In pursuit of increasing the application of tele-audiology in South Africa: COVID-19 puts on the alert for patient site facilitator training

South African Journal of Communication Disorders

 
 
Field Value
 
Title In pursuit of increasing the application of tele-audiology in South Africa: COVID-19 puts on the alert for patient site facilitator training
 
Creator Khoza-Shangase, Katijah
 
Subject — audiology; COVID-19; human resources; patient site facilitators; South Africa; tele-audiology; training
Description 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.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS)
Date 2022-07-20
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajcd.v69i2.900
 
Source South African Journal of Communication Disorders; Vol 69, No 2 (2022); 10 pages 2225-4765 0379-8046
 
Language eng
 
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https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/900/1718 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/900/1719 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/900/1720 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/900/1721
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Katijah Khoza-Shangase https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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