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Biomedical subjects

Jan Visschedijk

Publications and source records attributed to Jan Visschedijk.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Leprosy control strategies and the integration of health services: an international perspective.

Integration of leprosy services into the general health services is regarded as the core strategy to ensure that leprosy control remains cost-effective and equitable, and, thus, sustainable in the coming years. In this article an extensive review is presented of the integration of leprosy services into the general health services. After the rationale of integration is discussed, the article highlights several recent developments within leprosy control and the health sector that are in support of the integration process. An overview is presented of recent experiences in countries that have already embarked on the integration process. Based on these experiences important lessons can be learned and incorporated into a model for the process of integration. This model, which is presented at the end of the article, will assist countries to successfully integrate leprosy services into the general health services.

Brazil↗
PubMed2004

Viewpoint: Why and how tuberculosis control should be included in health sector reviews.

Sector-wide approaches (SWAps) are currently implemented in several, predominantly highly donor-dependent low-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. SWAp intends to enhance health sector performance, especially efficiency, effectiveness, coherence and sustainability. SWAps have been criticized for not being able to produce tangible results and the credibility of a SWAp would increase substantially if such results in terms of health services outputs could be demonstrated. We argue that the monitoring of tuberculosis within the SWAp reviews held to assess sector performance deserves a higher profile. Tuberculosis constitutes in the first place and one of the major public health problems in most of the countries, where SWAps have been introduced, but provided that the programme is integral part of the sector policy and financial management, the indicators used for monitoring TB control programmes can also be used as excellent proxies for monitoring overall health sector performance.

Africa South of the Sahara↗
PubMed2003

A Piot model to analyse case management in malaria control programmes.

At the beginning of the 21st century, malaria remains one of the most important public health problems in the world. An important control strategy to address this burden is adequate case management of malaria patients. The success of this strategy, however, does not solely depend on diagnosis and treatment, but also on a sequence of steps that patients have to take when they are ill. Only when patients go through all these steps successfully will they be cured. In this paper, a model is presented in which these steps are described. The model provides a framework for analysing this type of malaria control strategy and for identifying the most critical challenges faced. Furthermore, the model is used to analyse recent literature on case management as part of malaria control programmes in order to highlight current knowledge, core issues and constraints, and to make recommendations for programme development and research.

Antimalarials↗
PubMed2003

'Client satisfaction'--guidelines for assessing the quality of leprosy services from the clients' perspective.

In order to ensure that leprosy patients are detected and treated adequately, it is essential that they are satisfied with the services provided. Their satisfaction can be analysed by assessing the quality of the services from a client perspective. This will give crucial information for the identification of strengths and weaknesses of leprosy services, e.g. in areas such as health seeking behaviour and regularity of treatment. It necessitates, however, that special attention is given to clients' opinions and ideas, both of which are rarely included in reviews and evaluations of leprosy programmes. Hence, an initiative was taken to formulate guidelines for the conducting of a study on client satisfaction. These guidelines were pre-tested in two countries, Nepal and Brazil. The development and contents of these guidelines are highlighted and discussed in this paper.

Brazil↗
PubMed2002

The leprosy elimination campaign in Jigawa, Nigeria: an opportunity for integration.

Integration of leprosy control into the general health services is regarded as an important condition for increasing the accessibility and sustainability of leprosy services. However, it is often difficult to embark on such an integration process. In Jigawa State in Northern Nigeria, the leprosy elimination campaign was used as the initiator and catalyst for the integration process. In this article, this challenging process is described and analysed. Available information is used to identify the constraints that emerged and to assess the consequences of integration for important aspects of leprosy control, such as case detection and case-holding and the accessibility and quality of the provided services. Some lessons from this experience are drawn that can be helpful for integration in other States or countries.

Delivery of Health Care, Integrated↗