O processo de obtenção diagnóstica da tuberculose (TB) é permeado por aspectos relacionados à acessibilidade aos serviços de saúde, que interferem diretamente na conduta do doente em buscar por atendimento após perceber o início dos sintomas da doença. Reconhecer esses aspectos pode contribuir na elaboração de medidas que levem à identificação precoce dos casos, diminuição do tempo diagnóstico e disseminação do agravo na comunidade. O presente estudo teve como objetivo, analisar o tempo do doente na busca por serviço de saúde para o diagnóstico da tuberculose no município de Ribeirão Preto - SP, 2009. Estudo descritivo do tipo transversal, realizado em Ribeirão Preto. De 113 doentes de TB, que estavam em tratamento no período de julho a novembro de 2009, foram entrevistados 94, que atenderam os critérios de seleção. Utilizou-se um questionário estruturado baseado no Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT) adaptado para o enfoque no diagnóstico da TB. Para a análise dos dados, medidas de tendência central (mediana e intervalos interquartis) foram utilizadas para analisar a variável: \"tempo decorrido entre sentir-se doente e a primeira procura pelo serviço de saúde\". Estabeleceu-se a mediana como valor mais adequado para a caracterização dos dois grupos de doentes (atraso e não atraso). Considerou-se atraso ao diagnóstico, doentes que demoraram mais de 15 dias para buscar pelo primeiro atendimento em um serviço de saúde. Em seguida, por meio do cálculo da Razão de Prevalência identificaram-se as variáveis sócio-demográficas, clínicas e da dimensão porta de entrada de maior atraso na busca por atendimento. O primeiro serviço de saúde procurado foram os Serviços de Pronto Atendimento (SPA) (57,4%), seguidos pelas Unidades de Atenção Básica (UAB) (24,5%) e Serviços Especializados (SE) (18,1%). Já o acesso ao diagnóstico ocorreu nos SE (60,6%), seguidos dos SPA (26,6%) e das UAB (12,8%). Quanto ao tempo de atraso ao diagnóstico, em relação às informações sócio-demográficos, o perfil dos doentes que mais demoraram para buscar pelos SPA foram: idade entre 50 a 59 anos (30 dias); SE: gênero masculino (30 dias), com escolaridade (21dias); renda acima de cinco salários mínimos (30 dias). Informações clínicas: SE: forma clínica pulmonar, caso novo e com co-infecção TB/HIV, (20 dias). Dimensão porta de entrada (primeiro serviço de saúde pocurado): UAB: sintomas moderados da doença (30 dias); SPA: não consumiam bebidas alcoólicas (25 dias) e com conhecimento satisfatório sobre a TB (26 dias); SE: não realizavam controle preventivo de saúde (30 dias), fumavam (20 dias), com conhecimento satisfatório sobre a TB (26 dias), não procuravam o serviço de saúde mais próximo do domicílio (30 dias). O serviço de saúde de maior acessibilidade foram os SPA, (funcionamento de 24h, demanda livre). É necessário capacitar as equipes de saúde, para identificarem os doentes de TB que tiveram maior atraso na busca por atendimento, favorecendo a acessibilidade ao diagnóstico precoce e contribuindo no controle da doença. / The process of obtaining diagnosis for tuberculosis (TB) is permeated by aspects relating to the accessibility of health services, which impact directly on the conduct of patients in search of medical attention after noticing the first symptoms of the disease. Recognising these aspects can contribute to the development of measures that lead to the early diagnosis of cases, reduction in the overall time taken in the diagnostic process and alleviation of the impacts of TB on the community. The aim of the present study was to analyse the patient time in the search in first health service for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in city of Ribeirao Preto, SP, 2009. Descriptive study, cross sectional conducted in Ribeirao Preto. Of 113 TB patients that were in treatment during the period between June and November of 2009, 94 were interviewed that fulfilled the selection criteria. A questionnaire was used based on the Primary Care Assessment tool (PCAT), which was adapted for focus on the diagnosis of TB. For the analysis of data, measures of central tendency (median and interquartile intervals) were utilised to analyse the variable: ,,time elapsed between the appearance of symptoms and the first search for health services\". The median was established as the most appropriate value for the characterisation of two groups of patients (timely and delay). Patients were considered ,,delay\" if the time between the first signs of illness and the search for health sercices was greater than 15 days. Next, through calculation of the prevalence ratios, socioeconomic, demographic, clinical and gateway dimension