Non-Adherence to Medication in Outpatient Setting in Nigeria: The Effect of Employment Status

Background: Non-adherence to prescribed medication and health regimen has been identified as responsible for poor health outcomes. This study investigates the reasons for medication non-adherence in outpatient setting among malaria patients in Nigeria. Methods: This research adopted quantitative research methods. A well-structured questionnaire was completed by 440 respondents with minimum age of 18 years. The aim of the questionnaire was to get respondents’ reasons for non-adherence to medication. The demographic details of the respondents were also captured. Results: Age, gender, educational level, marital status and medication payment were found not to influence non-adherence while employment was a significant variable. Respondents also indicated fear of death, nauseating smell of drugs, religious beliefs, the side effects of medication, the fear of taking counterfeit drugs or drugs that are past their expiry dates as also responsible for non-adherence. Conclusion: The results highlighted reasons for poor adherence in southwest Nigeria. Interventions can be targeted towards these reasons

An Investigation of the Factors influencing the Adoption of E-Health Services: A Case for Selected Hospitals in Lagos state, Nigeria

Research has identified a need for the improvement of the health situation in Nigeria. EHealth services are expected to make healthcare service delivery quicker and easier, covering a wider range of people. This research investigates the adoption level of e-Health in Nigerian health institutions, with focus on the use of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). The SPSS (version 16.0) software was used to measure the variables with respect to the theories proposed and their individual items. For the purpose of this research, the theories adopted include the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Innovation Diffusion Theory. Using the elements of these theories, the research model developed postulated that Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), Perceived Social Influence (PSI) and Relative Advantage (RA) of the technology are what would determine the perceived usefulness (PU) which would in turn determine the intention to use (INT) the technology. Keywords: Adoption, E-Health, Nigeria, TAM

A Framework for the Design of a Mobile-Based Alert System for Outpatient Adherence in Nigeria

Nigeria ranks among the countries with the highest child and maternal mortality rate. Chronic diseases are the most common contributors to the diseases burden in Nigeria most especially Malaria, Tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS. Adherence to long-term therapy in out-patient condition is required to reduce and curb the prevalence of these diseases. Poor adherence to long-term therapies severely compromises the effectiveness of treatment; making this a critical issue in population health both from the perspective of quality of life and of health economics. This work introduces a m-technology based system that will provide an easy way of complying with drug regimen. It will make use of the Short Messaging Service (SMS) of mobile phones to provide reminders at dosing times. It will design architecture for mobile health interventions and develop a prototype SMS-based system to improve out-patient adherence. This system will be deployed over a period of time at selected hospitals and chronic disease management centers in selected states in Nigeria, and the adherence rates measured via health outcomes and evaluated. This would provide a significant positive return on investment through primary prevention (of risk factors) and secondary prevention of adverse health outcomes. It will also inform predictions of future population health outcomes predicted by treatment efficacy data. Keywords: out-patient, m-technology, adherence, chronic diseases, Nigeria, SM

The Adoption of E-tourism: An Empirical Investigation

Man’s desire to discover more, enjoy more, and acquire more is an unquenchable thirst, which gives relevance to tourism. The act of food-searching, safety, and environmental-friendliness search in animals is naturally consistent; this is applicable to humans too, and it boosts tourism which involves customer reservation services (CRS), hospitality, airline reservation, car hire reservation and others. E-tourism is a revolution from traditional way of physically present in multiple locations to plan a tour, to achieving numerous tour planning tasks with maximum convenience using ICT. This work is a survey research, it investigates the acceptance and adoption of e-tourism in Nigeria, adopting the UTAUT/UTAUT2 model, and analyzed the gathered data from the questionnaires using SmartPLS 3 to confirm the reliability and validity of the measurement instruments

Investigating Cognitive, Behavioural, and Environmental Barriers to HIV/AIDS’ Patients Adherence in Nigeria

