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Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa
Health care workers in developing countries continue to lack access to basic, practical information to enable them to deliver safe, effective care. This paper provides the first phase of a broader literature review of the information and learning needs of health care providers in developing countrie...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2009
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2680393/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19356239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-7-30 |
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author | Pakenham-Walsh, Neil Bukachi, Frederick |
author_facet | Pakenham-Walsh, Neil Bukachi, Frederick |
author_sort | Pakenham-Walsh, Neil |
collection | PubMed |
description | Health care workers in developing countries continue to lack access to basic, practical information to enable them to deliver safe, effective care. This paper provides the first phase of a broader literature review of the information and learning needs of health care providers in developing countries. A Medline search revealed 1762 papers, of which 149 were identified as potentially relevant to the review. Thirty-five of these were found to be highly relevant. Eight of the 35 studies looked at information needs as perceived by health workers, patients and family/community members; 14 studies assessed the knowledge of health workers; and 8 looked at health care practice. The studies suggest a gross lack of knowledge about the basics on how to diagnose and manage common diseases, going right across the health workforce and often associated with suboptimal, ineffective and dangerous health care practices. If this level of knowledge and practice is representative, as it appears to be, it indicates that modern medicine, even at a basic level, has largely failed the majority of the world's population. The information and learning needs of family caregivers and primary and district health workers have been ignored for too long. Improving the availability and use of relevant, reliable health care information has enormous potential to radically improve health care worldwide. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2680393 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2009 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-26803932009-05-12 Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa Pakenham-Walsh, Neil Bukachi, Frederick Hum Resour Health Review Health care workers in developing countries continue to lack access to basic, practical information to enable them to deliver safe, effective care. This paper provides the first phase of a broader literature review of the information and learning needs of health care providers in developing countries. A Medline search revealed 1762 papers, of which 149 were identified as potentially relevant to the review. Thirty-five of these were found to be highly relevant. Eight of the 35 studies looked at information needs as perceived by health workers, patients and family/community members; 14 studies assessed the knowledge of health workers; and 8 looked at health care practice. The studies suggest a gross lack of knowledge about the basics on how to diagnose and manage common diseases, going right across the health workforce and often associated with suboptimal, ineffective and dangerous health care practices. If this level of knowledge and practice is representative, as it appears to be, it indicates that modern medicine, even at a basic level, has largely failed the majority of the world's population. The information and learning needs of family caregivers and primary and district health workers have been ignored for too long. Improving the availability and use of relevant, reliable health care information has enormous potential to radically improve health care worldwide. BioMed Central 2009-04-08 /pmc/articles/PMC2680393/ /pubmed/19356239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-7-30 Text en Copyright © 2009 Pakenham-Walsh and Bukachi; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Review Pakenham-Walsh, Neil Bukachi, Frederick Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa |
title | Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa |
title_full | Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa |
title_fullStr | Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa |
title_full_unstemmed | Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa |
title_short | Information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on Africa |
title_sort | information needs of health care workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on africa |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2680393/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19356239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-7-30 |
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