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Drone Usage for Medicine and Vaccine Delivery during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Attitude of Health Care Workers in Rural Medical Centres

Authors :
Rohana Sham
Ching Sin Siau
Steven Tan
Dawn Chii Kiu
Hasminulhadi Sabhi
Hui Zhu Thew
Ganeshsree Selvachandran
Shio Gai Quek
Noorsiah Ahmad
Mohd Hanif Mohd Ramli
Source :
Drones. 6:109
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2022.

Abstract

Rural areas are often difficult to access reliably with medicine and vaccines. This study aimed to examine rural health care workers’ attitude towards drone delivery for medicine and vaccines and the factors that influenced it. Health care workers from four rural health care facilities were sampled. Participants self-reported their demographic information, attitude towards medicine and vaccine delivery using drones, perception of benefits and risks of using drones, and perceived leadership innovativeness through an online or a pen-and-paper questionnaire. A total of 272 health care workers (mean age = 36.19, SD = 8.10) from all of the sites participated in this study. More than half of the study participants agreed or strongly agreed that using a drone to deliver medicine and vaccines is a good idea (54.2%, 95% CI [47.5, 60.8]), a wise idea (54.6%, 95% CI [47.9, 61.2]), and is desirable (52.5%, 95% CI [45.7, 59.0]). Males (β = 0.223), workers from the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department (β = 0.135), a lower perceived delivery risk (β = −0.237), and higher leadership innovativeness (β = 0.336) predicted positive attitudes towards drone usage. Assistant medical officers (β = −0.172) had a negative attitude. There is a need to further understand the roles of occupation and leadership innovativeness in predicting health care workers’ attitude towards drone usage, as these differences could be embedded within their roles in the health care system.

Details

ISSN :
2504446X
Volume :
6
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Drones
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........ed43389bd4c07f17dfaad858cd28eef7
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6050109