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This study aims to describe the perceptions of some participants from a community mental health center in the Department of Chocó, Colombia.

A case study with a qualitative approach was carried out in 2023. Focus groups were conducted with mental health leaders and members of a community mental health center. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis.

Two categories emerged: characterize the Community Mental Health Center of Chocó and Reaffirm human rights. In the first category, the community center is described as a place of recovery that mobilizes social services and works to increase agency capacity. In the second category, the human rights were assumed as part of community services, not only to eliminate coercive practices but also to support the increase of autonomy.

The limitations of this study are the analysis of strategies from the perspective of global politics, without delving into the structure of community actions themselves, which are not necessarily based on global recommendations.

Despite the design and development of public policies the study of their implementation still poses several challenges. The strategies carried out by regions that follow evidence-based practices and participation routes are not officially recognized as good practices in mental health and, therefore, independently supported to be sustained.

A community mental health center is described that manages to be implement and deliver a service despite not being able to be financed by current national regulations. This indicates, apart from a need, the capacity of the regions to build their solutions beyond regulations.

This article compares the processes of community verification (CV) and user satisfaction surveys during the implementation of performance-based financing (PBF) in Mali and Burkina Faso.

The authors adopted a qualitative approach based on a multiple-case study design. Data were collected from August 10 to 25, 2017, in Mali, and from January to May 2016 in Burkina Faso. In Mali, 191 semi-structured interviews were conducted with investigators (people who collect information from health centre users in the communities, using survey tools), users, users' relatives, and health workers in three of the 10 health districts in the Koulikoro region. In Burkina Faso, 241 non-participatory observation sessions were recorded in a research diary, and 92 semi-structured interviews and informal discussions were conducted with investigators, community verifiers, users, PBF support staff at the national level, and administrative staff in one of the 15 health districts involved in PBF. The data were analysed inductively.

In both Mali and Burkina Faso, the delayed availability of survey forms led to a delay in starting the surveys. In Mali, to get off to a quick start, some investigators went to health centres to conduct the sampling with their supervisors. In both countries, investigators reported difficulties in finding certain users in the community due to incorrect spelling of names, lack of telephone details, incomplete information on the forms, common or similar sounding names within the community, and user mobility. There was little interference from health workers during user selection and surveys in both countries. In both countries, many surveys were conducted in the presence of the user's family (husband, father-in-law, brother, uncle, etc.) and the person accompanying the investigator. Also in both countries, some investigators filled in forms without investigating. They justified this data fabrication by the inadequate time available for the survey and the difficulty or impossibility of finding certain users. In both countries, the results were not communicated to health centre staff or users in either country.

CV and user satisfaction surveys are important components of PBF implementation. However, their implementation and evaluation remain complex. The instruments for CV and user satisfaction surveys for PBF need to be adapted and simplified to the local context. Emphasis should be placed on data analysis and the use of CV results.

There are similarities and differences in the CV process and user satisfaction surveys in Mali and Burkina Faso. In Mali, the data from the user satisfaction survey was not analyzed, while in Burkina Faso, the analysis did not allow for feedback. The local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that carried out the CV were pre-financed for 50% of the amount in Mali. In Burkina Faso, community-based organisations (CBOs) were not pre-financed. The lack of financing negatively impacted the conduction of the surveys. In Mali, fraudulent completion of survey forms by interviewers was more common in urban than in rural areas. In Burkina Faso, the frauds concerned consultations for children under five years of age. In Burkina Faso, the survey form was not adapted to collect data on the level of satisfaction of the indigent.

1. There were similarities and differences in the community verification (CV) processes in Mali and Burkina Faso.

2. In both Mali and Burkina Faso, tracing users within their community was difficult for several reasons, including incorrect or incomplete information on forms, common or similar names, and user mobility.

3. In both countries, there was no feedback on the results of the CV process to health centre staff or users.

4. Survey forms were falsified by investigators in both countries. In Mali, falsification was more common in urban than in rural areas. In Burkina Faso, falsification was more often observed for consultations for children under five years of age.

There were similarities and differences in the community verification (CV) processes in Mali and Burkina Faso.

In both Mali and Burkina Faso, tracing users within their community was difficult for several reasons, including incorrect or incomplete information on forms, common or similar names, and user mobility.

In both countries, there was no feedback on the results of the CV process to health centre staff or users.

Survey forms were falsified by investigators in both countries. In Mali, falsification was more common in urban than in rural areas. In Burkina Faso, falsification was more often observed for consultations for children under five years of age.

The purpose of this research is to identify quick, effective and affordable architectural design solutions to improve the health of patients, visitors and staff, in an underfunded community healthcare center (CHC) in Baltimore.

Both qualitative (individual and Focus group interviews) and quantitative methods (space syntax analysis and questionnaire survey) are used to assess the healing environment. The questionnaires cover interior and exterior environment related questions.

