1,720,983 research outputs found
Towards a functioning retail health market : Evaluating the integrated Community Case Management Intervention for Pediatric Febrile Illness in Drug Shops in Rural South Western Uganda
No full textObjectives: This thesis examined the health systems effects of implementing the integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) intervention for paediatric febrile illnesses in a retail health market in South Western Uganda. More specifically, it evaluated drug seller interpretation of malaria Rapid Diagnostics Test (RDT) results (study I), adherence to iCCM guidelines (study II) and the intervention effect on households’ perceived quality of drug seller fever care and care-seeking choice. Study IV qualitatively analysed the iCCM intervention implementation and causal mechanisms for observed effects. Improved understanding of such retail health markets will inform policy decisions and interventions for Universal Health Coverage. Methods: The study used mixed-methods design with an intervention and comparison arm, and pre-test assessment in both study arms. Data collection methods included care-seeker drug shop exit interviews and household surveys using structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, review of secondary data and a laboratory analysis of finger-prick capillary blood samples. Results: Among those tested for malaria parasites, there was 93% (95% CI 88.3, 96.2) agreement between drug sellers and laboratory scientist re-reading and with a kappa value of 0.84 (95% CI 0.75, 0.92) (Study I). The drug seller compliance with the reported malaria RDT results was 92.5% (95% CI 87.9, 95.7) (Study I). The iCCM intervention improved appropriate treatment for uncomplicated malaria by 34.5% (95% CI 8.6, 60.4), for pneumonia symptoms by 54.7% (95% CI 28.4, 81.0) and reduced appropriate treatment for non-bloody diarrhoea -11.2% (95% CI -65.5, 43.1), after adjusting for extraneous variables (Study II). Implementing the iCCM intervention in drug shops decreased the odds of households perceiving drug seller fever care as good but increased the household odds of choosing to seek care from private health facilities versus within the community (Study III). Drug sellers operated in a retail market system influenced by knowledge and actions of care-seekers, CHWs, government health workers and regulators, and also how formal and informal rules and norms were applied (Study IV). Implementation of the iCCM intervention at drug shops was modified and shaped by the emerging actor perceptions and behaviours (Study IV). Conclusions: This thesis demonstrates the implementation, causal mechanisms and contextual factors of the iCCM intervention in a rural retail health market. Fidelity and quality of iCCM intervention by drug sellers was acceptably high, probably as a result of co-interventions. Interventions in retail health markets should comprise of components that target the multiple actors or influences that shape that market. Multi-component health system interventions are complex to implement and also create complexity in their evaluation. When technologies are involved, their analysis should go beyond their substance as products and view them as items that encapsulate interests of different actors, some of which maybe converging with or competing against societal goals
Private retail drug shops: what they are, how they operate, and implications for health care delivery in rural Uganda
No full textBackground: Retail drug shops play a significant role in managing pediatric fevers in rural areas in Uganda. Targeted interventions to improve drug seller practices require understanding of the retail drug shop market and motivations that influence practices. This study aimed at describing the operational environment in relation to the Uganda National Drug Authority guidelines for setup of drug shops; characteristics, and dispensing practices of private retail drug shops in managing febrile conditions among under-five children in rural western Uganda.
Methods: Cross sectional survey of 74 registered drug shops, observation checklist, and 428 exit interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire with care-seekers of children under five years of age, who sought care at drug shops during the survey period. The survey was conducted in Mbarara and Bushenyi districts, South Western Uganda, in May 2013.