were identified for the greatest delay in the search in first health service. The emergency services (ES) room was the most common health service first sought by patients (57.4%), followed by primary health care (PHC) (24.5%), and finally specialists services (SS) (18.1%). The leading service with regard to obtaining a diagnosis was that of SS (60.1%), followed by ES (26.6%), and PHC (12.8%). Regarding the delay in obtaining a diagnosis, and with relation to socio-demographic information, patients that took the longest to seek health services through ES rooms were: between 50-59 years of age (30 days); SS: masculine (30 days), educated (21 days), receive a salary greater than five times the minimum wage (30 days). Clinical Information: SS: lung clinics, new cases and with co-infection TB/HIV (20 days). Gateway dimension (the search in first health service): PHC: moderate symptoms of the disease (30 days); ES: non-drinkers (30 days), and with a satisfactory knowledge of TB (26 days); SS: not practicing preventative health control (30 days), smokers (20 days), satisfactory knowledge of TB (26 days), didn\"t seek the health service closest to residence (30 days). The most accessible health service proved to be ES (functioning 24 hours, on demand). It is necessary to properly equip health care professionals so as to facilitate the identification of patients from TB that delayed in the search in first health service, facilitating the health service accessibility thus enabling the early diagnosis of the disease and contributing to its control.

O paciente portador de necessidades especiais pode ser descrito como aquele indivíduo que não se adapta de maneira física, intelectual ou emocional aos parâmetros normais, considerando os padrões de crescimento, desenvolvimento mental e controle emocional, além dos relacionados à conservação da saúde. A Organização Mundial de Saúde (OMS) estima que a prevalência das deficiências no mundo seja de uma pessoa a cada dez e mais de dois terços não recebe nenhum tipo de assistência odontológica. O objetivo do estudo foi verificar a percepção dos profissionais odontólogos sobre a acessibilidade do paciente com Síndrome da Imunodeficiência Adquirida (SIDA/AIDS) em estabelecimentos odontológicos na cidade de São Paulo e comparar com um grupo controle, representados por pacientes com Diabetes Mellitus. A informação para o estudo foi baseada em conversações telefônicas com cirurgiões-dentistas, onde foi realizada uma entrevista semi-estruturada. A análise de conteúdo das entrevistas foi executada segundo método de Lefèvre e Lefèvre (2000) e foi realizada destacando-se a idéia central. Do total de entrevistados, 55,14% eram do gênero feminino e 53,27% trabalhavam em consultório particular. Em relação à acessibilidade, 96,26% já tinham tratado de pacientes com Diabetes, 55,14% com SIDA/AIDS. Concluiu-se que a principal dificuldade para tratar pacientes com diabetes é a prática clínica, principalmente relacionada com problemas de coagulação. Entre os pacientes com SIDA/AIDS embora tenham sido citadas dificuldades clínicas, pôde ser verificado que a maior dificuldade ainda é o preconceito contra eles. / The patient who has special needs can be described as the individual that can´t adapt himself to normal physical, intellectual or emotional parameters, considering the growing patterns, mental development and emotional stability, in addition to those related to the health maintenance. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the deficiencies prevalence is about one in ten individuals allover the world and more than two thirds don´t have any dental assistance. The objective of the study was to verify the dental professional perception with relation to the accessibility among patients with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (SIDA/AIDS) in clinical settings in the city of São Paulo, and to compare this perception with a control group, patients with Diabetes Mellitus. The study information was based on telephone conversations with Dentistis. A semi-structured interview was prepared. Content analysis was performed as per Lefèvre and Lefèvre (2000) with the relief of the central ideas. Among the participants, 55.14% were female and 53.27% worked in private settings. Regarding the accessibility, 96.26% had already treated patients with Diabetes, 55.14% with SIDA/AIDS. It was concluded that the main difficulty to treat diabetes patients is the clinical practice, mainly with problems related to blood coagulation. Among SIDA/AIDS patients, even though it had been listed clinical difficulties, it could be verified that the main difficulty is still prejudice amongst them.

