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. 2025 Jul 11;24(1):908.
doi: 10.1186/s12912-025-03480-4.

Nurses' experience with telecare: a qualitative analysis of perceptions and implications for caring and the nursing profession

Ilenia Piras  1 , Barbara Barbieri  2 , Diego Bellini  3 , Valentina Pibiri  4 , Silvia De Simone  5 , Marina Mondo  5 , Jessica Pileri  5 , Maura Galletta  6
Affiliations

Nurses' experience with telecare: a qualitative analysis of perceptions and implications for caring and the nursing profession

Ilenia Piras et al. BMC Nurs. .

Abstract

Background: In Italy, telecare has experienced significant growth in recent years, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. This modality helps overcome geographic and time barriers, proving to be a valuable tool for ensuring access to care and improving the quality of life for patients. However, implementing telecare requires several challenges for nurses such as difficulty to adapt to a remote relationship, lack of training and adequate technological resources, and concerns about data security and privacy. The aim of the study is to explore nurses' experience with telecare and their perceptions about its positive and negative implications for caring and the profession.

Methods: A qualitative study with semi-structured interviews was carried out by involving ten nurses working with telecare service from the Local Health Authority of a city in a central-Italy region.

Results: Four main themes emerged: (1) the benefits of telecare, (2) the disadvantages of telecare, (3) opportunities for professional growth, and (4) challenges in telecare.

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that effective implementation of telecare should take into account not only its potential benefits for patients and nurses but also the challenges related to the nurse-patient relationship and technological barriers. To improve healthcare it is important to invest in training, develop accessible technologies, share patient data and integrate telecare into traditional care models, in order to foster an holistic and individualized approach.

Clinical trial number: Not applicable.

Keywords: Caring; Nurses; Patients; Qualitative study; Telecare.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study is part of a project funded by a local institution of the region and received approval from the local Ethics Committee of the University of Cagliari (Prot. no. 0077639 of 03/13/2024). The study complies with the ethical principles of the Helsinki Declaration (World Medical Association, 2013) and the ethical guidelines (Sect. 8) of the American Psychological Association (2020). Participation was voluntary and anonymous based on Italian privacy law (e.g., Decree n. 196/2003) and nurses were informed that they could leave the study at any time without any repercussions. Verbal informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from the participants prior to starting the interview. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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