The questionnaire identifies three issues related to wayfinding, interior design, and access to natural light. The findings demonstrate that the waiting area, exam room and laboratory need to be upgraded. Incorporation of some other interior components including, wall art, plants, music, signage are also suggested by the respondents.

Very few studies in the USA have been done to understand the effects of architectural design to create a healing environment on the community scale.

This paper aims to provide new insights into and offer potential solutions to the challenges encountered by mental health services working with remote, rural or underserved communities in the UK.

In this paper, the authors reflect on the utility of integrating conventional clinical approaches, with preventive care and empowering work within the community, to provide culturally sensitive and accessible mental health services. The authors describe an example of community intervention from a mental health service in Ghana designed to enhance reach within remote and rural communities and identify potential lessons for practice in the UK.

The partnership between community mental health services and the rural communities, including families and existing social frameworks, applies collaborative care to overcome the lack of resources and facilitate the acceptability of mental health services to the local population. There are a series of important lessons from this experience including the importance of understanding the culture of a community to optimise reach and the importance of working IN the community and WITH the community.

This paper is novel because it provides learning from a model of care applied in the global south that has potential for implementation with underserved populations in the UK. The authors suggest a reframing of the notion of community care to encompass existing frameworks of community, not merely a biomedical conceptualisation.

The Abdur Razzaque Ansari Memorial Weavers Hospital (ARAM) came into effect on 7 April 1996, and is dedicated to the people of Jharkhand and weavers. To deal with the issues of inequity in healthcare services, ARAM was founded for the extension of affordable healthcare services to the needy in and around the area of Jharkhand. Visualised by a great social worker and legend Abdur Razzaque Ansari, it has been successfully run by his eldest son Mr Sayeed Ahmad Ansari for 28 years. This research uses mainly a case-study approach through secondary data from the hospital website and other websites citing ARAM and its functions. Consent to use data for the study was obtained from Mr. Sayeed Ahmad Ansari. Primary information was collected through the patients who availed facilities from the hospital. They were interviewed through a semi-structured questionnaire each taking 30-40 minutes. Taken over by Medanta Group on 8 July 2015 (earlier being managed by Apollo Hospitals Group for 20 years), it is the first super speciality community hospital in Eastern India. Treating over 50,000 patients yearly with state-of-the-art medical equipment and providing discounts to lower-income groups, people from the weaver’s community, freedom fighters and members of ICSI have intrigued people from these sections for affordable treatment and facilities in and near Jharkhand. With a 200 bed-capacity, nine different disciplines and 12 departments spread across the city of Ranchi, the hospital caters to a massive population at a much-subsidised rate. Reaching out to rural villages through free medical camps and awareness campaigns, the hospital showcases how a successful model of healthcare cooperative can be replicated accordingly in similar developing and underdeveloped regions.

This study aims to investigate the process of developing loyalty in the Chinese mobile health community from the information seeking perspective.

A covariance-based structural equation model was developed to explore the mobile health community loyalty development process from information seeking perspective and tested with LISREL 9.30 for the 191 mobile health platform user samples.

The empirical results demonstrate that the information seeking perspective offers an interesting explanation for the mobile health community loyalty development process. All hypotheses in the proposed research model are supported except the relationship between privacy and trust. The two types of mobile health community loyalty—attitudal loyalty and behavioral loyalty are explained with 58 and 37% variance.

This paper has brought out the information seeking perspective in the loyalty formation process in mobile health community and identified several important constructs for this perspective for the loyalty formation process including information quality, communication with doctors and communication with patients.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how digital interventions are mediating the identity work of community health workers (CHWs) in the context of two African countries.

This paper analyzes the everyday work of CHWs in two low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts (Uganda and Malawi) and seeks to understand changes in collective identity and the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in mediating this “identity work”. As CHWs conduct their everyday tasks of care giving, data reporting and maintaining social interactions, they play two primary roles. One is the care giving role oriented towards the community, and two, is reporting and administrative work by virtue of them being affiliated with the Ministry of Health, either in formal or voluntary capacity. The ambivalence which they experience as they move back and forth between these two worlds of work is significantly now mediated through ICTs. The paper analyzes these dynamics and identifies three key sets of ambivalence in identity work: (1) role embracing-institutional distancing; (2) conformist-resistant and (3) dramaturgical-transformative. The paper makes unique contributions to information systems (IS) and ICT for development (ICT4D) studies in that it focuses on a nonprofessional group, which plays a fundamental role in providing care to underserved populations and also conducts data work which provides the foundation of the national health information system. This contrasts with dominant research in the field which focuses on professional groups, largely based in Western business organizations.