Background Much of health care today involves helping patients manage conditions whose outcomes can be greatly influenced by lifestyle or behaviour change. HIV/AIDS is an imminent lifethreatening disease. HIV/AIDS patients’ adherence to health behaviours is related to their perceptions of the severity of a potential illness or the consequences of not preventing or treating the illness. Nonadherence involves patients taking medications incorrectly or not at all, forgetting or refusing to make essential behavioural changes for their care, and persisting in behaviours including high-risk sexual activity that jeopardize their health. Adoption of technology is slow in behavioural healthcare. This paper investigates the inherent individual and environmental barriers to HIV/AIDS’ patient adherence in an ongoing research on Women’s Health in Nigeria. Methods A mix of both qualitative and quantitative indicators are used to develop case studies of the inherent individual and environmental barriers to patient adherence. Focus groups discussions and semi-structured interviews. The study currently covers a clinic and a university teaching hospital each in case selected across rural and urban Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, and Oyo States of Nigeria. Results The primary causes of nonadherence are poor provider–patient communication, lack of understanding of the treatment and its importance, lack of trust and mutual caring in the therapeutic relationship, and provider behaviour that is controlling and paternalistic. Depressed patients with HIV have decreased adherence to antiretroviral therapy. Increased patient adherence to diagnostic and therapeutic plans leads to greater clinical efficiency and effectiveness. Conclusion The main drivers fuelling Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS epidemic include low risk perception, multiple concurrent sexual partners, informal transactional and intergenerational sex, lack of STI services, gender inequalities, stigma and discrimination, and inadequate health services. HIV/AIDS’ patients are required to take 95% or more of antiretroviral medications to control the disease. Keywords: adherence, behaviour, clinician-patient relationship, healthcare, HIV/AIDS, medicatio

Awareness and Usage of Internet-based Health Information for Self-Care in Lagos State, Nigeria: Implications for Healthcare Improvement

Objective: This work investigated Nigerians’ Internet pattern usage, their awareness of, and factors influencing their use of the Internet for self-care health information, given that healthcare in the country is generally inadequate. Methodology: A questionnaire-based assessment of 205 individuals selected randomly was carried out. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the consistency of the constructs while SPSS was used for data analysis. Results and Conclusion: The results indicate that 61% of the participants use the Internet for self-care and are aware of the availability of health information on the Internet. The participants also reported that they have used the Internet for communication, social networking, research and banking purposes. The results validate perceived ease of use, compatibility, Internet self-efficacy, and technical support and training as factors to consider in using the Internet for self-car

A Functional Analysis of Depression Apps User Installs and Rating

As access to healthcare to depression remains unavailable or insufficient to a significant part of the population dealing with depression, mobile apps dealing with depression have been spreading and generalizing. In this paper, we investigate depression apps based on data available on the Google Play Store. We find apps addressing several functions in depression apps: education, assessment, tracking, connection, treatment and recreation. While education is the most developed feature (39% of apps), treatment is the most desired feature (68% of app installations). Higher app ratings correlate with higher installs. Apps assessing depression are particularly poorly rated by users, possibly because of the medical nature of a diagnosis. These findings point to a segmentation of the depression app market with massive demand, differing expectations from users by function, discrepancy between developers’ efforts and users’ needs

Development of a Mobile Feedback System for Health Institutions in Nigeria

Feedback is very essential in any organizational set up and this does not exclude health institutions. With feedback an institution is able to stay in touch with the needs and expectations of their customers and to also improve on service provision. However, the process of collecting feedback is of importance. After thorough investigation and observation it was discovered that most health institutions in Nigeria did not have the necessary means of getting consistent feedback from their patients and customers. This paper therefore introduces a mobile application that serves as a feedback mechanism between patients and their health institutions

Depression Management: A Descriptive Evaluation of Depression Apps in the Google Play Store

This research explores how mobile app features and functionality can influence its usage for depression management and overall mental health. It examines the functionalities and features of depression apps associated with the app download count. A search of “Depression” apps carried out in December 2017 using the Google Play Store retrieved 248 apps related to depression. Over 80% of the apps had mainly singular purposes of psychoeducation (36 %), therapeutic treatment (25.2%), medical assessment (18.3%), symptom management (13%), support resources (17%), non-medical functions (14.78%) while forty-six (20%) apps had multiple functions. An app’s number of installs was positively correlated with the rating, number of raters and user interface; but negatively correlated with cost and content rating. Symptom tracking apps were most installed, while medical assessment apps were found not to be the choice apps for Depression management

Factors Affecting the Sustainability of Family Businesses in Cameroon: An Empirical Study in Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon.

Most of the businesses in Cameroon are family-owned and managed. These businesses fall within the Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) which contribute greatly to the GP of Cameroon and also provide jobs to many Cameroonians. These businesses face a lot of challenges ranging from their initiations, management and their lifespan, leading to the collapse of most of them leaving many people jobless. This study was carried out in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon to identify those factors that influence the sustainability of this type of businesses so as to propose measures to both the State and Family Business owners that can be put in place to remedy the situation. Given that this was an exploratory research, a survey-based approach was used through the purposive sampling technique, where some thirty family businesses were studied using questionnaires and interviews. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used and the data were analyzed with the aid of SPSS 17 and Stata 14 software programs. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the sampled opinions of the respondents. The results show that most of the family business initiators do not consider the sustainability of the businesses after they die and hence do not prepare for succession. Results from this study will enlighten stakeholders concerned with family businesses on the extent of sustainability and its configuration across business size as well as its determinants