Abstract
Providing specialized midwifery telemedicine services during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Department of Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz Iran
- Reproductive Health Promotion Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
- Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (Midwifery counseling), Ahvaz, Iran
- Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Health, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
Background
The COVID-19 crisis encouraged policymakers, regulators and payers to use remote health care.
Objectives
This study was conducted to investigate the awareness and practice of midwifery as a remote service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Material and methods
This is a descriptive research in which the views and practices of 600 midwives from all over Iran were assessed using a web-based questionnaire as a data collection tool. A hyperlink to the questionnaire was shared in social media groups dedicated to midwife members.
Results
62.7% of the midwives participating in the study considered telemedicine to be applicable in health services. However, most of them still provided specialised services in person during the COVID-19 pandemic, and provision of remote services was limited to telephone counselling. The awareness and practice of midwives in this field were not appropriate. A significant relationship of midwives’ awareness and practice with their age, previous work and education was observed (p < 0.01).
Conclusions
As far as provision of specialised midwifery services through telemedicine is concerned, the awareness and practice of midwives are limited to the provision of telephone counselling, thus it is necessary to provide technological and educational infrastructure to set the stage for providing comprehensive midwifery services through telemedicine.
Keywords
telemedicine, health care services, midwifery, COVID-19 pandemic
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