Supporting rural carers through telehealth

Videoconferencing is now a firmly established feature of rural health care in Australia. However, the health sector has not used videoconferencing extensively outside the provision of clinical care. This article describes a program of education and support to rural carers via videoconferencing which demonstrates its potential in promoting health.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six service providers, eight carers who participated in sessions and the facilitator of the sessions. Attendance and financial records augmented the interview data.

Videoconferencing was well accepted by carers and the facilitator. Carers reported having a positive interaction with the facilitator and other participants despite being at a distance, and the facilitator found the technology offered her more ways to observe non-verbal cues discretely. Carers demonstrated that they had retained information provided and that they had made small behaviour changes. They credited the success to sharing experiences with peers. Local providers of aged care services stressed that the sessions offered a service that they, who were employed to be 'problem-solvers', were not able to perform but that as a result of the sessions they could target services more effectively. Videoconferenced sessions were 16% and 47% of the cost of a face-to-face session.

This study demonstrates that videoconferencing can be used to provide psychosocial support and training to groups of isolated carers. The critical element of this program was that local services were augmented and enhanced through the use of a facilitator who brought skills that were not available locally.