Swedish primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine : A survey using a new questionnaire – physician attitudes and intentions to use telemedicine (pait)

Pikkemaat, Miriam; Thulesius, Hans; Nymberg, Veronica Milos

Swedish primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine : A survey using a new questionnaire – physician attitudes and intentions to use telemedicine (pait)

Mark

; Thulesius, Hans ^LU and Nymberg, Veronica Milos ^LU (2021) In International Journal of General Medicine 14. p.3445-3455

Abstract: Background: Research on intentions to use telemedicine in primary care is sparse. This survey study explored primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine by using a newly developed questionnaire: Physician Attitudes and Intentions to use Telemedicine. Methods: An anonymous web-survey with questions focusing on theory-based predictors of behavioral intentions such as Attitudes, Subjective norms and Perceived behavioral control was designed, validated, and sent to all primary care physicians at 160 primary health care centers in southern Sweden from May to August 2019. The questionnaire had 29 subject items (including 49 multiple-choice sub-items). Main outcome measures were intentions to use three domains of telemedicine and... (More); Background: Research on intentions to use telemedicine in primary care is sparse. This survey study explored primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine by using a newly developed questionnaire: Physician Attitudes and Intentions to use Telemedicine. Methods: An anonymous web-survey with questions focusing on theory-based predictors of behavioral intentions such as Attitudes, Subjective norms and Perceived behavioral control was designed, validated, and sent to all primary care physicians at 160 primary health care centers in southern Sweden from May to August 2019. The questionnaire had 29 subject items (including 49 multiple-choice sub-items). Main outcome measures were intentions to use three domains of telemedicine and correlation between theory-based predictors and behavioral intentions for using telemedicine. Results: The survey was validated by an expert group, amended, and then tested and retested. A majority of the 198 physicians who returned the web-surveys reported that they did not use e-mails (68%), nor video consultations (78%), chat (81%), or text messages (86%) in their everyday patient work. Yet, most physicians described a positive intention to use telemedicine in patient care for all three studied domains with Attitudes and Perceived behavioral control being significant predictors (p<0.01) for Intentions to use digital contacts (R² = 0.54), chronic disease monitoring with digital tools (R² = 0.47) and artificial intelligence (R² = 0.54). A structural validation of a preliminary instrument – Physician Attitudes and Intention to use Telemedicine (PAIT) – containing 28 sub-items was done by exploratory factor analysis with acceptable explanatory, reliability and sampling adequacy measures. Five factors emerged with Eigenvalues between 1.6 and 11.1 explaining 72% of the variance. Total Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91 and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkirk 0.79. Conclusion: Before the covid-19 pandemic, Swedish primary care physicians reported a low use yet high behavioral intention to use telemedicine in a study where we developed the preliminary instrument Physician Attitudes and Intention to use Telemedicine. Perceived behavioral control had the largest predictive value of behavioral intention to use telemedicine. Thus, interventions aiming to increase the use of digital tools in primary care should possibly focus on empowering physicians’ self-efficacy towards using them.
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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/8bc23941-569a-4db0-9a61-fb64099a321b

author

Pikkemaat, Miriam ^LU

; Thulesius, Hans ^LU and Nymberg, Veronica Milos ^LU

organization

Family Medicine and Community Medicine (research group)

publishing date

2021

type

Contribution to journal

publication status

published

subject

Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

keywords

Primary care, Survey, Telemedicine, Theory of planned behavior

in

International Journal of General Medicine

volume

14

pages

11 pages

publisher

Dove Medical Press Ltd.

external identifiers

scopus:85111270019
pmid:34295177

ISSN

1178-7074

DOI

10.2147/IJGM.S319497

language

English

LU publication?

yes

id

8bc23941-569a-4db0-9a61-fb64099a321b

date added to LUP

2021-09-01 13:50:56

date last changed

2024-06-15 15:27:20

@article{8bc23941-569a-4db0-9a61-fb64099a321b,
  abstract     = {{<p>Background: Research on intentions to use telemedicine in primary care is sparse. This survey study explored primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine by using a newly developed questionnaire: Physician Attitudes and Intentions to use Telemedicine. Methods: An anonymous web-survey with questions focusing on theory-based predictors of behavioral intentions such as Attitudes, Subjective norms and Perceived behavioral control was designed, validated, and sent to all primary care physicians at 160 primary health care centers in southern Sweden from May to August 2019. The questionnaire had 29 subject items (including 49 multiple-choice sub-items). Main outcome measures were intentions to use three domains of telemedicine and correlation between theory-based predictors and behavioral intentions for using telemedicine. Results: The survey was validated by an expert group, amended, and then tested and retested. A majority of the 198 physicians who returned the web-surveys reported that they did not use e-mails (68%), nor video consultations (78%), chat (81%), or text messages (86%) in their everyday patient work. Yet, most physicians described a positive intention to use telemedicine in patient care for all three studied domains with Attitudes and Perceived behavioral control being significant predictors (p&lt;0.01) for Intentions to use digital contacts (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.54), chronic disease monitoring with digital tools (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.47) and artificial intelligence (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.54). A structural validation of a preliminary instrument – Physician Attitudes and Intention to use Telemedicine (PAIT) – containing 28 sub-items was done by exploratory factor analysis with acceptable explanatory, reliability and sampling adequacy measures. Five factors emerged with Eigenvalues between 1.6 and 11.1 explaining 72% of the variance. Total Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91 and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkirk 0.79. Conclusion: Before the covid-19 pandemic, Swedish primary care physicians reported a low use yet high behavioral intention to use telemedicine in a study where we developed the preliminary instrument Physician Attitudes and Intention to use Telemedicine. Perceived behavioral control had the largest predictive value of behavioral intention to use telemedicine. Thus, interventions aiming to increase the use of digital tools in primary care should possibly focus on empowering physicians’ self-efficacy towards using them.</p>}},
  author       = {{Pikkemaat, Miriam and Thulesius, Hans and Nymberg, Veronica Milos}},
  issn         = {{1178-7074}},
  keywords     = {{Primary care; Survey; Telemedicine; Theory of planned behavior}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{3445--3455}},
  publisher    = {{Dove Medical Press Ltd.}},
  series       = {{International Journal of General Medicine}},
  title        = {{Swedish primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine : A survey using a new questionnaire – physician attitudes and intentions to use telemedicine (pait)}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S319497}},
  doi          = {{10.2147/IJGM.S319497}},
  volume       = {{14}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}

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Swedish primary care physicians’ intentions to use telemedicine : A survey using a new questionnaire – physician attitudes and intentions to use telemedicine (pait)