EXAMINATION OF HEALTHCARE WORKERS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS HEALTH TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION: A CASE STUDY OF A TRAINING AND RESEARCH HOSPITAL

https://doi.org/10.71284/tjmhs.2026327

Özet

Objective: Healthcare professionals are the main stakeholders in the implementation phase of technologies developed in healthcare delivery. Rapid developments in health technologies make it necessary to systematically evaluate these technologies. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is an important approach that provides an analysis of the practices used in health services in terms of effectiveness, safety, and cost. Healthcare professionals' knowledge and attitudes toward HTA play a decisive role in the effectiveness of this process. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the attitudes of healthcare professionals working in a training and research hospital toward health technology assessment (HTA) and to determine the effect of demographic variables on these attitudes.
Materials and Methods: The sample of the study, which was designed as a descriptive and cross-sectional study, consists of 312 healthcare professionals. The data were collected using the 23-item “Healthcare Personnel Health Technology Assessment Attitude Scale” consisting of three sub-dimensions: scope, awareness, and benefit. In addition to descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation analyses were applied in the analysis of the data.
Results: The participants' total mean HTA attitude score was determined to be 94.71±12.69. The Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be excellent at 0.941. The participants consist of 37.5% assistant doctors, 11% specialist doctors, and 45% midwives and nurses. The relationships between the dimensions are positive and highly significant (p<0.001). While no significant difference was found according to the gender variable (p>0.05), statistically significant differences (p<0.05) were found in the variables of age, education level, occupation, years of work, and unit.
Conclusion: It was observed that the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards STD were generally high, but this perception strengthened as professional expertise and experience increased. In particular, the fact that specialist physicians have the highest attitude score reflects their role in clinical decision-making processes. It is observed that as the professional experience of midwives and nurses increases, their HTA attitudes also increase. It is recommended that institutional awareness programs and HTA training be expanded and their use increased in the higher education process, and that service standards and quality be improved through decision support systems.
Keywords: Health technologies, healthcare professionals, attitude, healthcare services, evidence-based
practice