Suchergebnisse

Aims: To see impact of second National Strategy for Obstetric Fistula 2017-2022 in Bangladesh Methods: Under the supervision of The National Task Force on Obstetric Fistula of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, UNFPA supported the government in the development of the 2nd national strategy. A technical group developed the strategy and submitted to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for final approval. The second national obstetric fistula strategy 2017 – 2022 is a major step towards a fistula-free Bangladesh within a generation and reduces the burden of disease. Results: The strategy sets the vision for all girls born henceforth in Bangladesh will enjoy a life free from the risk of Obstetric Fistula and all cases of fistula will receive the highest quality of care enabling a high quality of life. Six directions set include prevention, improvement of services, quality treatment, psychosocial reintegration and rehabilitation, evidence generation and increase awareness. The set target aims to reach zero incidences of obstetric fistula by2022, reduce prevalence of repairable fistula cases by 90% and provide social safety nets and rehabilitation to 50% of all (repairable and incurable) cases of fistula between 2017 and 2022. Conclusions: Multi sectoral efforts needed under an effective coordination to operationalize the second strategy in Bangladesh.

Aims: This study done to explore the data documentation process of fistula in the facilities and scope to improve. Methods: In-depth reviews of patents data recoding forms of six selected facilities were performed. Of them, three were government and remaining were private facilities. The study also explored the process of data documentation, reporting in the DHIS-2. Results: All centers are keeping records of fistula patients; five of them use structured forms. One government facility uses hospital register book to record the data. There was inconsistency in all six different forms. Therefore, uniform data is not captured. Rehabilitation data is missing in the data records. Government facilities report information on number of cases operated in the DHIS-2. While, private facilities are not under this reporting system. Thus, there are gaps identified in the documentation process and reporting system. Conclusions: Better data helps for better planning and intervene. Bangladesh is documenting gential fistula patient's data. However, its demands for improvement. A comphesive and uniform database can help to eliminate fistula in Bangladesh as set target in the 2nd national strategy.

Introduction: Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected older people disproportionately. Prior to the pandemic, some studies reported that telehealth was an efficient and effective form of health care delivery, particularly for older people. There has been increased use of telehealth and publication of new literature on this topic during the pandemic, so we conducted a scoping review and evidence synthesis for telehealth use in geriatric care to summarize learning from these new data. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, and the World Health Organization's COVID-19 global research database for articles published between 1 January and 20 August 2020. We included 79 articles that met our inclusion criteria. The information collected has been synthesized and presented as descriptive statistics. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) have also been discussed. Results: The articles included in our review provide some evidence of effective provision of preventive, curative, and rehabilitative telehealth services for older people, but they highlight a greater focus on curative services and are mostly concentrated in high-income countries. We identified convenience and affordability as the strengths of telehealth use in geriatric care. Weaknesses identified include the inability of telehealth to cater to the needs of older people with specific physical and cognitive limitations. While the threats of increasing inequity and the lack of standardization in the provision of age-friendly telehealth services remain, we identified opportunities for technologic advancements driven by simplicity and user-friendliness for older people. Conclusion: Telehealth offers futuristic promise for the provision of essential health care services for older people worldwide. However, the extent of these services via telehealth appears to be currently limited in low and low-middle income countries. Optimizing telehealth services that can be accessed by older people requires greater government investments and active ...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted telemedicine use for mental illness (telemental health). Objective: In the scoping review, we describe the scope and domains of telemental health during the COVID-19 pandemic from the published literature and discuss associated challenges. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, and the World Health Organization's Global COVID-19 Database were searched up to August 23, 2020 with no restrictions on study design, language, or geographical, following an a priori protocol (https://osf.io/4dxms/). Data were synthesized using descriptive statistics from the peer-reviewed literature and the National Quality Forum's (NQF) framework for telemental health. Sentiment analysis was also used to gauge patient and healthcare provider opinion toward telemental health. Results: After screening, we identified 196 articles, predominantly from high-income countries (36.22%). Most articles were classified as commentaries (51.53%) and discussed telemental health from a management standpoint (86.22%). Conditions commonly treated with telemental health were depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Where data were available, most articles described telemental health in a home-based setting (use of telemental health at home by patients). Overall sentiment was neutral-to-positive for the individual domains of the NQF framework. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that there was a marked growth in the uptake of telemental health during the pandemic and that telemental health is effective, safe, and will remain in use for the foreseeable future. However, more needs to be done to better understand these findings. Greater investment into human and financial resources, and research should be made by governments, global funding agencies, academia, and other stakeholders, especially in low- and middle- income countries. Uniform guidelines for licensing and credentialing, payment and insurance, and standards of care need to be developed to ensure safe and optimal telemental health delivery. Telemental health ...

While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic wreaked havoc across the globe, we have witnessed substantial mis- and disinformation regarding various aspects of the disease. We conducted a cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire for the general public (recruited via social media) and healthcare workers (recruited via email) from the State of Qatar, and the Middle East and North Africa region to understand the knowledge of and anxiety levels around COVID-19 (April–June 2020) during the early stage of the pandemic. The final dataset used for the analysis comprised of 1658 questionnaires (53.0% of 3129 received questionnaires; 1337 [80.6%] from the general public survey and 321 [19.4%] from the healthcare survey). Knowledge about COVID-19 was significantly different across the two survey populations, with a much higher proportion of healthcare workers possessing better COVID-19 knowledge than the general public (62.9% vs. 30.0%, p < 0.0001). A reverse effect was observed for anxiety, with a higher proportion of very anxious (or really frightened) respondents among the general public compared to healthcare workers (27.5% vs. 11.5%, p < 0.0001). A higher proportion of the general public tended to overestimate their chance of dying if they become ill with COVID-19, with 251 (18.7%) reporting the chance of dying (once COVID-19 positive) to be ≥25% versus 19 (5.9%) of healthcare workers (p < 0.0001). Good knowledge about COVID-19 was associated with low levels of anxiety. Panic and unfounded anxiety, as well as casual and carefree attitudes, can propel risk taking and mistake-making, thereby increasing vulnerability. It is important that governments, public health agencies, healthcare workers, and civil society organizations keep themselves updated regarding scientific developments and that they relay messages to the community in an honest, transparent, unbiased, and timely manner.