A comparison of rural speech-language pathologists' and residents' access to and attitudes towards the use of technology for speech-language pathology service delivery

Abstract

This paper reports results and implications of two related studies which investigated (a) access of residents and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) of rural Australia to information and communication technologies (ICT) and (b) their attitudes towards the use of ICT for delivery of speech-language pathology services. Both studies used mail out questionnaires, followed by interviews with a subset of those who completed the questionnaires. Data were obtained from 43 questionnaires from rural residents and 10 interviews with a subset of those residents, and from questionnaires returned by 49 SLPs and 4 interviews with a subset of those SLPs. Results show a mismatch between rural residents' and SLPs' access to and attitudes towards use of ICT for speech-language pathology service delivery. Rural residents had better access and more positive attitudes to the use of ICT for speech-language pathology service delivery than expected by SLPs. The results of this study have important implications for education and professional development of SLPs and for research into the use of ICT for telespeech-language pathology.

Keywords:

• Attitudes
• service delivery
• access
• information and communication technologies (ICTs)
• telehealth

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the generosity of the New South Wales Branch of the Isolated Children's Parents' Association who managed the mail out of the questionnaires for Study 1. We also acknowledge with thanks the helpful comments offered by the anonymous reviewers of our manuscript.

This research was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of Charles Sturt University's School of Community Health Student Research Ethics Committee (reference numbers EC/04/01 and EC/03/04) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983.