1,720,955 research outputs found

    Factors influencing dropout rate of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria during pregnancy

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    BACKGROUND: The burden of malaria in terms of morbidity and mortality is huge is Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among pregnant women. Among the measures to curb down this burden include intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) and effective case management. These strategies were adopted by Ghana and implemented since 2003; however, there is still high dropout rate in IPT coverage. This study sought to investigate factors contributing to high dropout rate between IPT1 and IPT3 in the Tamale Metropolis, one of the health facilities with the highest IPT dropout rates in Ghana. METHODS: Survey, in-depth interviews and short ethnographic techniques were conducted among pregnant women, antenatal care (ANC) health workers and heads of health facilities to investigate factors which account for dropout rate of intermittent treatment of malaria. RESULTS: Shortage of sulphadoxine pyrimethamine (SP), inadequate supply of portable water for administration of SP, unavailability of IPT during outreach services, lack of knowledge by ANC staff about the dropout rate in their area of jurisdiction and poor attitude of some health workers were identified as barriers to achieving high IPT3 coverage. CONCLUSIONS: Late ANC visit, provider and logistical barriers account for the women's missed opportunities to prevent malaria in pregnancy through IPT. Addressing the above barriers will contribute to saving lives and ensuring progress towards the goal of combating malaria as well as reducing maternal, neonatal and child mortalities.BioMed Central open acces

    Assessing the interdependency among effectiveness, satisfaction and efficient use of the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) by health professionals in Ghana

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    Abstract Background The success of an electronic health records (EHR) system is dependent on the effectiveness, satisfaction, and efficient use of these systems by health professionals. This paper explores the interdependency among effectiveness, satisfaction, and efficient use of Lightwave Health Information Management Systems (LHIMS) which is an EHR by health professionals. Methods A non-interventional descriptive cross-sectional study design was employed for this research. The study used stratified random sampling for the selection of participants. The population for the study was all the health professionals in the Central Region of Ghana. The number of health professionals who responded to the questions was 1126. Results The findings suggest that understanding the interdependency of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction is crucial for the successful implementation and adoption of LHIMS in healthcare organisations. The study investigated the interdependence among effectiveness, satisfaction, and efficient use of the LHIMS by health professionals, and found a positive but weak significant relationship between these factors. Conclusion In conclusion, this study aimed to assess the interdependency among effectiveness, satisfaction, and efficient use of LHIMS by health professionals. The. results support a positive but weak significant relationship between satisfaction, effectiveness, and efficient use of the LHIMS. These findings have implications for policymakers and hospital management in their efforts to improve the use of LHIMS. Policymakers can focus on any one of the three usability areas to enhance LHIMS use, with visible effects across the other two domains

    Assessing the efficient use of the lightwave health information management system for health service delivery in Ghana

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    Background In achieving the WHO’s Universal Health Coverage and the Global Developmental Agenda: Sustainable Development Goal 3 and 9, the Ministry of Health launched a nationwide deployment of the lightwave health information management system (LHIMS) in the Central Region to facilitate health service delivery. This paper assessed the efficient use of the LHIMS among health professionals in the Central Region.Methods A non-interventional descriptive cross-sectional study design was employed for this research. The study used stratified and simple random sampling for selecting 1126 study respondents from 10 health facilities that use the LHIMS. The respondents included prescribers, nurses, midwives and auxiliary staff. Descriptive statistics (weighted mean) was computed to determine the average weighted score for all the indicators under efficiency. Also, bivariate (χ2) and multivariate (ordinal logistic regression) analyses were conducted to test the study’s hypotheses.Results Findings revealed that the LHIMS enhanced efficient health service delivery. From the bivariate analysis, external factors; sex, educational qualification, work experience, profession type and computer literacy were associated with the efficient use of the LHIMS. However, training offered prior to the use of the LHIMS, and the duration of training had no association. At the multivariate level, only work experience and computer literacy significantly influenced the efficient use of the LHIMS.Conclusion The implementation of LHIMS has the potential to significantly improve health service delivery. General computing skills should be offered to system users by the Ministry of Health to improve literacy in the use of computers. Active participation in the use of LHIMS by all relevant healthcare professionals should be encouraged

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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