ABSTRACT Despite the 1990 health system reforms in Namibia, mental health still receives low priority. Pressed with limited resources, health policies are directed at communicable and life-threatening diseases. On primary health care level, there is either an absence of or fragmented mental health services. As a result, when patients suffering from common mental disorders visit the curative health services, delays are experienced in the identification and diagnosis of their conditions, which ...
ABSTRACT The school supplementary feeding programme is a national initiative implemented by the Ministry of Education (MoE) with the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MOHSS). MOHSS offers technical expertise in health related issues through the National Policy for School Health. The objectives of the study were to assess how the implementation of the school supplementary feeding programme is helping to ease the malnutrition burden on school learners, determine the extent to which primar...
ABSTRACT The global corporate setting changes swiftly as a result of technological, economic and political developments. Due to these phenomena it has been noted that staff members in general experience a great increase in emotional strain, leaving a need for an effective program focussed on enhancing employees’ ability to deal with such stressors via an increase in their trait emotional intelligence. With such an enhancement the employees would experience improved levels of empathy, emotio...
Abstract The prevalence of gout has increased over the last few decades. Of the 291 conditions studied in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) (2010), gout ranked 138th for disability and 173rd for the overall burden of disability-adjusted life years. Statistics assume that in a population of 71,233 there are 200 people in the Omaheke region suffering from gout (Extrapolation of Prevalence Rate of Gout to Countries and Regions, 2015). This is evidence for a need to optimize management of the di...
Abstract: Background: Congenital abnormalities are defects present at birth and are increasingly becoming an important cause of neonatal mortality. They can also result in disability in majority of the survivors. Objective: To describe the pattern and outcome of major congenital abnormalities (MCA) in a tertiary hospital in Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: The labour ward and labour ward theatre delivery records and admission records of the in-born ward of the neonatal unit of a tertiary hospital w...
Abstract Attendance at antenatal clinic during pregnancy and delivery in health facilities by skilled birth attendants have been shown to reduce the incidence of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Despite efforts by the Namibian government through the Ministry of Health and Social Services to promote delivery at health facilities by pregnant women, many women still deliver at home resulting in high maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in the country. Factors that influenc...
ABSTRACT Background: The quality of maternal healthcare women receive during pregnancy and delivery has attracted global attention. However, tools and empirical studies on quality of maternal healthcare women receive are lacking in many low-income settings including Ghana. Available literature shows that many of the current assessment tools are provider driven, focusing mainly on clinical care aspect of quality without considering clients' perspectives. This study aimed to fill these knowled...
ABSTRACT In sub-Saharan Africa, several hundreds of pregnancies are exposed to both malaria and HIV infections annually. Consequences of these infections include maternal anemia, immunosuppression, preterm delivery, low birth weight, low Apgar score, and cord malaria. Unfortunately, these infections in relation to these adverse outcomes are not well characterized in Ghana. This study determined whether maternal malaria and HIV infections during pregnancy are associated with increased risk of...
ABSTRACT This research study aimed to bring about greater insight into the topic of bereavement, especially with regards to children and adolescents. Questions that were answered included: How and why do people grieve? How can one help a person to cope with his/her grief? How do children grieve, and is it different from adults' grief? What do adults understand by children’s reactions to loss? The sample population was pre-defined according to the following characteristics. Primary and secon...
Background: Despite over three decades of HIV, its prevalence especially among adolescents remains a public health concern. In 2015, there were more than two million adolescents living with HIV, with a higher proportion coming from sub-Sahara Africa. In Cameroon, there are over 40,000 adolescents living with HIV and there are still concerns about the provision of care to them as adolescents are trapped between paediatric and adult services which are unable to address their specific needs. How...
The effect of pregnancy associated malaria (PAM) differs according to the level of malaria endemicity and the level of immunity to infection acquired by pregnant woman. Generally the incidence as well as severity of PAM is parity-linked. Immunologically naive primigravid women are at greater risk compared to multigravidae who have some level of immunity against the specific malaria parasites which colonize the placenta.
Introduction Globally. 2.6 million stillbirths are recorded annually 50% occur during labour (intrapartum). Ghana records 11,000 stillbirths annually and 40% occur during labour. The Greater Accra Region records 2000 stillbirths annually: 40 % of them occur intrapartum. An understanding of the contributory factors will facilitate the development of preventive strategies to reduce the huge numbers of intrapartum stillbirths
ABSTRACT Smoking is a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases and remains a significant public health challenge in many lower and middle income countries (LMIC). Inspite that smoking cessation (SC) pharmacotherapy significantly reduces poor outcome, access to smoking cessation services in medical practice in Namibia is unknown. The study aims to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practice of SC pharmacotherapy among medical doctors in Khomas region, Namibia. A cross-sectional analyti...
ABSTRACT A quality improvement training programme is important to address the challenges that the health professionals are facing in their quest for quality health care delivery. In Namibia, most health care facilities have not been yielding good results in response to patients’ health care needs. Health care dynamics are complex and inundated with several factors; among others new methods, speed of improving medical science and technology, as well as increasing demands of the clients to ad...
ABSTRACT There is silence on Namibian families who have a member with Down syndrome (DS). Hence, research is needed regarding the experiences, stress and well-being of families who are caregivers of a family member with Down syndrome. This is important to parents who begin their married lives with a Down syndrome child in the family since it will provide them with a balanced perspective of what to expect. In addition, most studies on the experiences of caring for a Down syndrome were conducte...