NURSES’ AWARENESS AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS TELENURSING CARE AND ITS’ ASSOCIATED FACTOR AT SPECIALIZED TEACHING REFERRAL HOSPITALS IN AMHARA REGION, NORTHWESTETHIOPIA 2022

Abstract

Abstract Background: Telenursing is a method of providing nursing care over distances using telecommunication technology. According to international council of nurse’s report in 2022 the global shortage of nurses was estimated at 5.9 million nurses and nearly 89% of these were concentrated in low and middle- income countries. With regarding this many countries are dealing with some health problem situations along with a growing of old age people, chronic disease and pandemic disease like COVID-19. So, they need home based attention or care to overcome such problem. For the high need of nursing care, at home or distance telenursing is being noticeable as a method for supporting and managing the needs of patient care. However, in the Ethiopian context, there is limited evidence regarding telenursing awareness and Attitude. Objective: the aim of this study was to assess Nurses’ awareness and attitude toward telenursing care and its’ associated factor at specialized teaching Referral Hospital in the Regional State of Amhara, Northwest Ethiopia 2022. Method: An institution based cross sectional survey study was conducted among 917 nurses from May 16 to July 18, 2022. Data were collected using structured selfadministered

questionnaires. Data entry were done using EpiData version 4.6 and analysis by SPSS version 28 respectively. Descriptive statistics was done. Bi-Variable and multi-variable ordinal logistic regression analysis was done. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to identify the factors associated with telenursing Awareness and attitude from generalized liner ordinal regression. Result: A total of 858 questionnaires were completed and returned with a response rate of 93.6%. Among the study participant 54.8% was female. About 24.01 % and 20.28% were had favorable and good awareness about telenursing respectively. 22.96% and 19.11% were had favorable and good attitude toward telenursing respectively. Factors associated with nurses awareness and attitude toward telenursing care were: Personal Computer Access (P-value=0.025), Source of information (Book and Research) (P-value = 0.024 and 0.034), Online Plant form for contacting online(Instagram) (P-value = 0.0001) Internet access at home (Pvalue=0.05), Internet accesses service in organization (P-value=0.0001) and Computer

Related Training (P-value=0.003) and in addition to Respondents awareness (AOR =

5.96, 95% CI: (3.8-9.3), p-value = 0.0001), internet access at home (AOR = 7.2, 95%

CI: (1.29-40.2), p-value = 0.024), digital training (AOR = 354.5, 95% CI:

(23.4-5371.4),

p-value = 0.0001), internet access in the organization (AOR = 143.5, 95% CI: (12.981585.3),

p-value = 0.0001) and Computer Related Training (AOR = 246.6, 95% CI: (17.7-3430.4), p-value = 0.0001) are statistically associated with nurse’s attitude toward telenursing care. Conclusion: awareness and attitude of study participant present in this study is low this could be because majority of study participants had a low proportion of nurses took computer and digital health-related training, had personal computer and both in their home and working place had low internet access. Keyword: Telenursing, Nurse, Attitude, Awareness, Amhara, Ethiopia.