Readiness to utilize artificial intelligence in primary health care delivery by community health practitioners in South-South Nigeria

The application of artificial intelligence in health care has been widely recommended as a fundamental strategy that have the capacity to transform and enhance the efficiency of primary health care delivery globally. The population for this study comprised all community health practitioners in the south-south region of Nigeria, which is 7,868.A sample of 366 community health practitioners was involved for the study, which was obtained using Cochran’s formula. The multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select the desired sample size of respondents for the study. Three research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. A 31-item self-administered questionnaire specifically developed by the researchers was used for data collection. The face and content validity of the instrument was determined by three public health experts specialized in health education and promotion. A reliability coefficient of 0.86 was established using Cronbach Alpha. Participation was through an online survey portal using a cloud-based online survey platform. The data were analyzed using frequency tables, percentages, mean and standard deviation for the research questions, while ANOVA statistical tool was used to test the null hypothesis set at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that, respondents level of knowledge of basic AI-based applications for healthcare was fair, extent of willingness to adopt AI was low and level of utilization of AI-based applications in health was equally very low. It was recommended that, government should create platforms through policy framework that will make integration of AI-based applications in primary health care easier for community health practitioners.