Mak IR Repository (Makerere University)
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Assessing the effectiveness of the human resource information system/s in Uganda’s public service
No full textA research report submitted to the College of Business and Management Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a degree of Master of Business Administration of Makerere University.The study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) in Uganda’s public service. It was guided by three main objectives: to examine the factors affecting HRIS effectiveness, to assess the challenges hindering its effectiveness, and to suggest strategies for improvement. The research was conducted at the Ministry of Public Service and selected local governments, including Entebbe District, Wakiso District, Mukono District, and municipal councils like Ssabagabo, Kira, and Mukono, as well as Mulago Referral Hospital. Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed by Davis (1985), the study adopted a cross-sectional survey design to collect quantitative data from 180 officers involved with HRIS in various government institutions. Simple random sampling was used, achieving a response rate of 94.3%. The demographic analysis of the respondents reveals that males were more represented than females, with the majority falling in the 30-39 age group. The findings revealed that the effectiveness of the HRIS in Uganda’s public service was influenced by various factors. Users reported dissatisfaction with system usability, flexibility, and response time, although some acknowledged its reliability. While the HRIS provided timely information, concerns about completeness persisted. Challenges included technological issues like system downtimes and data security, organizational barriers such as rigid structures, and individual-related factors like insufficient training. Strategies for improvement indicated mixed opinions, with skepticism around infrastructure upgrades and a need for streamlined processes and enhanced training to facilitate HRIS effectiveness. The study recommended investing in reliable technological infrastructure and maintenance to reduce system downtimes. Further research should explore the long-term impacts of HRIS on employee performance and organizational productivity to better understand its economic implications.
KEY WORDS: Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), Public Service, system usability, technological issues, employee performanc
Beliefs and perceptions of women towards bilateral tubal ligation; a qualitative study at Kawempe National Referral Hospital
No full textIntroduction: Globally, the uptake of bilateral tubal ligation, a permanent method of contraception remains very low despite being the most effective contraceptive method. This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of beliefs and perceptions towards BTL among women in Uganda, a country where 44% of all pregnancies are unplanned with an abortion rate of 54 per 1000 women.
Methodology: This was a qualitative phenomenological study conducted at Kawempe National Referral Hospital. Participants were recruited by purposive sampling to include women seeking family planning services (any method) at Kawempe National Referral hospital, Kampala Uganda. These were interviwed through focused group discussions and in-depth interviews. Inductive thematic analysis of the collected data was done using NVIVO version 12 software to generate data codes, themes and subthems.
Results: Mothers were found to have a varied range of beliefs and perceptions towards BTL. Many participants perceived BTL as a permanent and effective method of contraception and exhibited confidence in long-term effectiveness. Women also believed that BTL gives them life convenience and an increased sexual freedom. However, sseveral participants expressed concerns about the irreversibility of BTL, with some describing the decision as a “final” step that leads to feelings of regret and loss of fertility. Participants also expressed worries about complications such as death in theatre, effect on sexual life and exposure to unnecessary side effects such as pain at the incision site and heavy menstrual bleeding. The influence of male partners was another major theme, with several participants reporting that their decision to undergo BTL was shaped by their spouse's opinions, either as encouragement or disapproval.
