Midwives’ intentions regarding use of electronic medical records in health centres in Lebak district, Banten province, Indonesia

Abstract

The objectives of this article are to describe a cross-sectional
descriptive study of midwives’ intentions to use electronic medical records
(EMR), and to identify their association with various independent variables
(i.e. socio-demographic factors, availability and accessibility of EMR,
social support, attitude, knowledge of EMR, and subjective norms). The
study group compromised 249 midwives who worked in health centres
in Lebak district, Banten province, Indonesia. Data was collected using a
self-administered questionnaire, and analyzed using descriptive statistics,
chi-square tests and multiple logistic regression.
The midwives’ ages ranged from 21 to 50 years, with a median
age of 32 years. Almost all of them (94.0%) had graduated from an
institute higher than basic midwifery school; 59.4% were full-time employees
working in health centres without in-patient care; and 62.6% had
had computer experience. Most of the midwives had positive attitudes,
moderate knowledge, and 51% had high subjective norms scores regarding
use of EMR software; 59.8% felt that they had received high technical
support; and 68.3% high emotional support, from colleagues, health
centre heads and government. This study found that that 67.9% of the
midwives intended to use EMR software, and that knowledge of EMR
(p-value=0.004, Adj. OR=2.98) and subjective norms (p-value<0.001,
Adj. OR=11.58) were significantly associated with intention to use EMR.
This suggests that midwives’ colleagues, government and health
centre heads who are involved in the daily practices of midwives need to
accept and appraise the EMR software positively in order to successfully
implement it in Indonesia. The Indonesian Government should provide
on the job training and workshops about EMR to increase midwives’
capacity, knowledge and positive attitudes regarding EMR.