Parental decision and intent towards COVID-19 vaccination in children with asthma: an econometric analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Vaccination will be instrumental in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, and vaccination of children will be necessary to achieve herd immunity. Given that children with chronic health conditions may be at increased risk of COVID-19, it is crucial to understand factors influencing parental decisions about whether to have their child vaccinated. The study objectives were to measure parental intent to have their child with asthma vaccinated against COVID-19 and identify the determinants of their vaccination decision. STUDY DESIGN: This study is based on a cross-sectional exploratory observational online survey assessing parents' risk perception in the context of COVID-19. METHODS: In this study conducted in August 2020, the primary outcome was parent's answer to the question on their intention to get their child vaccinated if a vaccine against COVID-19 was available. Participants were also asked about their intention to get vaccinated themselves. Independent variables studied included sociodemographic, clinical data (e.g. presence of other chronic diseases), psychological, cognitive and risk perception related to COVID-19. Simultaneous equations models (3SLS) and seemingly unrelated regressions model (SUR) were carried out to identify factors associated with intention to have the child vaccinated and participants' intention to get vaccinated themselves against COVID-19. RESULTS: A total of 305 participants completed the survey. Overall, 19.1% of participants reported being unlikely or very unlikely to vaccinate their child against COVID-19 if a vaccine was available. Similarly, 21.0% were unlikely or very unlikely to get vaccinated themselves. The following factors were significantly associated with parents' decision to have their child vaccinated: parental level of education (p = 0.003), employment status (p < 0.001), sex of the child (p = 0.019), presence of other chronic diseases (p = 0.028), whether or not the child had been vaccinated against influenza in the past (p < 0.001), parental anxiety (p = 0.046), and consultation with a health professional since the beginning of the pandemic (p = 0.009). There was a strong relationship between likelihood of not intending to have one's child vaccinated and personal intent not to get vaccinated. CONCLUSION: These findings are essential in planning for the communication and dissemination of COVID-19 vaccination information to parents, especially for children with asthma or other chronic medical conditions.

Profile of health facilities and determinants of the family planning services supply to unmarried adolescents in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Niger.

Objectives: Despite numerous interventions to facilitate adolescents' access to family planning (FP) services in West Africa, studies reveal that unmarried adolescents have difficulties accessing these services. This study analyses the supply of the FP services package to unmarried adolescents as well as the profiles of the facilities that provide this package in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Niger. Also, it examines the determinants of the supply of this package. Design: The study adopted a spatiotemporal descriptive analysis and a binary logistic Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) model. The data come from surveys conducted in the three countries between 2013 and 2019 as part of the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 program. Participants: The target population consists of health facilities that provide health services. Results: The study indicates that more than 80% of FP services are provided by basic health facilities in Burkina Faso and Niger, while in Ghana, the profile is more diversified, including hospitals, polyclinics, and public and private primary health centres. The econometric analysis indicates that regional ownership, examination of client opinion data, ownership of a functioning computer, and knowledge of the served population are the main determinants of the supply of the FP services package to unmarried adolescents. Conclusion: By identifying facility profiles and determinants of FP services supply, this study provides a pathway for action to ensure that adolescents have access to these services regardless of their marital status in West Africa. Funding: This work was carried out with the support of the COMCAHPSS project funded by IDRC and the Adolescent Health in West Africa (Adowa) project funded by MRC.

