Examining the Willingness to Utilize Telehealth among Women Who Own a Smartphone and Live in Urban Areas of Nigeria

In Nigeria, women face significant barriers to accessing healthcare, including long distances to healthcare facilities, lack of autonomy, stigma surrounding reproductive and sexual health concerns, and the unavailability of primary and specialty care. Telehealth (i.e., the use of information and communication technologies for the purpose of advancing the health of individuals and their communities) holds a promise of facilitating healthcare access by eliminating physical distance barriers to obtaining quality healthcare and contributing ease and privacy. Yet, limited research has been conducted on its use in Nigeria, particularly how it is perceived and how it might be received. Guided by the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA), the study sought to address this gap by exploring Nigerian women’s perceptions towards telehealth and assessing for factors that might influence willingness to use telehealth. Two hundred and eighty-eight adult women living in urban areas of Nigeria completed an online survey. Analysis revealed that most respondents reported willingness to use telehealth (93.0%), with 69 (25.3%) reporting to be very willing and 152 (55.7%) reporting to be willing. Although 50.0% of the respondents reported having heard about telehealth, only 74 (27.2%) reported prior experience with using telehealth. All seven behavioral constructs of the TFA were correlated with willingness to use telehealth. However, only positive view of telehealth burden (i.e., not perceiving telehealth use to be a burden) (β = .19, p = .03) and self-efficacy (β = .20, p = .015) were significant unique predictors of willingness. This exploratory analysis provides insight into how well telehealth might be adopted by Nigerian women and suggests that although only a few respondents have previously utilized telehealth and only half of the respondents had been aware of telehealth before the survey, most are willing to utilize it to meet their healthcare needs. Advisor: Katelyn Coburn