Correlates of child care providers' interpretation of pediatric AIDS: implications for education and training.
(17/4315)
A total of 212 child care providers residing in a southeastern state were surveyed about their knowledge and attitudes toward AIDS and child care policies. Providers' feeling about caring for an HIV-infected child, rather than their perceived knowledge of AIDS, were most consistently correlated with their factual knowledge and positive attitudes toward AIDS. These results suggest that providers may pay more attention to AIDS information and become more accepting of recommended child care policies when they are able to personalize AIDS within the context of their work with young children. Implications for education are discussed within the context of the Health Belief Model. (+info)
Increasing compliance with colorectal cancer screening: the development of effective health education.
(18/4315)
The ability of a health education leaflet to raise awareness of the frequency of colorectal cancer and its asymptomatic nature and to increase intention to participate in screening with faecal occult blood testing (FOBT) was investigated. One hundred subjects were interviewed before and after reading the leaflet. The number of men stating bowel cancer was 'very common' increased significantly from 20 to 60% (chi 2 = 16.7, P < 0.0001) and those understanding its asymptomatic nature form 64 to 92% (chi 2 = 11.4, P < 0.001). The leaflet significantly increased the percentage of women reporting bowel cancer as 'very common' from 30 to 70% (chi 2 = 16.0, P < 0.0001) and as being asymptomatic from 58 to 94% (chi 2 = 17.8, P < 0.0001). After reading the leaflet, 55% of men who initially declined screening reversed their decision (chi 2 16.5, P < 0.0001) and 50% of female non-adherers reversed their decision (chi 2 = 17.3, P < 0.0001). Reasons most frequently given for declining colorectal cancer screening were feeling well (77% of subjects declining), concern about further tests (38%), unpleasantness of FOBT (13%) and illness (6%). This leaflet successfully educates people about colorectal cancer and increased intention to participate in screening programmes. (+info)
Planning with PRA: HIV and STD in a Nepalese mountain community.
(19/4315)
The application of Participatory Rural Appraisal methods (PRA) to the topic of sexual health enabled us to explore key factors concerning local people's perceptions regarding HIV/AIDS and STDs and to plan collectively to address the emerging issues. Conducting the process in a gender sensitive way enabled people to feel safe enough to express their own opinions, and having gained confidence in their peer groups, to share ideas later with the whole community in a joint planning exercise. Nevertheless one group was identified as difficult to reach and whose needs could not be met in a group for reasons of confidentiality. While the methodology itself clearly has great potential in planning around specific health issues, there are, nevertheless, limitations. Although the approach and the tools used are simple and accessible, the skills needed to analyze the information are more complex and demanding. The training given did not manage to equip facilitators adequately with these analytical skills and in the future will be more experience based and geared towards developing analysis and the ability to formulate questions. In addition, since the project is not permanently resident in the area, intensive support within the District is necessary to increase the chances of sustainability. (+info)
Effects of photographs and written descriptors on melanoma detection.
(20/4315)
Two studies are reported on the effects of photographic and written information on performance in an experimental melanoma detection task. Subjects were shown slides of four types of skin lesions, including melanoma, and were asked what they would do if the lesion was on their skin. Four response options were provided from seeing a doctor immediately to doing nothing. In Experiment 1, no clear differences in performance were found as a function of prior instruction using four, eight or 16 photographs of each of the four lesion types. In Experiment 2, the effects of written and photographic instructional material were compared. The written material contained descriptions of each lesion type and details of the ABCD criteria for melanoma detection. Eight photographs were provided for each lesion type. Photographic information resulted in superior performance (P < 0.001) for seborrhoeic keratoses and a combination of both types of information was superior (P < 0.05) for melanoma. The two kinds of instructional material produced different effects, suggesting that a brochure offering a combination of photographs and written information is likely to be most useful in helping members of the public identify early melanoma as suspicious. (+info)
Impact of national immunization days on polio-related knowledge and practice of urban women in Bangladesh.
