• myGriffith
    • Staff portal
    • Contact Us⌄
      • Future student enquiries 1800 677 728
      • Current student enquiries 1800 154 055
      • International enquiries +61 7 3735 6425
      • General enquiries 07 3735 7111
      • Online enquiries
      • Staff phonebook
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    • Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

  • All of Griffith Research Online
    • Communities & Collections
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • This Collection
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • Statistics

  • Most Popular Items
  • Statistics by Country
  • Most Popular Authors
  • Support

  • Contact us
  • FAQs
  • Admin login

  • Login
  • Health workers perceptions and attitude about Ghana's preparedness towards preventing, containing, and managing Ebola Virus Disease

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Robalo232350-Published.pdf (816.5Kb)
    File version
    Version of Record (VoR)
    Author(s)
    Adongo, Philip Baba
    Tabong, Philip Teg-Nefaah
    Asampong, Emmanuel
    Ansong, Joana
    Robalo, Magda
    Adanu, Richard M
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Robalo, Magda
    Year published
    2017
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    BACKGROUND: Ebola virus is highly infectious and the disease can be very fatal. The World Health Organization has declared the 2014-2015 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. In response to this, preparations were made in various health facilities and entry points across Ghana. This study explored health workers perceptions, and attitude about Ghana's preparedness towards preventing and containing Ebola Virus Disease. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study in five (5) of the ten (10) regions in Ghana. Five focus group discussions (N = 44) were conducted among nurses; one in each ...
    View more >
    BACKGROUND: Ebola virus is highly infectious and the disease can be very fatal. The World Health Organization has declared the 2014-2015 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. In response to this, preparations were made in various health facilities and entry points across Ghana. This study explored health workers perceptions, and attitude about Ghana's preparedness towards preventing and containing Ebola Virus Disease. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study in five (5) of the ten (10) regions in Ghana. Five focus group discussions (N = 44) were conducted among nurses; one in each region. In addition, ten (10) health workers (2 in each region) who are members of regional Ebola Virus Disease task force were recruited and interviewed. In the Greater Accra, Volta and Western regions that have ports, six (6) port health officials: two in each of these regions were also interviewed. The interviews were recorded digitally and transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the transcripts with the aid of NVivo 10 software. RESULTS: The results of this study showed that Ghanaian health workers perceived the screening at various ports as important and ongoing but felt that the screenings at in-land ports were being undermined by the use of unapproved routes. Training of health workers was also being carried out in all the regions, however, there was a general perception among 33 out of 44 nurses that majority of health workers have not received training on Ebola Virus Disease prevention and management. Logistical challenges were also reported as some health facilities did not have adequate Personal Protective Equipment. In facilities where equipment was available, they were stored in places which are not easily accessible to health workers at all times of the day. Human resource preparation was also perceived to be a challenge as health workers (38/44 of nurses) generally expressed fear and unwillingness to work in Ebola treatment centres in the event of an outbreak in Ghana. CONCLUSIONS: Our study concludes that preparatory work for Ebola Virus Disease prevention and containment in Ghana is perceived as inadequate by health workers. Ghana needs to strengthen preparation in the area of training of health workers, provision and accessibility of Personal Protective Equipment and incentives for health workers to better position her to contain and manage any Ebola Virus Disease outbreak.
    View less >
    Journal Title
    BMC Health Services Research
    Volume
    17
    Issue
    1
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2225-0
    Copyright Statement
    © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
    Subject
    Nursing
    Health services and systems
    Public health
    Science & Technology
    Life Sciences & Biomedicine
    Health Care Sciences & Services
    Ebola Virus Disease
    Perception
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/398450
    Collection
    • Journal articles

    Footer

    Disclaimer

    • Privacy policy
    • Copyright matters
    • CRICOS Provider - 00233E

    Tagline

    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander