Evidence-Based Medicine
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Jun 15, 2018; 9(6): 92-98
Published online Jun 15, 2018. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v9.i6.92
Iranian healthcare professionals’ perspectives about factors influencing the use of telemedicine in diabetes management
Haleh Ayatollahi, Nader Mirani, Fatemeh Nazari, Narjes Razavi
Haleh Ayatollahi, Nader Mirani, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1996713883, Iran
Fatemeh Nazari, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan 4513956111, Iran
Narjes Razavi, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1996713883, Iran
Author contributions: Mirani N designed the study and conducted the literature review and analysis, and drafted the manuscript; Ayatollahi H supervised the study and edited the manuscript; Nazari F and Razavi N helped with collecting the data and preparing the manuscript.
Supported by Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, No. IUMS/SHMIS_94/27219.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Nader Mirani, MSc, Lecturer, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, No. 6, Shahid Yasami St., Vali-e-Asr St., Tehran 1996713883, Iran. mirani.n@tak.iums.ac.ir
Telephone: +98-21-88794301 Fax: +98-21-88794301
Received: March 8, 2018
Peer-review started: March 8, 2018
First decision: April 4, 2018
Revised: April 30, 2018
Accepted: May 15, 2018
Article in press: May 15, 2018
Published online: June 15, 2018
Processing time: 98 Days and 22.1 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The use of new technologies to manage diabetes has been suggested and telemedicine is one of these technologies that can be used to offer more services to patients regardless of time and place. However, there are a number of organizational, legal, cultural, technical, and economic factors that may influence the use of telemedicine in managing diabetes.

Research motivation

Less attention has been paid to the factors influencing the use of telemedicine in managing diabetes. These factors can be different in different countries and investigating them can help to strengthen the positive factors and to overcome the constraining factors before implementing a project successfully.

Research objectives

The research objective was to identify factors influencing the use of telemedicine in diabetes management from the perspectives of healthcare professionals in Iran.

Research methods

This was a quantitative study and the research participants included 240 nurses and 55 physicians. To collect data, a five-point Likert scale questionnaire was designed. The data analysis was performed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Research results

The findings showed that physicians and nurses intended to use telemedicine technology for managing diabetes. However, the physicians were concerned with the compatibility of telemedicine with other clinical activities related to diabetes management and the nurses were concerned with the technology’s usefulness in diabetes management.

Research conclusions

It is essential to pay more attention to the factors influencing the use of telemedicine technology prior to system design and deployment. This approach will help to improve the level of technology acceptance among the users.

Research perspectives

The influencing factors identified in the current study can be prioritized in future research in order to enable more focus on the most important factors during system design and implementation.