(21/4315)
Bangladesh began to hold National Immunization Days (NIDs) from 1995 as part of the country's goal to eradicate poliomyelitis by the turn of the century. The NIDs brought together government agencies, the media, voluntary organisations and individual volunteers in social mobilization and service delivery activities. This paper assesses the impact of the first two polio NIDs in terms of the immunization coverage and change in knowledge about the disease among women living in Dhaka city, the capital of the country. Data were collected through pre- and post-NID cross-sectional surveys in a sample of one area of Dhaka city which included slum and non-slum households. Knowledge data were collected from 525 women with at least one child aged less than five years. The oral polio vaccine (OPV) coverage during NIDs was obtained from 720 children. Knowledge of polio as a vaccine preventable disease increased after NIDs among both slum and non-slum women. The knowledge gap between the two groups was significantly reduced. Field workers, who regularly visit women at their homes to promote health and family planning services, were the main source of information for the slum women while television was cited as the most important source of information by non-slum women. The study revealed that 88% of children under five years received at least one dose of oral polio vaccine (OPV) during NIDs, and 67% received two stipulated doses with no significant differences between slum (65%) and non-slum (69%) groups. In addition, 68% of the children contacted during the NIDs were given vitamin A supplementation. The study suggests that strategies like NID can be effectively used to tap into community resources and to generate political commitments for health programmes. (+info)
Critical thinking: a central element in developing action competence in health and environmental education.
(22/4315)
In the field of educational philosophy, health and environmental education share many common goals and challenges on the level of curriculum theorizing as well as the level of pedagogical practice. One of these challenges is to develop a radical philosophy of education which is critical and takes a controversial point of departure rather than the one of accommodation. It highlights, in other words, the socially critical role of education. From this point of view some key concepts are discussed in the paper in relation to health and environmental education: democracy as means and end, critical thinking, the critical orientation, and the action perspective. One of these concepts, critical thinking, is elaborated in particular as it is considered to be essential to pupils' development of action competence. A description is given how it can be seen from four perspectives: the epistemological, the transformative, the dialectical and the holistic. (+info)
Self-administered interventions: a health education strategy for improving population health.
(23/4315)
A case is presented for using self-administered interventions (SAIs) as a viable public health education/promotion option. SAIs are promulgated as a means to more fully participate in projected health care changes. One readily available opportunity is to incorporate SAIs into managed care organizations concerned about balancing costs and care, and responsible for the health care of the populations they serve. SAIs are both clinical and 'population-based' strategies that are viable alternatives to 'usual' care because SAIs offer a means to enhance reach, efficiency and efficacy when used independently or as part of a sequential, systematic series of interventions. SAIs also have other advantages such as being easily shared, disseminated, reusable and capable of including a valuable, inexpensive human resource, trained peer helpers or volunteers. The SAIs of minimal intervention and self-instruction have been widely used with a variety of lifestyle behaviors associated with cardiovascular disease. Research from the weight management literature is used as a heuristic illustration of the application of SAIs, and to describe the nature and potential of SAIs as public health strategies to meet health care challenges of the future related to service delivery. (+info)
The use of formal and informal services for antenatal care and malaria treatment in rural Uganda.
(24/4315)
The study aimed to analyze reasons for the use or non-use of antenatal care services and malaria treatment among pregnant women living in rural areas in Uganda. Focus group discussions with pregnant women, in-depth interviews with key informants (Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) and health workers) and a structured questionnaire administered to pregnant women were used to collect the relevant information. Antenatal care attendance was irregular and few women knew that the purpose of attending antenatal care was to monitor both the growth of the baby and the health status of the woman. Parity significantly influenced antenatal care attendance, but level of education, religion and marital status did not. Fifty-five per cent of the women stated that they had delivered outside the formal health delivery system despite antenatal care attendance. All women in their second pregnancy had delivered their first child in the village, despite TBA training to the contrary. Malaria as perceived by pregnant women is common and multiple health service providers are used for its treatment. About 66% of the mothers reported having suffered from malaria during the current pregnancy; of these more than half had received treatment outside the formal health delivery system. Self-treatment with drugs bought from ordinary shops was commonly reported. Nearly all women (93.3%) knew about the antimalarial drug chloroquine and 83% thought that it was used for the treatment of malaria, not for its prevention. Some women believed that the drug could cause abortion. Health seeking behaviour was influenced by several factors, including the perceived high cost of antenatal care services, of conducting a delivery and treatment, and perceived inadequacy of services provided by the formal health system. Inadequacy of formal health services was perceived by users to be partly due to understaffing and to irregular supply of essential drugs. Intensive health education to pregnant women on the safety of chloroquine use in pregnancy, the importance and the need for regular antenatal care attendance are recommended. In addition, training of more TBAs and continued educational efforts to upgrade their knowledge, regular and adequate supply of essential drugs, and free health services for high-risk groups such as pregnant women are recommended to improve antenatal care services and drug prophylaxis use in pregnancy. (+info)