Search

There are serious concerns relating to the growing number of people living with chronic illnesses that were being cared for at home and within the community but are not receiving appropriate attention and care from the health service providers and the health system at large. This happens despite the existence of Ministry of Health sanctioned Community and Home Based Care programmes. Patient centred and effective health intervention programmes are mandatory if the health outcomes of service users are to be met or improved. This study aimed toexplore the effectiveness of the Community and Home Based Care (C&HBC) in providing services that effectively met users' goals in mitigating chronic illnesses. An explorative and descriptive mixed methods study was used in which in-depth structured and unstructured interviews and focus group discussion were conducted with 206 eligible participants. Results showed that the C&HBC programme generally improved the health status of respondents resulting in an enhanced quality of life. There was a satisfactory measure of socio-economic needs such as finance, food security, and pain relief being poorly met. The Community and Home Based care programme could not meet all the needs due to limited resources and a lack of integration of services. A fully integrated health and social care service is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two decades have witnessed a transition from in-patient hospital admission and care to community and home based care (C&HBC) due to the surge in chronic health conditions in most of southern Africa, including Zimbabwe. The purpose for this study was to explore whether C&HBC met the expectations of clients enrolled in such a programme. A mixed-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, was used. Data from both approaches, qualitative and quantitative, were collected concurrently. Equal weighting was allocated to both sets of data. Interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data from home-based care clients, family care givers and health providers. Quantitative data were collected from clients and primary caregivers using questionnaires. Specific data entry templates were developed for the purpose of entry and analysis in NVivo. Data were synthesised and analysed according to themes. Quantitative data were collated and entered into a CSPro data entry template, before being exported to MS excel and to the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 for analysis. The quantitative questions were pre-coded before data collection and analysis. The unmet expectations included financial assistance, improved nutrition, availability of medications and improved access to health care providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]