The paper identifies identity related tensions that emerge with the mediation of digital technologies in the work world of CHWs. These include tensions of conformist-resistant; and (3) dramaturgical-transformative. These findings are relevant and unique to the field of IS and ICT4D studies in that it focuses on a nonprofessional group, which plays a fundamental role in providing care to underserved populations and also conducts data work which provides the foundation of the national health information system.

While acknowledging identity construction and negotiation is a function of both work and social lives, in this paper we could only focus on the work lives.

As digital interventions in the health sector of low and middle income countries is becoming increasingly widespread, often the focus is more on the supply side (the supply of the technology) rather than on the demand side (users experiences and aspirations). Identity becomes a lens to understand these demand side dynamics, which helps provides practical guidance on implementation approaches to ensure that the technology adds value to user work processes and there is a seamless and not a disruptive transition.

CHWs are the most neglected cadre in the health system of low and middle income countries, even though they provide the cutting edge in care provision work to the most marginalized populations, living in rural and underserved areas. By focusing on how technologies can be more effectively implemented to support these care processes, the paper provides important social implications both for practice and research.

Analysis of identity construction and negotiation of informal groups in the unorganized sector of low and middle income countries has not received adequate attention in IS research. The paper seeks to fill this important gap.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for holistic geriatric health care in rural India. Many older people in Indian villages suffer from chronic ailments without any relief or intervention because of inaccessible and unaffordable health-care services. This paper explores how holistic health care can be assured for older people in Indian villages.

This paper is based on reflections of the authors who have had experiences as caregivers to older persons within their respective families rooted in the Indian villages. Besides, they interacted with 30 older persons (18 males and 12 females in the age group of 60–80 years) living in the villages in three states of India, namely, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to develop a comprehensive viewpoint on the need of geriatric health care in rural India. Relevant reports, newspaper articles and research papers were also reviewed while developing viewpoints on such an important topic.

Geriatric health-care facilities in rural India are abysmal. The older people in the villages cannot leverage health-care facilities that are generally inaccessible, inadequate and unaffordable. Even the government support for medical treatment is minuscule. Furthermore, there is lack of trained health-care professionals at all levels, namely, doctors, nurses and paramedic personnel. Training opportunities in geriatrics are also negligible. The scenario vis-à-vis geriatric health care in rural India can be upturned by increasing public spending on health-care infrastructure, increasing numbers of health-care professionals and expanding training programmes in geriatrics.

This paper is based on the critical reflections of the authors as well as their informal interactions with some of the older people in the Indian villages.

This paper presents results from a participatory action research study with 46 LGBTQIA+ community leaders and 60 library workers who participated in four community forums at public libraries across the US. The forums identified barriers to LGBTQIA+ communities addressing their health questions and concerns and explored strategies for public libraries to tackle them.

Forums followed the World Café format to facilitate collaborative knowledge development and promote participant-led change. Data sources included collaborative notes taken by participants and observational researcher notes. Data analysis consisted of emic/etic qualitative coding.

Results revealed that barriers experienced by LGBTQIA+ communities are structurally and socially entrenched and require systematic changes. Public libraries must expand their strategies beyond collection development and one-off programming to meet these requirements. Suggested strategies include outreach and community engagement and mutual aid initiatives characterized by explicit advocacy for LGBTQIA+ communities and community organizing approaches.

Limitations include the sample's lack of racial diversity and the gap in the data collection period between forums due to COVID-19. Public libraries can readily adopt strategies overviewed in this paper for LGBTQIA+ health promotion.

This research used a unique methodology within the Library and Information Science (LIS) field to engage LGBTQIA+ community leaders and library workers in conversations about how public libraries can contribute to LGBTQIA+ health promotion. Prior research has often captured these perspectives separately. Uniting the groups facilitated understanding of each other's strengths and challenges, identifying strategies more relevant than asking either group alone.

Advancing behavioral health and primary care integration is a priority for helping clients overcome the complex health challenges impacting healthcare deserts like those in Arizona, United States of America (USA). This study aimed to explore the perspectives of people with a substance use disorder (SUD) on accessing integrated primary care (IPC) services in a rural-serving behavioral healthcare organization in Arizona.

Clients from a behavioral health facility in Arizona (n = 10) diagnosed with SUDs who also accessed IPC participated in a 45-min semi-structured interview.

The authors identified six overarching themes: (1) importance of IPC for clients being treated for SUDs, (2) client low level of awareness of IPC availability at the facility, (3) strategies to increase awareness of IPC availability at the behavioral health facility, (4) cultural practices providers should consider in care integration, (5) attitudes and perceptions about the experience of accessing IPC and (6) challenges to attending IPC appointments. The authors also identified subthemes for most of the main themes.

This is the first study in rural Arizona to identify valuable insights into the experiences of people with SUDs accessing IPC, providing a foundation for future research in the region on care integration.