Healthcare professionals and pregnant and post-natal women's perceptions of interprofessional collaboration in a maternity care facility: A qualitative study from Botswana.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the perceptions of healthcare professionals and pregnant and post-natal women regarding interprofessional collaboration in a maternity care setting in Botswana, a low-to-middle-income country in Sub-Sahara Africa. DESIGN: A descriptive qualitative design using in-depth interviews with forty participants, including healthcare professionals and women in maternity wards. Data were transcribed and thematically analysed. SETTING: Antenatal, delivery and post-natal maternity wards in a referral hospital that provides basic and specialist care in Botswana. PARTICIPANTS: We interviewed 13 pregnant and post-natal women and 27 healthcare professionals in the maternity care wards. FINDINGS: Participants perceived several interrelated factors that influenced the delivery of interprofessional collaborative care. Interpersonal factors such as poor communication, disrespectful behaviours and inadequate teamwork practices prevented interprofessional collaboration. Other barriers to collaboration included lack of understanding of each other's roles and responsibilities, ineffective coordination of resources, hierarchical power struggles and poor collaborative leadership. KEY CONCLUSIONS: Effective interprofessional collaboration remains elusive in this maternity care setting. Healthcare systems in low-to-middle-income countries may benefit from interventions for healthcare professionals to learn and practice interprofessional collaborative care.

Considerations for promoting the implementation of work-based interprofessional education programmes: A scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Effective inter-professional collaboration may improve healthcare outcomes, including maternal and child healthcare settings where unfavourable outcomes are often due to communication and collaboration failures. OBJECTIVE: Explore the considerations for promoting the implementation of work-based interprofessional education programmes. METHODS: A scoping review guided by the methodological framework of Arksery and O'Malley was used to analyse 28 articles published between 2000 and 2020. The reporting was guided by the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews. RESULTS: Twenty-seven of 28 articles were studies conducted in high-income countries. The review revealed considerations which were themed as 1) mobilisation of resources, 2) helpful learning environment, 3) healthcare professional's valuation and 4) barriers prior to implementing IPE/IPC. Successful implementation of interventions triggered motivation, confidence, self-efficacy, value for IPE/IPC. CONCLUSION: Our findings demonstrate that there are specific considerations that can contribute to the uptake of IPE/IPC interventions in the clinical setting.

Association between HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana.

In Botswana, an estimated 350 000 people live with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS testing rates are low, suggesting that many other people remain undiagnosed. Stigma related to HIV/AIDS is prevalent and contributes to low testing rates and under-diagnosis of the virus. Identifying factors that contribute to stigma, such as insufficient or inaccurate knowledge of HIV/AIDS, may be critical in increasing early identification and treatment. This cross-sectional study used nationally representative data from the 2013 Botswana AIDS Impact Survey (BAIS) IV to examine the relationship between HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatising attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). The mean (standard error) for stigma towards PLWHA score and HIV/AIDS knowledge score were 0.99 (0.02) and 5.90 (0.03) respectively. HIV/AIDS knowledge score and stigma towards PLWHA score were strongly positively correlated r (4,4045) = 0.415, p < 0.001). After adjusting for potential confounders, HIV/AIDS knowledge score significantly predicted stigma towards PLWHA score [coefficient ß (95% CI)] [-0.25 (-0.29, -0.20), p < 0.001]. These findings imply that programmes and interventions that increase HIV/AIDS knowledge may reduce the pervasive apprehension, blame, and stigmatising attitude held towards PLWHA in Botswana.