Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Purpose: Tele-eyecare is a form of tele-healthcare that engages in delivering eye care services to patients using telecommunications technology. This study aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude towards tele-eyecare among optometry students. Methods: A convenience sampling technique was used to distribute pre-tested questionnaires to 268 students in pre-clinical and clinical classes of the Department of Optometry, University of Benin. The characteristics of the respondents were displayed using percentages and tables. The association between knowledge, attitude, and characteristics of respondents was tested using the Chi-square test. Results: Among the respondents, 56.7% were females while 43.3% were less than 25 years of age. The majority of the respondents (92.6%) indicated that tele-eyecare involved the use of information and communication technology to provide eye care services. 86.6% of respondents believed that tele-eyecare can improve the quality and accessibility of eye care services while 75.4% agreed that tele-eyecare would benefit future eye care providers. Furthermore, 65% of respondents were interested in getting training on tele-eye care, age, gender, and year of study influenced the knowledge and attitude of the respondents (p<0.05). Conclusion: The majority of the participants demonstrated good knowledge and a good attitude towards tele-eyecare, however, there is a need to close the tele-eye care knowledge gap among clinical optometry students.
Odigie et al. (Mon,) studied this question.