Conclusion: While many women recognize the benefits of BTL, misconceptions, concerns about health risks, regret and fears of losing femininity, remain a point of concern among mothers. Addressing these concerns through enhanced education and involving partners in the decision-making process could improve women's understanding and acceptance of BTL
Workplace violence against nurses in Uganda’s public hospitals : a phenomenological study
No full textA thesis submitted to the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Makerere UniversityThis study explored workplace violence (WPV) against nurses in Uganda’s public hospitals based on a hermeneutic phenomenological design. It is underpinned by the hermeneutic theoretical framework and used an interpretivist paradigm to understand WPV phenomenon from the participants’ perspective. Data was generated using semi-structured audio-taped interviews from participants, were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach. Four major themes which included violence in society reproduced in hospitals, patriarchal dominance and sexism, subordinate and subservient nature of nurses’ job, and perception of violence as a normal occupational hazard emerged from participants’ WPV experiences. The findings of the study revealed that different forms of WPV namely; verbal, physical, psychological and sexual harassment exist and are detrimental to nurses’ physical and psychological well-being. Additionally, WPV engenders counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) that compromises quality of patients’ care. Hence, violence against nurses is linked to patriarchal dominance, sexism, gender stereotyping and an entrenched low hierarchical position prevalent in public hospitals that reinforces their submissiveness and subordination. Because violence in hospitals is often sexualized and rooted in unequal power relations, nurses particularly females are more vulnerable. Consequently, WPV against nurses is framed within a hospital context characterized by unequal power relations that foment a fertile ground that engenders their victimization. To effectively address WPV, sociocultural competence based skills such as assertiveness and emotional intelligence should be integrated into the nursing curriculum to enable nurses to successfully cope with a hostile and toxic hierarchical environment they work in. Additionally, hospital managers should create and ethically enforce a violence free hospital environment to ensure nurses’ safety and lessen cases of CWB in order to promote quality of patients’ care
Parenting styles, coping strategies and anxiety among secondary school adolescents in Mbale City
No full textA research dissertation submitted to the Makerere University College of Humanities and social sciences, School of Psychology, Department of Mental Health and Community Psychology in partial fulfillment of requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Science in Clinical Psychology of Makerere UniversityThis study examined the relationship between parenting styles, coping strategies, and anxiety among secondary school students in Mbale City, Uganda. Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 298 students through standardized questionnaires. Pearson correlation and regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationships between parenting styles, coping strategies, and anxiety, and to explore the predictive power of these variables on adolescent anxiety. Results showed that authoritative parenting was positively correlated with overall coping (r = .157, p .05) and emotional-focused coping (r = .041, p > .05) were not significantly related to anxiety. Regression analyses indicated that coping strategies did not mediate the relationship between parenting styles and anxiety (B = 0.058, p = 0.213). The study shows the need for interventions targeting both parenting practices and coping mechanisms to improve adolescent mental health in Uganda. Further research is needed to explore these relationships in diverse cultural and socio-economic settings
A critical analysis of the legal framework on the right to education for unaccompanied refugee children
No full textResearch proposal for a dissertation to be submitted to the Graduate School in partial fulfilment for the award of the Master of Laws Degree of Makerere UniversityUganda has an open-door policy on refugees and as a result hosts a number of refugees who among them are children. Some of these children flee in company of their parents while the others flee their home countries unaccompanied. All these refugee children are entitled to enjoy their basic human rights like any other citizens when they reach their host country. The right to education is one of the basic human rights that unaccompanied refugee children should be entitled to. Uganda’s constitution under Article 30 guarantees that every person should enjoy the right to education. Every child shall enjoy the right to basic education as stipulated under Article 34 of Uganda’s Constitution. Article 34 of Uganda’s Constitution further stipulates that both the State and parents are jointly obligated to ensure that children enjoy access to basic education. Refugee children are entitled to free government funded education under the Refugee Act of 2006. This research seeks to critically analyse whether the legal framework regulating the right to education for refugee children in Uganda has lived to its purpose. The researcher will continue to explore if there any existing gaps and whether the gaps relate to implementation of the law or the laws are just not sufficient to address the problem
Modeling flood-based DDoS attacks in container-based cloud environments
