SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.6 número1 índice de autoresíndice de assuntospesquisa de artigos
Home Pagelista alfabética de periódicos  

Serviços Personalizados

Artigo

Indicadores

Links relacionados

  • Em processo de indexaçãoCitado por Google
  • Em processo de indexaçãoSimilares em Google

Compartilhar


African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

versão On-line ISSN 2071-2936
versão impressa ISSN 2071-2928

Resumo

JACK, Caron L.  e  MARS, Maurice. Ethical considerations of mobile phone use by patients in KwaZulu-Natal: Obstacles for mHealth?. Afr. j. prim. health care fam. med. (Online) [online]. 2014, vol.6, n.1, pp.1-7. ISSN 2071-2936.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v6i1.607.

BACKGROUND: mHealth has the potential to facilitate telemedicine services, particularly in the developing world. Concern has been expressed about the confidentiality of health information that is relayed by mobile phone AIM: We examined the habits and practices of mobile phone use by patients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. METHODS: We conducted a descriptive survey of two patient populations: 137 urban patients attending private practitioners and 139 patients in remote rural areas attending outpatient departments in Government-funded hospitals. The questionnaire covered several domains: demographics, mobile phone use, privacy and confidentiality and future use for health-related matters. RESULTS: Two hundred and seventy-six patients completed the questionnaire. We found that a third of our participants shared their mobile phone with others, 24% lent their phone to others and more than half received health-related messages for other people. Mobile phone theft was common, as was number changing. Thirty-eight percent of the people were not able to afford airtime for more than a week in the past year and 22% of rural patients were unable to keep their phone charged. Mobile phone signal coverage was significantly worse in the rural areas than in urban areas. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the legal and ethical ramifications that these practices and findings will have on mHealth programmes in our setting. Healthcare providers and regulators will need to consider how patients use and manage their mobile phones when developing services and regulations.

        · resumo em Francês     · texto em Inglês     · Inglês ( pdf )

 

Creative Commons License Todo o conteúdo deste periódico, exceto onde está identificado, está licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons