Sub-Saharan Africa

This manual is intended as a training of trainers manual for hospital management and case teams and for hospital staff on the use of health information management systems - both in terms of how to collect, aggregate and report data, but also to help staff understand the utility and benefits of the data they collect. [adapted from abstract]

The Health Management Information System (HMIS) in Ethiopia is designed to capture and provide essential core data for planning and monitoring the health system’s performance. This document provides handout materials and other instruments to be used in HMIS training for health providers. [abstract]

This article describes the scale-up of the Community Health Information System (CHIS), a family-centered health information system designed for the health extension worker to manage and monitor her work in educating households and delivering an integrated package of promotive, preventive, and basic curative health service to families. It also documents achievements and challenges, sharing lessons learned that can be useful in CHIS implementation in other regions. [adapted from summary]

This paper reports the findings of a process evaluation of a controlled trial of PITC for people with sexually transmitted infections attending publicly funded clinics in a low-resource setting in South Africa, where the trial results were lower than anticipated compared to the standard voluntary counselling and testing approach. [from abstract]

This study used in-depth interviews to explore perceptions of medicine seller roles among a restricted random sample of 20 medicine sellers in North-West Cameroon. Interviews and analysis explored self-perception of their work/role, community perceptions, skills and knowledge, regulation, future plans, links with the formal health system and diversity among medicine sellers. [from abstract]

This study was carried out to assess the quality of care provided by Health Surveillance Assistants—a cadre of community-based health workers—as part of a national scale-up of community case management of childhood illness in Malawi. [from abstract]

The aim of this study was to assess health workers’ perceptions, practices use of malaria diagnostics, prescription behavior and factors affecting adherence to test results at primary health care facilities in Kibaha District, Coast Region, Tanzania. [adapted from abstract]

This study investigates the causes of migration focusing on the role of salaries and benefits. Health professionals from public, private and non-governmental health facilities located in selected peri-urban and urban areas in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa were surveyed about their current positions and attitudes toward migration. [from abstract]

This paper addresses indicators of health worker motivation and assesses associations with quality care and patient safety in Ghana. The aim is to identify interventions at the health worker level that contribute to quality improvement in healthcare facilities. [from abstract]

The study contributes to quality improvement programs responsible for accelerating reduction of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality in Uganda. It documents and informs clinicians, hospital managers, and policy makers about quality of care aspects that need to be improved in promoting newborns and maternal survival and well being during labor to promote women’s utilization of skilled attendance at birth. [from author]

This study piloted home-based counseling and testing with point-of-care CD4 count testing and follow-up visits from lay counselors to facilitate linkage of HIV-infected persons to local HIV clinics and uptake of antiretroviral treatment in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. [adapted from abstract]

This presentation outlines the methodology, aims and results of a highly successful and innovative program of pre-service health education at Lurio University that links future health professionals with the community by assigning each student to a family. The student monitors the family’s health status and analyzes the social, economic and cultural aspects impacting on the individuals’s and family health such as education and nutrition.

This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of self-reported occupational exposure to HIV among health care workers and explore factors that influence the practice of managing occupational exposure to HIV by health care workers in Tanzania. [from abstract]

The aim in this study was to identify how nurses affiliated with nursing education institutions perceive the challenges nursing education is facing in Angola. [from abstract]

This protocol outlines a controlled before and after study that will examine the effect of a pay-for-performance incentive program on quality, coverage, and cost of targeted maternal and newborn healthcare services and selected non-targeted services at facilities in Tanzania. [adapted from abstract]

This article describes the early outcomes, achievements, and challenges from an initiative that hired university graduates without training in health information and provided on-the-job training and mentoring to create a new cadre of health worker in order to address the shortage of health information personnel within Botswana. [adapted from abstract]

This work explored perceptions of the roles of Kenyan non-physician clinicians in typical health system settings. [adapted from abstract]

The Ministry of Health in Zambia developed a strategy to integrate community health workers into national health plans by creating a new group of community health assistants. The aim of the paper is to analyse the policy development process and the factors that influenced its evolution and content. [adapted from abstract]

The main objective of this study was to document the prevalence and disease spectrum of latex allergy, a common occupational disease among healthcare workers who use latex gloves, at Mankweng Hospital, Limpopo Province, South Africa. [adapted from author]

This report is an evaluation of integrated management of childhood illness, a strategy to reduce mortality and morbidity in children under 5 years by improving health workers’ case management of common and serious illnesses at primary health care level, in two provinces of South Africa. [adapted from abstract]

This paper describes the rural clinical attachment experiences of medical students, illustrates that forces affecting such experiences cannot be predicted readily, and highlights that a rural clinical attachment can be of value, irrespective of whether or not the student chooses to practice in a rural area. [from author]

This article presents qualitative research used to inform the development of a screening tool as a potential strategy to identify and respond to gender based violence (GBV) for females in humanitarian settings. The findings suggest that routine GBV screening by skilled service providers offers a strategy to confidentially identify and refer survivors to needed services within refugee settings, potentially enabling survivors to overcome existing barriers. [adapted from author]

The objectives of this paper are to identify the factors associated with higher knowledge and confidence in providers at the commencement of a training on post-rape care and to reflect on the implications of this for training and other efforts being made to improve services. [from abstract]

The objective of this study was to assess the non-inferiority of a task-shifting HIV treatment model relying on peer counselors and nurses compared with a physician-centered model among HIV-1-positive women initiated on antiretroviral therapy (ART) at a prevention of mother-to-child transmission clinic in Mulago Hospital, Uganda. [from abstract]

This study evaluated a targeted brief antiretroviral (ART) campaign among health workers that used quality improvement health systems approaches to significantly improve access to ART for HIV-infected pregnant women across a large health district in South Africa. [adapted from author]

Measurement of health workers’ satisfaction adapted to sub-Saharan African working conditions and cultures is a challenge. The objective of this study was to develop a valid and reliable instrument to measure satisfaction among health professionals in the sub-Saharan African context. [from abstract]

This study investigated the reasons for poor implementation of the legal abortion policy in Ghana using Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy to better understand how providers shape and implement policy and how provider-level barriers might be overcome. [from abstract]

This initiative’s objective was to develop a standardized verbal autopsy training program and evaluate whether its implementation resulted in comparable knowledge required to classify perinatal cause of death by physicians and non-physicians. [from abstract]

The main objective of this study is to assess the extent of unsafe injection equipment reuse by health workers and potential for blood-borne virus transmission in Cameroon. [from abstract]

This evaluation aims to describe and analyze peer-to-peer learning among health workers and the spread of better care practices within regions and across regions improve care provided to those needing HIV and AIDS services. [adapted from summary]