No full textA project report submitted to School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment for the award of Master of Science in Data Communications and Software Engineering Degree of Makerere UniversityPrior studies investigated the performance of regular and malicious attack traffic based on queuing theory to scrutinize how container-based cloud environments behave under lowrate DDoS attacks; however, the studies only focused on mitigating the low-rate DDoS attack without considering other kinds of DDoS attacks. There are other types of DDoS attacks, like the flood-based DDoS attack in container-based cloud environments, where the attacker usually uses massive requests to flood services. Therefore, this study developed a model that captures the characteristics of flood-based DDoS attacks in container-based cloud environments. The numerical results obtained from the derived model are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed models. The performance of the system is assessed in terms of the average number of requests in the buffer and average staying time as performance metrics. By simulating the characteristics of flood-based DDoS traffic, which are the burstiness and exponential nature, results indicate that both M/M/c and MMP P/M/c models behave the same way when subject to the same traffic scenarios. The MMP P/M/c model can be used to perform analysis of traffic in different Markov chain states. In the MMP P/M/c model, the different characteristics of the arrival traffic can be analysed independently in separate states and as combined traffic, to analyse the system performance. This enabled the detailed analysis of the characteristics of flood-based DDoS attack traffic independent of each other and when combined. Results indicate that as the probability of flood-based DDoS attack traffic increases and the probability of regular traffic decreases over Markov discrete time steps t. The arrival rate of flood-based attack traffic increases exponentially and is random, while regular traffic is kept constant. We assumed decreasing and increasing probabilities for the regular traffic and flood-based DDoS attack traffic, respectively. The lower parts of the flood-based DDoS attack traffic probabilities, the number of requests in the buffer, and the average staying time for the MMP P/M/c were slightly higher than those of the M/M/c and the two graphs converge as the probability of attack traffic increases with a decrease in the probability of regular traffic over time t. When examining the performance of a container-based cloud environment in the midst of bursty and correlated flood-based DDoS traffic, the MMP P/M/c model can be utilised to analyse the characteristics of arrival traffic in various states
Towards a successful eHealth policy and strategy implementation in Uganda: using a collaboration change management process
No full textA dissertation submitted to the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training in partial fulfillment for the award of the Master of Science (Msc.IS) In Information Systems Degree of Makerere UniversityeHealth is a very critical initiative in improving healthcare in Uganda in a heavily stressed healthcare system where there is approximately one doctor and nurse for every 24,725 and 18,000 people respectively. An eHealth Policy and Strategy was developed by the Ministry of Health to support the eHealth agenda however, there were limitations on how change to eHealth practice was to be managed thus successful implementation of eHealth has proved to be a significant challenge within the healthcare sector in Uganda. Studies have shown that successful implementation of eHealth remains a complex task requiring significant change management interventions. Ten (10) case organisations were selected through purposive sampling, these included regional referral hospitals and private health care providers in Uganda. The organisations were selected based on their integration of eHealth into their business processes, these organisations were supervised directly by the Ministry of Health in Uganda. By selecting healthcare organizations directly supervised by the Ministry of Health and implementing eHealth initiatives, the study concentrated on those institutions that have experienced the benefits and challenges of successfully integrating use of technology into their operations/activities for improved service delivery. The study adopted the Design science approach to develop a Collaboration change management process/model that guides organisations into a streamlined approach into identifying strategies and activities leading to successful implementation of eHealth initiatives irrespective of the technology divide. To validate our model, we conducted a case study with two regional referral hospitals in the Eastern and Western region of Uganda. Our results showed that organisations were still experiencing challenges in ensuring successful implementation of eHealth initiatives as per the National eHealth Strategy and Policy. The findings further underscored the need for proper change management as an intervention, the study identified requirements leading to the design of the Collaboration Change Management (ColCM) process. The ColCM was validated at two case study organisations and was found to be usable and acceptable with immense potential to support successful implementation of eHealth initiatives in health organisations and achievement of the Uganda eHealth Policy and Strategy
Fiscal policy and international trade: empirical evidence from Uganda
No full textA research dissertation submitted to the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training in Partial Fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Arts in Economic Policy and Planning of Makerere UniversityFiscal policy is the use of government spending and taxation to influence the economy. It plays a critical role in shaping a nation's economic development. By strategically changing government spending and taxation system, policymakers usually aim at stabilizing the economy, promoting growth, achieving a more equitable distribution of income and to pursue other social and economic goals. This study focuses on investigating the effect of fiscal policy on net exports as postulated by the Mundell-Fleming model. The study used time series data for the period 1990-2021, which was extracted from the World Development Indicators and Uganda Revenue Authority reports. Autoregressive Distributed Lag model and F-bounds test were used to investigate the existence of cointegration between fiscal policy variables and net exports in Uganda. This study found statistical evidence of a negative effect of both tax collection and government expenditure on net exports in the short run while the F-bounds test revealed no evidence for existence of cointegration between the variables of interest. Therefore, the study confirms the vital role of government in promoting production of goods and services in the economy through taxation and its expenditure. On the policy front, there is need for government to consider tax cuts that incentivize investment and export oriented activities. Government should prioritize its expenditure in sectors/areas which directly contribute to export competitiveness such as infrastructure, education, research and development.
