Are Health Technologies Truly Accepted by Healthcare Professionals? Data from an Exploratory Study on Professionals Involved in Assisting People with Disabilities

Covid-19 has shown the necessity to make changes in clinical management and in treatment of patients with disabilities and technology advancement in the field of rehabilitation are boosting this process. In the UE context, in response to Covid-19, has been set off the program “EU4Health” which one of the goals is the digitalization of the healthcare system. In the field of disabilities, the therapists’ experience and perception of new clinical technologies plays an important role in their integration into the workplace. The purpose of this study is to investigate therapists’ point of view about the use of technology, after the covid-19 pandemic, in their work with people with disabilities. It has been possible to examine the importance of technology and how it is useful for different professional categories thanks to an adaptation of the “Intrapersonal Technology Integration Scale” (ITIS) questionnaire to the rehabilitation field, which was developed by Niederhauser and Perkmen (2008). To proceed with our study, we administered the questionnaire to developmental neurorehabilitation therapists involved in the treatment of serious disabilities, to psychologists specialized in behavior analysis applied to autism and to speech therapists involved in the treatment of specific learning disorders. The results of our research have shown a positive response of these specialists to technology. On a scale, the professional category that perceived the ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) less useful was that of speech therapists.