The objective of this study was to determine whether 11 independent variables or combinations of variables help to predict a diabetes-related hospital readmission for patients with diabetes within 60 days from discharge. The variables were categorized into four main groups: (a) patient characteristics, (b) lifestyle, (c) biomarkers, and (d) disease management aspects. A convenience sample of 389 historical medical records of patients who were admitted to a rural hospital in northeastern North Carolina with a diagnosis of, or relating to, diabetes was studied. After comparing predictive discriminant analysis (PDA) and logistic regression (LR), PDA performed better and was chosen to analyze a convenience sample of patients admitted to the hospital for a diabetes-related diagnosis from January, 2004 to December, 2006. The best overall subset accurately classified 27 cases with six predictors that included (a) systolic blood pressure, (b) smoking status, (c) blood glucose range, (d) ethnicity, (e) diabetes education, and (f) diastolic blood pressure. In an effort to simplify the prediction process, the subsets of two predictors were examined. The results of the analysis returned four subsets of 2-predictor variable combinations that correctly classified cases for readmission. Each of the four subsets has two predictors that are statistically and practically significant for predicting readmissions for a diabetes-related problem within fewer than 60 days. These combinations are the predictor subsets of (a) smoking status and being treated by a specialist or non-specialist physician, (b) a religious affiliation or a lack thereof and smoking status, (c) gender and smoking status, and (d) smoking status and ethnicity. / by Darwin E. Asper. / Vita. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Discrimination is not only a human and civil rights offense, but also a detrimental influence on the health outcomes of affected populations. The Muslim population in the United States is a growing religious minority increasingly encountered by health care professionals in the clinical setting. This group has been subject to heightened discrimination since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and often is misunderstood within the context of American society today. While research has been conducted on discrimination against Muslims in the employment and educational segments of society, more studies are needed which quantify the extent and type of discrimination faced by this group in the health care setting. This inquiry focused on the crossover of anti-Muslim discrimination from society to the health care setting. A newly developed tool to measure anti-Muslim discrimination in health care and an established perceived discrimination scale were used to create the questionnaire employed in this investigation. The items of this newly created tool addressed culturally congruent care practices based on the principles of cultural safety within the nurse-patient relationship and the cultural care beliefs of the Muslim patient/family to ascertain discriminatory occurrences in the health care setting. Ray’s (2010) transcultural caring dynamics in nursing and health care model served as a framework for this quantitative, univariate, descriptive, cross-sectional design. Findings revealed that nearly one-third of Muslim subjects perceived they were discriminated against in the health care setting in the United States. Being excluded or ignored was the most frequently conveyed type of discrimination, followed by problems related to the use of Muslim clothing; offensive or insensitive verbal remarks; and problems related to Islamic holidays, prayer rituals, and physical assault, respectively. Age was positively correlated with perceived anti-Muslim discrimination in society. Education was negatively correlated with perceived discrimination in both society and the health care setting. Findings revealed that three out of five of those surveyed reported that they wear Muslim clothing; the most frequently reported of which was the hijab, the most popular Muslim garment reported to be worn. Participants who wore Muslim clothing, especially females, reported more anti-Muslim discrimination than those who did not. Scores for self-reported perceived anti-Muslim discrimination were found to be higher after the Boston Marathon bombings, April 15, 2013, an act perpetrated by Muslims, which occurred during the time of data collection. The number one Muslim care preference reported was same sex caregiver followed by respect for modesty, prayer rituals, respect for privacy, family involvement in care, and dietary concerns. Implications for practice, policy, education, political science, and recommendations for further research are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

The last decade has been defined by the forced displacement of an unprecedented number of people, on a scale not seen since World War II. As of 2018, more than 71 million people across the globe have been forced to migrate as a result of conflict, natural disasters, drought and famine. More than 19 million crossed international borders seeking safety, and were formally registered as refugees. Forced migration has placed stress and pressure on surrounding low-and middle-income countries. This has been most notable in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the crisis in Syria. Host countries in the Middle East and North Africa are overwhelmed by this rapid influx, particularly by the healthcare needs of this population. Stakeholders face difficulties providing health services to refugees, owing to the increased number of refugees in urban settings, the large demands on host country health