ABSTRACT
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic a public health disaster of global concern on the 30th January 2020. With the highly infectious COVID-19 virus inevitably spreading across nations and causing significant health and economic impacts, leveraging Digital Mobile Technologies (DMTs) by frontline healthcare practitioners has been touted as a lifeline. Since January 2020, various frontline health workers, health experts, and health institutions across the globe have progressively embraced the use of numerous DMTs as an essential means of restraining the highly infectious disease spread. DMTs such as smart mobile phones and other digital mobile technologies are the reliable means of sharing pertinent health information, awareness, and surveillance as well as facilitating access to crucial healthcare services, especially in designated COVID-19 health facilities. Therefore, this study employed, an online survey using an exploratory-based research design to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionized the usage of DMTs among (n=1,126) frontline healthcare practitioners in three leading tertiary hospitals in Ghana. We adopted technology acceptance model (TAM) to study the adoption and utilization of DMTs and their limitations by frontline healthcare workers in COVID-19 management. We found that 75.1% (n=846 out of 1,126) of frontline healthcare workers, comprising nurses, medical doctors, physician assistants, and COVID-19 contact tracers were aware of DMTs, adopted and used DMTs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its management. However, 93.0% (n=784 out of 846) of those who were aware of the DMTs employed them in their daily operations beyond the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analyses also indicate that increased usage of these DMTs has significantly enhanced public healthcare campaigns and education on the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana. These mobile applications have also improved and boosted healthcare communications among practitioners on measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. In terms of originality, this study expands our understanding of digital technology in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in less studied regions such as Africa, West Africa, and Ghana to be specific. Secondly, the study contributes to filling a gap in our understanding of how theories such as TAM function in crisis communication management. Finally, the study recommends health authorities and governments in developing countries incorporate DMTs in their current health care systems, especially in public health emergencies like COVID-19 preparedness. © 2022 by authors.
ABSTRACT
The activities of the anti-vaccine crusaders and conspiracy theorists on social media platforms have influenced billions of people across the globe on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines currently been used for immunizations. The increased social media mis/disinformation on the efficacies and safety of these vaccines developed have raised a global concern among all stakeholders. This study adopted a convenience sampling through an online survey to collect data from N=1800 participants (students) from five (5) public universities in Accra the national capital of Ghana, which is also the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic to examine their perceptions on the overabundance COVID-19 pandemic information on social media and how these pieces information consumption impacts their trust/mistrust/distrust in the COVID-19 vaccines. The findings of our study indicate that there exist vital levels of COVID-19 vaccines “infodemic” on social media and these overabundances of COVID-19 vaccine information on social media has caused great levels of fear and panic among the students and the public. We also found that, the high exposure to COVID-19 vaccine information on social media are associated with negative perceptions and higher levels of mistrust/distrust among the population. This study recommends that stakeholders such as WHO, policymakers, and accredited health institutions must embark on public health communication campaigns to educate the public on the credible sources of COVID-19 pandemic information on social media. © 2021 by authors;licensee OJCMT.
ABSTRACT
The first quarter of 2020 is a hard time for the global community. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemics swept through the world affected many aspects of human endeavour: from the decline in industrial production to the re-adjustments in the academic calendar of all educational institutions globally. Stakeholders and management of higher educational institutions have no other option but to make use of internet technology, thus online learning for the continuation of academic activities across all schools worldwide. This paper aims at assessing whether Ghanaian international students in China are satisfied with the "mass" online learning in higher educational institutions in Beijing, China. Therefore, this study employed an online survey to investigate the level of satisfaction of online learning in higher educational institutions and how Ghanaian international students are coping with these "new initiatives". The findings from the study suggest that the implementation of online learning programs was a very great idea as the majority of the sampled students supported the initiative. The study also revealed that students have adequate knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another finding that came up during the research is the high cost of participating in online learning. However, our results showed that students outside China due to the COVID-19 spend so much money to buy internet data for online learning. Last but not least, the study discovered that internet connectivity was very slow for students leaving within the dormitories of various universities in China. The findings from this study will be of much benefit to university administrators and management in taking future emergency decisions concerning the implementation of online learning programs for student's different backgrounds.