Eunice Okyere, Paul Ward, Kissinger Marfoh, Lillian Mwanri
{"title":"What do Health Workers say About Rural Practice?","authors":"Eunice Okyere, Paul Ward, Kissinger Marfoh, Lillian Mwanri","doi":"10.1177/23333936211054812","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Adequately staffed rural health services improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes, yet this is lacking in rural Ghana. We used a descriptive qualitative design to understand the contextual issues that affect rural practice, in the Upper East Region, Ghana. Sixty-eight in-depth interviews were conducted with healthcare workers and analysed thematically. Four themes were identified: types of postings to rural settings, healthcare workers' perceptions of their rural postings, perceived enablers and motivators for rural practice, and perceived challenges and barriers to rural practice. While adequate supervision and family proximity are needed to improve the feelings of loneliness, isolation and neglect in rural areas, challenges and barriers such as inadequate security, unstable electricity supply, language barrier, lack of equipment and transport/ambulance have been identified to have negative influence on healthcare workers. The findings highlight the need for healthcare managers to improve fairness and transparency in the posting and reshuffling processes of healthcare workers.</p>","PeriodicalId":45940,"journal":{"name":"Global Qualitative Nursing Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/9b/bb/10.1177_23333936211054812.PMC8637704.pdf","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Global Qualitative Nursing Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23333936211054812","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"NURSING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Adequately staffed rural health services improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes, yet this is lacking in rural Ghana. We used a descriptive qualitative design to understand the contextual issues that affect rural practice, in the Upper East Region, Ghana. Sixty-eight in-depth interviews were conducted with healthcare workers and analysed thematically. Four themes were identified: types of postings to rural settings, healthcare workers' perceptions of their rural postings, perceived enablers and motivators for rural practice, and perceived challenges and barriers to rural practice. While adequate supervision and family proximity are needed to improve the feelings of loneliness, isolation and neglect in rural areas, challenges and barriers such as inadequate security, unstable electricity supply, language barrier, lack of equipment and transport/ambulance have been identified to have negative influence on healthcare workers. The findings highlight the need for healthcare managers to improve fairness and transparency in the posting and reshuffling processes of healthcare workers.
期刊介绍:
Global Qualitative Nursing Research (GQNR) is a ground breaking, international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on qualitative research in fields relevant to nursing and other health professionals world-wide. The journal specializes in topics related to nursing practice, responses to health and illness, health promotion, and health care delivery. GQNR will publish research articles using qualitative methods and qualitatively-driven mixed-method designs as well as meta-syntheses and articles focused on methodological development. Special sections include Ethics, Methodological Development, Advancing Theory/Metasynthesis, Establishing Evidence, and Application to Practice.