SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.69 issue2Risk versus benefit: Should not audiologists assess this in the context of occupational noise-induced hearing loss in the mining industry? author indexsubject indexarticles search
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Services on Demand

Article

Indicators

Related links

  • On index processCited by Google
  • On index processSimilars in Google

Share


South African Journal of Communication Disorders

On-line version ISSN 2225-4765
Print version ISSN 0379-8046

Abstract

KHOZA-SHANGASE, Katijah. In pursuit of increasing the application of tele-audiology in South Africa: COVID-19 puts on the alert for patient site facilitator training. S. Afr. J. Commun. Disord. [online]. 2022, vol.69, n.2, pp.1-10. ISSN 2225-4765.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajcd.v69i2.900.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presented and highlighted new and unanticipated challenges to the provision of clinical services, raising an urgency for the application of different models of service delivery, including tele-audiology. In many tele-audiology encounters, a site facilitator is needed at the patient site to help with the hands-on aspects of procedures, and the implications of this requirement are significant for the resource-constrained African context OBJECTIVES: The aim of this scoping review was to investigate published evidence on training provided to patient site facilitators (PSFs) for tele-audiology application to guide the South African audiology community in tele-audiology application initiatives METHOD: Electronic bibliographic databases including Science Direct, PubMed, Scopus MEDLINE and ProQuest were searched to identify peer-reviewed publications, published in English, between 2017 and 2021 related to training of PSFs. The guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) were followed during the screening process as well as for illustrating the process RESULTS: Findings are discussed under four key themes: (1) type of tele-audiology and the implications thereof, (2) length of training and its implications, (3) diversity in the range of PSFs used and its implications for the training, and (4) heterogeneity in the training CONCLUSION: The findings highlight important considerations for tele-audiology application within the African context, specifically decision-making around who can serve in the role of PSFs, as well as content and nature of training required, with implications for policy and regulations as well as human resource strategy. These findings are important for the COVID-19 pandemic era and beyond

Keywords : audiology; COVID-19; human resources; patient site facilitators; South Africa; tele-audiology; training.

        · text in English     · English ( pdf )

 

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License