Dataset Information

Professional advice for primary healthcare workers in Ethiopia: a social network analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In an era of increasingly competitive funding, governments and donors will be looking for creative ways to extend and maximise resources. One such means can include building upon professional advice networks to more efficiently introduce, scale up, or change programmes and healthcare provider practices. This cross-sectional, mixed-methods, observational study compared professional advice networks of healthcare workers in eight primary healthcare units across four regions of Ethiopia. Primary healthcare units include a health centre and typically five satellite health posts.

Methods

One hundred sixty staff at eight primary healthcare units were interviewed using a structured tool. Quantitative data captured the frequency of healthcare worker advice seeking and giving on providing antenatal, childbirth, postnatal and newborn care. Network and actor-level metrics were calculated including density (ratio of ties between actors to all possible ties), centrality (number of ties incident to an actor), distance (average number of steps between actors) and size (number of actors within the network). Following quantitative network analyses, 20 qualitative interviews were conducted with network study participants from four primary healthcare units. Qualitative interviews aimed to interpret and explain network properties observed. Data were entered, analysed or visualised using Excel 6.0, UCINET 6.0, Netdraw, Adobe InDesign and MaxQDA10 software packages.

Results

The following average network level metrics were observed: density .26 (SD.11), degree centrality .45 (SD.08), distance 1.94 (SD.26), number of ties 95.63 (SD 35.46), size of network 20.25 (SD 3.65). Advice networks for antenatal or maternity care were more utilised than advice networks for post-natal or newborn care. Advice networks were typically limited to primary healthcare unit staff, but not necessarily to supervisors. In seeking advice, a colleague's level of training and knowledge were valued over experience. Advice exchange primarily took place in person or over the phone rather than over email or online fora. There were few barriers to seeking advice.

Conclusion

Informal, inter-and intra-cadre advice networks existed. Fellow primary healthcare unit staff were preferred, particularly midwives, but networks were not limited to the primary healthcare unit. Additional research is needed to associate network properties with outcomes and pilot network interventions with central actors.

SUBMITTER: Sabot K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7302001 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Professional advice for primary healthcare workers in Ethiopia: a social network analysis.

Sabot Kate K Blanchet Karl K Berhanu Della D Spicer Neil N Schellenberg Joanna J

BMC health services research 20200617 1

<h4>Background</h4>In an era of increasingly competitive funding, governments and donors will be looking for creative ways to extend and maximise resources. One such means can include building upon professional advice networks to more efficiently introduce, scale up, or change programmes and healthcare provider practices. This cross-sectional, mixed-methods, observational study compared professional advice networks of healthcare workers in eight primary healthcare units across four regions of Et ...[more]

PMID: 32552727

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Project description:Social network analysis quantifies and visualizes relationships between and among individuals or organizations. Applications in the health sector remain underutilized. This systematic review seeks to analyze what social network methods have been used to study professional communication and performance among healthcare providers.Ten databases were searched from 1990 through April 2016, yielding 5970 articles screened for inclusion by two independent reviewers who extracted data and critically appraised each study. Inclusion criteria were study of health care worker professional communication, network methods used, and patient outcomes measured. The search identified 10 systematic reviews. The final set of articles had their citations prospectively and retrospectively screened. We used narrative synthesis to summarize the findings.The six articles meeting our inclusion criteria described unique health sectors: one at primary healthcare level and five at tertiary level; five conducted in the USA, one in Australia. Four studies looked at multidisciplinary healthcare workers, while two focused on nurses. Two studies used mixed methods, four quantitative methods only, and one involved an experimental design. Four administered network surveys, one coded observations, and one used an existing survey to extract network data. Density and centrality were the most common network metrics although one study did not calculate any network properties and only visualized the network. Four studies involved tests of significance, and two used modeling methods. Social network analysis software preferences were evenly split between ORA and UCINET. All articles meeting our criteria were published in the past 5 years, suggesting that this remains in clinical care a nascent but emergent research area. There was marked diversity across all six studies in terms of research questions, health sector area, patient outcomes, and network analysis methods.Network methods are underutilized for the purposes of understanding professional communication and performance among healthcare providers. The paucity of articles meeting our search criteria, lack of studies in middle- and low-income contexts, limited number in non-tertiary settings, and few longitudinal, experimental designs, or network interventions present clear research gaps.PROSPERO CRD42015019328.

Project description:BackgroundThe key to the effective management of healthcare wastes is segregation of the waste at the point of generation; no matter what final strategy for treatment and disposal of wastes is selected, it is critical that waste streams are separated. In Ethiopia, healthcare waste segregation practice among healthcare workers is overlooked and scarcely addressed in the scientific literature. This hospital-based cross-sectional study was, therefore, conducted to assess healthcare waste segregation practice and its correlate among healthcare workers in Bale zone, southeast Ethiopia.MethodsAll five hospitals found in Bale zone were included and the study participants were selected using a systematic sampling technique from each hospital. Data were collected through interview using structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were computed. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were employed to identify factors that correlate with healthcare waste segregation practice.ResultsA total of four hundred and nine healthcare workers participated in the study, for a response rate of 97.4%. Of these, 220(53.8%) (95% CI: 49.1-58.9) of healthcare workers were found to have reported good healthcare waste segregation practice. Being male gender (AOR?=?1.70, 95%CI: 1.04-2.78), less than 30 years of age (AOR?=?2.02, 95%CI: 1.06-3.84), less than 2 years work experience (AOR?=?2.95, 95%CI: 1.39-6.26), having good self-reported standard precaution practice (AOR?=?8.47,95%CI:4.98-14.42), and working in a department with an on-site healthcare waste segregation container (AOR?=?2.10, 95%CI:1.24-3.55) were factors that correlated with self-reported healthcare waste segregation practice.ConclusionOverall, only half of the healthcare workers had good healthcare waste segregation practice, which is low and unsatisfactory. Less service year, having good standard precaution practice, and the presence of onsite waste segregation container were the most important variables that correlate with self-reported healthcare waste segregation practice. Therefore, to improve healthcare waste segregation practice health authorities should focus on sufficient allocation of onsite waste receptacles. In addition, periodic training on standard precaution will improve compliance with segregation practice.

Dataset Information

Professional advice for primary healthcare workers in Ethiopia: a social network analysis.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Professional advice for primary healthcare workers in Ethiopia: a social network analysis.

Similar Datasets

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