systems and the epidemiologic transition towards non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Health challenges have been exacerbated by weaknesses in the global humanitarian architecture, that result in a fragmented and competitive sector that is unprepared for the current context. Few comparative analyses have examined the diversity of policies and practices aimed at improving services for urban-based refugees with NCDs in the MENA region. Furthermore, a variety of quantitative studies examined NCD incidence, prevalence and service utilization. However, these studies have quickly become outdated and do not explore, in adequate depth, the refugee experience and perspective on accessing NCD services in urban settings. Lastly, numerous NCD interventions have been recommended for LMICs. However, very little guidance exists to support actors addressing these health concerns in crisis-affected contexts. As a result, this dissertation is presented in three papers and responds to these gaps in the literature. Each paper focuses on a specific aim and research question and together they identify and provide recommendations for improvement to service delivery and policy formulation. Paper 1 identifies policies and practices, implemented by host countries and humanitarian actors, aimed at improving access to NCD services for urban refugees in the Middle East and North Africa. Paper 2 examines, using qualitative methods, the healthcare access experience of urban-based Syrian refugees who have been diagnosed with NCDs in Jordan. The third portion of this dissertation (Paper 3) is a policy series that provides recommendations for the government of Jordan and humanitarian actors to improve healthcare access for urban-based refugees with NCDs. It is anticipated that this series of publications will be relevant to traditional and non-traditional actors that respond to the health needs of refugees in urban settings in the MENA region.

Opioid dependence and opioid related deaths are a public health problem which the United States Centers of Disease Control have declared an epidemic. While opioid agonist therapy for opioid addiction has been accepted as the most effective treatment for opioid dependence among academics, and office based buprenorphine treatment has been available in the Unites States for over 10 years, OB buprenorphine faces many barriers to widespread adoption. Empirical data on the geographic distribution of physicians able to prescribe buprenorphine and the prescribing patterns of those physicians show considerable unevenness in access and utilization of treatment services. Federal-level policies have recently been implemented to expand access to opioid agonist therapy, but the medium and long term impacts of these policy changes on individual outcomes, public health, and geographic access equity are not yet clear. This dissertation compares two recent federal level policies on expanding access to buprenorphine treatment: raising the regulatory limit on the number of patients a provider can treat (implemented July, 2016), and extending prescribing privileges to nurse practitioners and physician assistants (implemented February, 2017), using an empirically supported Agent Based Simulation model. Policies are assessed by a novel, at-a-glance, quantitative access equity metric: the Spatial Potential Access Gini Index, in addition to year-end treatment utilization, opioid overdose deaths, and the amount of illicit medication diversion. In the simulation, expanding access by increasing the patient limit did not result in more equitable spatial access, while extending prescribing to NPs and PAs increased both utilization and spatial access equity. This is likely due to empirically supported model assumptions that NPs and PAs providing primary care often serve in medically underserved areas including rural and remote regions. Extending prescribing to these practitioners opens up new treatment locations changing the spatial distribution of treatment opportunities. Changing patient limits does not change the overall spatial distribution of services, so spatial access equity does not change even if overall treatment supply gets better or worse. The primary contribution of this work is the Spatial Potential Access Lorenz Curve and the Spatial Potential Access Gini Index, measures that aggregate individual-level Spatial Potential Access Scores commonly used in health care geography to map and identify areas of access disparity within a region. The equitability of Spatial Potential Access is calculated by using the Lorenz Curve, which is commonly used to characterize the distribution of wealth or income in a society, from which a Gini Index is calculated. The Spatial Potential Access Gini Index allows for direct comparison of complex quantitative information about the geographic distribution of supply and demand in a region with other regions, or in response to policies that impact supply or demand within the region. The measure has potential applications in simulation studies on the spatial allocation of services, allowing equity assessment of policy alternatives, as well as in empirical work, allowing equity comparisons of different regions, or in hybrid studies in which policy experiments are conducted on data-rich maps.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: B, page: 1577. Adviser: Charles E. Begley. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (Dept. of Gerontology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / "MBA professional report"--Cover. Advisor(s): Tarek Abdel-Hamid and Bill Gates. Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64). Also available online.

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