An appraisal: how notifiable infectious diseases are reported by Hungarian family physicians (original) (raw)
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South Eastern Journal of Public Health, 2017
Aim: The Public Health Reform II project was implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 2011 to December 2013 and was funded by the European Union Aid schema. The principal aim of the project was to strengthen public health services in the country through improved control of public health threats. Workshops for primary care physicians were provided to improve the situation and increase communicable diseases notification rates in eight selected primary care centres. They were followed with visits from the project’s implementing team to verify the effects of trainings. Methods: The quality of notifications from physicians in Tuzla region was compared before and after the workshop. The timeliness was used as an indicator of quality. Medians of timeliness before and after the training were compared by use of Wilcoxon test, whereas the averages of timeliness were compared by use of the t-test. Results: There were 980 reported cases, 80% before the training and 20% after the training. A lower median of timeliness for all the reported cases after the training was statistically significant compared to the median value before the training. A similar picture was revealed for specific diseases i.e. tuberculosis and enteritis, not so for scarlet fever and scabies. Conclusion: The significant reduction in time response between the first symptoms and disease diagnosis indicates the positive impact of the training program in Tuzla. Hence, primary care physicians provided better quality of reported data after the training course.
Participation of infectious disease surveillance in primary health care
The aim of the study was to analyse participation of primary care physicians in infectious disease surveillance and to find factors which influence the primary health physician's participation in surveillance. Infectious disease reporting by 854 primary care physicians from 15 primary care institutions in South Bačka district, AP Vojvodina, Serbia was monitored during a 6 month period. The number and structure of infectious disease reporting through the mandatory surveillance system was compared with the number and structure of infectious diseases reported through routine statistics and the number and structure of infectious diseases reported in the whole area, including reports from secondary and tertiary health care settings and laboratories. The youngest and oldest physicians reported the lowest average number of infectious diseases. Paediatricians and dermatologists had the highest and emergency specialists, occupational medicine specialists and other consultants the lowest average number of reported infectious diseases, with the ratio between paediatricians and emergency medicine specialists being 347:1. Lowest reporting rate was observed for infections routinely diagnosed in clinics such as hepatitis, or with ethical considerations such as sexually transmitted infections. The average weekly number of reported infectious diseases was from 0.0 per emergency medicine specialists to 1.4 per paediatrician. Completeness of infectious disease surveillance in primary health care is unsatisfactory. Changing currently insufficient undergraduate and postgraduate training in surveillance might be an important tool for establishing a more effective and sensitive surveillance system. Guidelines for laboratory confirmation and reporting could also increase quality of surveillance.
2013
Background and objective: Effective Prevention and control of infectious diseases requires the surveillance system for developing efficient procedures for the priority infectious diseases. According to the less than expected reports and lack of studies on problems and barriers of reporting, this study was done with the aim of identifying the barriers and problems of surveillance system, the suitable way and time of education, the believes, the requirements and the expectations in order to improve the quality and quantity of surveillance system in the viewpoint of general practitioners (GPs) who have privet office in the north and east metropolitan area of Tehran. Materials and methods: This cross sectional study was performed with the participation of GPs undertaking their private practices around the Shahid Beheshti University in the north and east of Tehran in 2011. The sample size was 336 GPs and the sampling method was simple random. Data was collected by questionnaire and inter...
Global Health Action, 2015
Background: Participation of private practitioners in routine disease surveillance in India is minimal despite the fact that they account for over 70% of the primary healthcare provision. We aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of private practitioners in the city of Pune toward disease surveillance. Our goal was to identify what barriers and facilitators determine their participation in current and future surveillance efforts. Design: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among 258 practitioners (response rate 86%). Data were processed using SPSS TM Inc., Chicago, IL, USA, version 17.0.1. Results: Knowledge regarding surveillance, although limited, was better among allopathy practitioners. Surveillance practices did not differ significantly between allopathy and alternate medicine practitioners. Multivariable logistic regression suggested practicing allopathy [odds ratio (OR) 3.125, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.234Á7.915, p 00.016] and availability of a computer (OR 3.670, 95% CI 1.237Á10.889, p 00.019) as significant determinants and the presence of a laboratory (OR 3.792, 95% CI 0.998Á14.557, p 00.052) as a marginal determinant of the practitioner's willingness to participate in routine disease surveillance systems. Lack of time (137, 55%) was identified as the main barrier at the individual level alongside inadequately trained subordinate staff (14, 6%). Main extrinsic barriers included lack of cooperation between government and the private sector (27, 11%) and legal issues involved in reporting data (15, 6%). There was a general agreement among respondents (239, 94%) that current surveillance efforts need strengthening. Over a third suggested that availability of detailed information and training about surveillance processes (70, 33%) would facilitate reporting. Conclusions: The high response rate and the practitioners' willingness to participate in a proposed pilot noncommunicable disease surveillance system indicate that there is a general interest from the private sector in cooperating. Keeping reporting systems simple, preferably in electronic formats that minimize infrastructure and time requirements on behalf of the private practitioners, will go a long way in consolidating disease surveillance efforts in the state. Organizing training sessions, providing timely feedback, and awarding continuing medical education points for routine data reporting seem feasible options and should be piloted.
Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2014
Aims and objectives. To search for instruments to measure compliance with infection control practices and to report on which dimensions and contents the instruments evaluate, their psychometric characteristics, compliance and factors influencing compliance. Background. Low compliance with infection control practices has been reported among healthcare professionals around the world over the years. Existing data concerning health professionals' compliance with standard precautions are based on measuring instruments. Design. Integrative review. Methods. The descriptors were identified and used separately and in combination to search in the following databases: Lilacs, PubMed (MEDLINE), ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus and CINAHL. The selected articles complied with inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results. Twenty-three studies were analysed, resulting in the identification of 18 instruments. No instrument addressed all compliance topics, and the most commonly addressed topics were the use of personal protective equipment, hand hygiene and safe practices in the handling of cutting material. Most authors explored content validity and some performed reliability analysis by means of Cronbach's alpha and test-retest. Countries in the sample have different human development indices, and countries with medium and low human development indices show less compliance. Some variables were strong predictors of compliance: training, perceptions of safe environment, perception of obstacles to comply with standard precautions and knowledge. Conclusions. Compliance is below the recommended levels. Health professionals seem to be selective in following standard precautions. Significant influences include institutional management and psychosocial variables, which deserve further study. Relevance to clinical practice. Health managers and government policies and interventions should pay greater attention to this subject.
Cureus
Background: Control and prevention of infectious diseases has been a primary health mandate. The reporting system is a vital step in preventing and controlling of these diseases. Most important, healthcare workers who have a responsibility to report must be aware of this responsibility. The present study aimed to improve the compliance of primary healthcare workers against reportable tropical and non-tropical dermatological diseases. Objective of the study: The objective was to assess the knowledge, skills, and practice of primary healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia regarding the surveillance system of reportable tropical and non-tropical dermatological diseases using an assessment tool featuring closed-ended questions. As a secondary objective, this study assessed the satisfaction of primary healthcare workers with the surveillance system. Subjects and methods: Through a cross-sectional design, the study used an electronic self-administered questionnaire targeting the primary healthcare workers who met the inclusion criteria through a nonprobability sampling technique. Results: By the end of the study period, data had been collected from 377 primary healthcare workers. Slightly more than half of them worked for the ministry of health facilities. In the last year, the vast majority (88%) of participants did not report any infectious diseases. Poor or low knowledge was reported by almost half of the participants concerning which dermatological diseases should be notified immediately on clinical suspicion or routinely on a weekly basis. Clinically and in response to the skills assessment, 57% of the participants had lower skills scores in detecting and identifying the skin ulcer of leishmania. Half of the participants were less satisfied with the feedback after their notification and considered the notification forms complicated and time-consuming, especially with the usual high workload in primary healthcare centers. Furthermore, the observed significant differences (p < 0.001) in knowledge and skill scores were demonstrated with female healthcare workers, older participants, employees from the Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs, and workers with more than ten years of experience. Conclusion: The present study has shown the limitations of public health surveillance due to underreporting and lack of timeliness. The dissatisfaction of study participants with feedback after the notification step is another finding that demonstrates the need for collaboration among public health authorities and healthcare workers. Fortunately, health departments can implement measures to improve practitioners' awareness through continuous medical education and providing frequent feedback to overcome these hurdles.
Knowledge, Attitude, Practice of Iranian Physicians about COVID-19 in Iran
Society For Science and Education, 2021
As a result of the global crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak in late December 2019, Iran was also severely affected. The three provinces of Tehran, Mazandaran, and Gillan were high-risk cities exposed to infection and grievously damaged. Therefore, we decided to look at the level of knowledge, depth of attitude, and quality of physicians' practice in these three provinces. The most significant goal was to assess the level of KAP relative to the COVID-19 virus to provide comprehensive information to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the treatment staff to better cope and more effectively prevent and control critical situations. For research methodology, a cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 300 people using a self-made questionnaire. An online questionnaire via virtual networks and a paper questionnaire were also distributed by the principal author in medical hospitals, which included four sections: demographic information, knowledge, attitude, and practice. Cronbach's alpha confirmed the validity and reliability of each component. The final results prove that the knowledge of physicians was acceptable and significant at the level of 0.05. Physicians' attitudes showed a level of fear and anxiety that was significant according to a one-sample t-test and chi-square (Sig <0.05). In order to rank the physicians' practice, a T-test was used, and the results of the Friedman test in the first stage of the Chi-square test showed that the significance level is 0.05. Looking at the research results, it can be said that the development of educational programs can have a beneficial effect in increasing physicians' knowledge and controlling the disease as effectively as possible. Also, due to the attitude associated with stress and fear, it can be seen that providing laboratory and treatment equipment has been one of the concerns of physicians.