Key words: Fiscal policy, international trade, Net exports, ARDL, Bounds test, Uganda
Incidence and factors associated with dialysis-related hypoglycaemia among patients with kidney failure at Kiruddu National Referral Hospital: a prospective longitudinal cohort study
No full textA dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics of Makerere UniversityKidney failure is the most advanced form of chronic kidney disease (CKD), causing the most years lived with disability from CKD. Among patients with kidney failure, pathophysiologic changes and therapeutic measures including haemodialysis (HD) may increase the risk of hypoglycaemia. Hypoglycaemia increases the risk of morbidity and death among patients with kidney failure. The incidence and factors associated with dialysis-related hypoglycaemia among patients with kidney failure attending HD in Uganda have not been described. To determine the incidence and factors associated with dialysis-related hypoglycaemia among adult patients with kidney failure at Kiruddu National Referral Hospital (KNRH) HD unit. This prospective cohort study consecutively recruited 122 participants with kidney failure attending routine HD sessions at KNRH in September 2022. A pretested questionnaire was administered and hourly capillary blood glucose measurements were done during a single 4-hour HD session. Dialysis-related hypoglycaemia was defined as a blood glucose reading ≤3.9mmol/L during HD. Participants were free to eat during HD and meal times were recorded. Multivariable Poisson regression was done using the generalized estimating equation to determine the factors associated with dialysis-related hypoglycaemia. Of the 122 participants, 54 (44.3%) experienced 82 episodes of hypoglycaemia, and 5 patients (4.1%) experienced 8 episodes of serious clinically relevant hypoglycaemia. None of the episodes of hypoglycaemia was severe. The incidence rate was 16.9 hypoglycaemia events per 100 persons per hour on HD (95% CI 13.9-20.6). Overall, the incidence of hypoglycaemia increased significantly with time during HD IRR 1.33 (95%CI 1.07-1.64). The incidence rate of hypoglycaemia increased faster among patients 7.8mmol/L. The risk of hypoglycaemia increased faster time among those who did not eat during HD. There was a high incidence rate of asymptomatic hypoglycaemia in this study population, with 16.9 events per 100 patients per hour. This warrants assessment of pre-HD blood glucose levels, and proven measures to elevate and sustain higher blood glucose levels during HD, like meals, glucose infusions or glucose-containing dialysis solutions
The relevancy of community-based adaptation strategies for environmental risk reduction in the Mountain Elgon Region, Eastern Uganda.
No full textA dissertation submitted to the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of a Degree of Master of Science in Climate Change and Development of Makerere University.Globally, environmental risks have increased in frequency and severity impacting human
wellbeing and sustainability. Given the surging environmental risks, there is need to leverage on
potentials of Community-based Adaptation (CbA) as a bottom-top approach that empowers local
communities to draft locally led initiatives aiming at reduction of environmental risks. Little has
however, been documented to address the relevancy of CbA strategies in reducing risks especially
in mountainous regions of Uganda. This study developed Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models
to (1) rank the complex-casual relationships among the determinants of risks, (2) assessed the
contributions of CbA strategies in reducing risks. The study also examined the barriers to CbA
strategies in reducing risks in the Mountain Elgon region. A cross sectional survey was adopted to
obtain quantitative and qualitative data following purposive and stratified random sampling
techniques that were used to select a sample of size of 313 respondents. Data was collected by
questionnaires, interview guides and observation checklists. BBN models were developed
following established guidelines. Both descriptive analysis and inferential statistics were
performed to generate summarized statistics and bivariate analysis to assess the association
between the outcome and the independent variables respectively. BBN analyses were performed
in Netica software and other analyses were conducted in Stata software, version 18.
BBN model accuracy levels were 91.9% for the determinants of risks and 93.5% for contributions
of community-based adaptation strategies. For objective1, the probability of all the determinants
to increase environmental risks was 75.5%. For objective 2 the probability of CbA strategies to
reduce environmental risks was 49.65%. For objective 3, the significant factors hindering CbA in
Mt Elgon regions include; marital status, flood frequencies, insecure land tenure, insufficient labor,
lack of access to information, high upfront costs and communication barriers. The BBN mode
results provide key intervention areas for reducing risks. The study recommends enhancing
sensitization on community-based adaptation implementation and how best each individual can be
put on board to enhance risk reduction