Avaliação de perfil, percepções e barreiras de idosos brasileiros sobre serviço por telessaúde: análise quali-quantitativa

Abstract

Introduction: The aging of the population in Brazil brings with it health problems that significantly impact health services, increasing demand and costs. With this, telehealth has great potential to contribute to the provision of health care to the elderly population, so to maximize access and implementation of telehealth in Brazil in a more effective and safe way for the elderly population, it is important to understand patients' perspectives regarding this type of health care. Objective: Evaluate of profiles, perceptions and barriers of elderly Brazilians about telehealth service.Casuistry and methods: This is an observational, cross-sectional study with a mixed method of inferential, descriptive and qualitative-quantitative approach. The protocol defined for this observational study followed the recommendations proposed by Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE) and the qualitative stage of the research followed the recommendations of the Standards for reporting qualitative research (SRQR) and Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ). The research was carried out by virtual means, with the construction of an electronic means through the Google Form® platform. Men and women, aged 60 years or older, who reported having access to the internet between August 2021 and January 2022 were included. Study participants answered the data collection questionnaire, composed of 10 sections and 56 objective and subjective questions, which obtained information on: identification, demographic data, general health conditions, mobility and ease of access to health, attitudes towards telehealth, experience with telehealth, use of technology and the internet to access health, anxiety and technology, family support, and a final opinion. Among the 56 questions, five subjective questions, which were distributed in five sections, were extracted to perform a content analysis, according to the qualitative analysis. Results: 59 volunteers were included, with a mean age of 66.6±5.82 years, 19 men (32.20%) and 40 women (67.7%). They had good health and socioeconomic conditions, good digital and technological literacy , low level of satisfaction with traditional face-to-face care and 90% of the elderley included in this research were literate. It was observed through binary regression analysis that the chance of the elderly person answering the questionnaire independently decreases by 17% with advancing age, in addition, with regard to participation in telehealth care in the future, the The chance of an elderly person participating decreases by 25% with increasing age compared to the elderly who would participate. Regarding online activities, the chance of the elderly person never participating increases by 33% with advancing age compared to the elderly who have a routine of online activities and only 32% of the elderly had previous experience with telehealth, and among these, 50% reported the absence of any difficulties during care. Conclusion: The results suggest that telehealth can be a positive addition to the health care of older adults in a developing country. Determining factors such as: the profile of the elderly, perspectives, barriers and previous history of using technologies and the internet, which may be related to literacy, good technological and digital literacy, current clinical condition, good socioeconomic conditions, in addition to the level of dissatisfaction with traditional face-to-face care can influence adherence and acceptance of this type of care.