ABSTRACT Dietary Supplements use has been found to be increasing among the adults especially the older adults in the developed countries. However, there are no known studies on dietary supplement use among the elderly in Ghana. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to determine patterns of dietary supplement use and determinants among the elderly in the Keta municipal area, Volta region. This involved a one-time data collection on socio-demographic and health characteristic and al...
ABSTRACT Background: The health implications of infectious diseases affecting children of school going age as a result of low practice of personal hygiene practices and insufficient sanitary facilities in public primary schools is still a concern for worry in most poor and middle income countries. Objective: The objective of the study was to estimate the association between the sociodemographic characteristics and prevalence of hand washing with soap under running water practice among school...
ABSTRACT Background: Starting maternal health care services within the first trimester of pregnancy is viewed as a strong determinant of the health status of both the mother and the foetus. However, many pregnant women in developing countries, especially Ghana initiate their antenatal care late (after 12 weeks) thereby missing the benefits associated with antenatal care as some may be unable to attain the minimum visits of eight before delivery. Objective: This study sought to determine the...
ABSTRACT Background: Exposure to indoor biomass smoke is a major global public health issue affecting about half the world’s population. Several studies have associated biomass smoke generated from unvented cook stoves to several diseases including chronic cough, phlegm production, COPD, lung cancer. But very few studies considered women in traditional smokehouses. Objective: This study assesses the prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms, exposure indicators of biomass smoke ...
ABSTRACT Background: Growth Monitoring and Promotion (GMP) is a preventive programme that targets the reduction of malnutrition in children in the early periods of their lives. GMP targets the caregiver and family decisions for positive child growth outcomes and has a great potential to contribute to improving child survival if well implemented. For a GMP programme to achieve its intended objective, the following conditions need to be met; proper implementation of GMP activities by skilled ...
Abstract BACKGROUND OF STUDY AREA The South Tongu District is one of the twelve districts in the Volta Region of Ghana. The district lies in the southern section of the region. It is bounded on the north by the North Tongu District, on the east by the Akatsi District, on the South by the Keta District, all in the Volta Region and on the west by the Dangbe East District in the Greater Accra Region. The total land area occupied by the district is approximately 400 square kilometres. The distric...
ABSTRACT Community Participation has been identified as a key factor in the improvement of health care delivery in Ghana. The Wa District Health Administration set up a number of community health structures with the intention to get communities more involved/participating in health programmes in order to improve coverage and utilization. Despite these community, health structures and other efforts aimed at improving coverage / utilization in health services, there has not be any significant i...
ABSTRACT Background: Several workforces in the mining industry are exposed to noise in daily doses above 85dBA, which exposes them to the risk of Occupational Noise-induced Hearing Loss (ONIHL). When noise exposure levels of workers is eliminated or lowered, employees risk of Noise-induced hearing loss will be completely reduced (Edelson et al., (2009). Employees have to rely on hearing protection devices (HPD) among which include the use of ear plugs and ear muffs when it becomes evident th...
ABSTRACT Malnutrition is a major problem in the world especially in developing countries. It is responsible for over a million direct and indirect causes of death worldwide especially in under-fives. In spite of the abundance of protein in fishing communities, they are not spared of this problem. One successful way of tackling this problem is assessment of nutritional status of populations and coming up with appropriate interventions. The study sought to assess the proportion of children un...
ABSTRACT Background: Physiotherapy is a professionally demanding job, and physiotherapists are prone to develop musculoskeletal disorders. Musculoskeletal disorders are inflammatory and degenerative conditions affecting muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilages, nerves and peripheral blood vessels, and are associated with exposure to risk factors at the work place. Physical risk factors including performing high repetitive movements, maintaining awkward postures while working or sustaining sta...
ABSTRACT In Ghana and other countries of the developing world, men are very influential in deciding whether their partners visit the antenatal clinic (ANC) or not or they deliver in a health facility or not. Generally, there is a high ANC coverage in Offinso and Ghana at large. But as a result of lack of male support during ANC, some pregnant women are not able to deliver at health facilities. This necessitated the conduct of this study to explore the influence of male support during ANC on ...
ABSTRACT Background: Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest record of maternal mortality. The World Health Organization defines maternal mortality as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy irrespective of the duration and site of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes. In Ghana, maternal mortality rate stands at 319 deaths per 100,000 live births. Trends from the...
ABSTRACT Introduction; One of the foremost and important steps towards rational anti-fungal use and conservation is drug utilization research. A lot is known about the determinants and patterns of use of antibiotics. However, only few studies have investigated consumption of antifungals in a given population. Methods; the current study is a cross-sectional drug utilisation study of 304 clients purchasing anti-fungal products from retail community Pharmacies. A structured questionnaire was use...
ABSTRACT Introduction: Malaria in pregnancy has serious health outcomes especially to the pregnant woman and the unborn child. These may include premature delivery, low birth weight (LBW), fetal and maternal death. Adoption of intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp-SP) by government as an effective strategy for malaria prevention during pregnancy has been influenced by various factors such as attitude of health staffs and stock out of SP, hence the need to assess the factors associated with ...
ABSTRACT The Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm) program is an innovative financing mechanism with the primary objective of making Artemisinin based Combination Therapies (ACTs) affordable in both private and public health sectors, thereby increasing the uptake of ACTs while discouraging the use of Artemisinin monotherapy. This study aims to assess the implementation process of the AMFm initiative among the Licensed Chemical Sellers (LCS) and Community Pharmacists (CP) at Kpone...