Results: Up to 90 and 79% of surveyed drug shops in Mbarara and Bushenyi, largely operate in premises that meet National Drug Authority requirements for operational suitability and ensuring medicines safety and quality. Drug shop attendants had some health or medical related training with 60% in Mbarara and 59% in Bushenyi being nurses or midwives. The rest were clinical officers, pharmacists. The most commonly stocked medicines at drug shops were Paracetamol, Quinine, Cough syrup, ORS/Zinc, Amoxicillin syrup, Septrin® syrup, Artemisinin-based combination therapies, and multivitamins, among others. Decisions on what medicines to stock were influenced by among others: recommended medicines from Ministry of Health, consumer demand, most profitable medicines, and seasonal disease patterns. Dispensing decisions were influenced by: prescriptions presented by client, patients’ finances, and patient preferences, among others. Most drug shops surveyed had clinical guidelines, iCCM guidelines, malaria and diarrhea
treatment algorithms and charts as recommended by the Ministry of Health. Some drug shops offered additional services such as immunization and sold non-medical goods, as a mechanism for diversification.
Conclusion: Most drug shops premises adhered to the recommended guidelines. Market factors, including client demand and preferences, pricing and profitability, and seasonality largely influenced dispensing and stocking practices.
Improving retail drug shop practices and quality of services, requires designing and implementing both supply-side and demand side strategies.WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Einhorn Family Foundation, Pehr Lagermans Family, Sweden, Swedish Science Council.Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA).Carnegie Corporation of New York.DELTAS Africa Initiative.Wellcome Trust (UK).UK government.PM202
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Towards a functioning retail health market [Elektronisk resurs] : Evaluating the integrated Community Case Management Intervention for Pediatric Febrile Illness in Drug Shops in Rural South Western Uganda
No full textObjectives: This thesis examined the health systems effects of implementing the integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) intervention for paediatric febrile illnesses in a retail health market in South Western Uganda. More specifically, it evaluated drug seller interpretation of malaria Rapid Diagnostics Test (RDT) results (study I), adherence to iCCM guidelines (study II) and the intervention effect on households’ perceived quality of drug seller fever care and care-seeking choice. Study IV qualitatively analysed the iCCM intervention implementation and causal mechanisms for observed effects. Improved understanding of such retail health markets will inform policy decisions and interventions for Universal Health Coverage.Methods: The study used mixed-methods design with an intervention and comparison arm, and pre-test assessment in both study arms. Data collection methods included care-seeker drug shop exit interviews and household surveys using structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, review of secondary data and a laboratory analysis of finger-prick capillary blood samples.Results: Among those tested for malaria parasites, there was 93% (95% CI 88.3, 96.2) agreement between drug sellers and laboratory scientist re-reading and with a kappa value of 0.84 (95% CI 0.75, 0.92) (Study I). The drug seller compliance with the reported malaria RDT results was 92.5% (95% CI 87.9, 95.7) (Study I). The iCCM intervention improved appropriate treatment for uncomplicated malaria by 34.5% (95% CI 8.6, 60.4), for pneumonia symptoms by 54.7% (95% CI 28.4, 81.0) and reduced appropriate treatment for non-bloody diarrhoea -11.2% (95% CI -65.5, 43.1), after adjusting for extraneous variables (Study II). Implementing the iCCM intervention in drug shops decreased the odds of households perceiving drug seller fever care as good but increased the household odds of choosing to seek care from private health facilities versus within the community (Study III). Drug sellers operated in a retail market system influenced by knowledge and actions of care-seekers, CHWs, government health workers and regulators, and also how formal and informal rules and norms were applied (Study IV). Implementation of the iCCM intervention at drug shops was modified and shaped by the emerging actor perceptions and behaviours (Study IV).Conclusions: This thesis demonstrates the implementation, causal mechanisms and contextual factors of the iCCM intervention in a rural retail health market. Fidelity and quality of iCCM intervention by drug sellers was acceptably high, probably as a result of co-interventions. Interventions in retail health markets should comprise of components that target the multiple actors or influences that shape that market. Multi-component health system interventions are complex to implement and also create complexity in their evaluation. When technologies are involved, their analysis should go beyond their substance as products and view them as items that encapsulate interests of different actors, some of which maybe converging with or competing against societal goals.</p
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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
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