff (n=314). A pretested self-administered questionnaire was designed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of health information technology. It was comprised of three parts of “baseline general characteristics”, “knowledge categories”, and “attitude and practice”.ResultsIn total, 28.8% of participants had a good level of knowledge about computer science, whereas 37.7% had a poor level of knowledge. A total of 40% showed good attitude and practice, while 25.6% had poor attitude and practice. Furthermore, 16.4% of physicians, 32% of students and 33.1% of health record staff had good knowledge, while poor knowledge was reported in 45.3% of physicians, 25.8% of students, and 37.6% of staff (p=0.304). The trend of good attitude and practice habits were respectively 28.9%, 50.5%, and 40.8% in physicians, students, and staff, whereas these trends were respectively 30.5%, 4.1%, and 29.9% for poor attitude and practice (p=0.163). Generally, the knowledge level of participants was positively related to the rate of attitude and practice (r=0.847, p<0.001), so the higher knowledge level brought about the higher score in attitude and practice.ConclusionThe level of knowledge and practice of HIT was low among the physicians, students, and staff. Our university can provide a plenary program to promote the level of knowledge and information on practice of HIT.

Health Information Technologies in a Resource‐Limited Setting: Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Health Professionals

“…Concerning knowledge about HITs, a 2017 study in an Iranian hospital among healthcare activists found that only 28.8% of the participants had good knowledge, while in the current study, 23.6% of the participants have good knowledge [29]. A 2020 study among doctors who work in public health facilities in Pakistan found that 80.7% of the participants had good level of knowledge about the definition which is higher than the current study's finding.…”

“…Regarding attitude and practice, the Iranian study among healthcare activists measured both together and found the percentage of good attitudes and practices to be 40%, compared to the current study's finding of attitudes and practices of 66.3% and 50.4%, respectively [29]. The time difference in the two studies might have affected healthcare professionals' knowledge and attitudes as recent developments in technology are likely to bring positive changes.…”

Sub-optimal knowledge with positive attitude and belief of frontline health workers toward the use of information technologies

“…We found that majority of the FLWs had knowledge regarding the benefits of IT use, which was similar to the finding of Ghoochani et al . [ 19 ] This knowledge could be dependent on the education level of the FLWs. However, FLWs lacked knowledge and confidence in using a device, which could be due to a lack of past use/training, but had a positive attitude and belief toward IT use.…”

“…However, FLWs lacked knowledge and confidence in using a device, which could be due to a lack of past use/training, but had a positive attitude and belief toward IT use. These findings were similar to the findings of Ghoochani et al .,[ 19 ] Ilozumba et al .,[ 20 ] Sukum et al .,[ 21 ] and Kipturgo et al . [ 22 ].…”