What can organizations do to improve family physicians' interprofessional collaboration? Results of a survey of primary care in Quebec.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the degree of collaboration in primary health care organizations between FPs and other health care professionals; and to identify organizational factors associated with such collaboration. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Primary health care organizations in the Montreal and Monteregie regions of Quebec. PARTICIPANTS: Physicians or administrative managers from 376 organizations. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Degree of collaboration between FPs and other specialists and between FPs and nonphysician health professionals. RESULTS: Almost half (47.1%) of organizations reported a high degree of collaboration between FPs and other specialists, but a high degree of collaboration was considerably less common between FPs and nonphysician professionals (16.5%). Clinic collaboration with a hospital and having more patients with at least 1 chronic disease were associated with higher FP collaboration with other specialists. The proportion of patients with at least 1 chronic disease was the only factor associated with collaboration between FPs and nonphysician professionals. CONCLUSION: There is room for improvement regarding interprofessional collaboration in primary health care, especially between FPs and nonphysician professionals. Organizations that manage patients with more chronic diseases collaborate more with both non-FP specialists and nonphysician professionals.

Pathways of healthcare utilisation in patients with suspected adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: School screening programs for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) have been discontinued in Canada and elsewhere because they were not considered cost-effective. In communities lacking such programs, we expect a significant variety of healthcare pathways and timeframes for patient referrals to orthopaedics. The objectives of this study were: 1) to characterise the healthcare pathways of young children with suspected AIS in a population without school screening; and 2) to investigate the relationships between these healthcare pathways and the appropriateness of referrals to specialised orthopaedic clinics. METHODS: This study concerned all children, ages 10 to 18, referred for an initial visit for suspected AIS to any of the five out-patient paediatric orthopaedic clinics of south-western Quebec (Canada). For the 831 participants, referrals to orthopaedics were characterised as appropriate, late, or inappropriate, based on known risk factors for AIS progression and on treatment indications. Parents documented the circumstances of healthcare use prior to the orthopaedic consultation. Relevant predisposing, enabling, and need variables derived from Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Services Use were also documented. Healthcare pathways were characterised by developing a taxonomy using multiple correspondence analysis prior to hierarchical classification. Associations between the healthcare pathways and appropriateness of referral were assessed using multinomial regression analyses. RESULTS: We constructed a taxonomy of five distinct healthcare pathways: 1) Lay/regular source of care interrelation, 2) Other professionals, 3) Lay/consultation discontinuity, 4) Other medical doctor, and 5) Regular source of care continuity. Laypersons played an important role in AIS suspicion (53% of cases), but did not prevent late referrals. Continuity of care, as opposed to numerous uncoordinated consultations, was an effective strategy to prevent late referrals (OR = 0.32 [0.17-0.59]), but was related to increased probability of inappropriate referrals. CONCLUSIONS: We identified two cardinal characteristics that distinguished the healthcare pathways and related significantly to appropriateness of referral status, namely the role of laypersons and the involvement of the regular source of care. This suggests directions for intervention such as advocating for access to a regular source of care, increasing awareness of the disease to medical practitioners' and improving their knowledge of AIS detection and referral criteria.

[Are new forms of primary health care organization (PHLU) associated with a better health care experience for patients with chronic diseases in Quebec?]. / Les nouvelles formes d'organisations de soins de santé primaires (OSSP) sont-elles associées à une meilleure expérience de soins chez les patients atteints de maladies chroniques au Québec ?

AIM: To assess the extent to which new forms of PHC organization - Family medicine groups (FMG) and Network clinics (NC) - established in Quebec since 2003, are associated with a better experience of care than other forms of PHC organization, for patients with chronic diseases. METHODS: Two surveys were conducted in 2010 in two regions of Quebec: the first among 9,180 residents and the second among 606 PHC organizations. Indices of experience of care were constructed concerning accessibility, continuity, comprehensiveness and perceived outcomes. Five categories of chronic diseases were selected. Descriptive analyses and multilevel regression analyses were conducted to compare the different forms of PHC organization. RESULTS: Individuals with chronic diseases tend to report a better experience of care than those without chronic diseases for all dimensions except for accessibility. FMGs compare to group practices on all dimensions and NCs are associated with a poorer experience of care on most dimensions. CONCLUSION: Experience of care associated with FMGs and NCs is not superior to that associated with group practices.

[Perinatal vulnerability and social-support during the postnatal period: a review of the literature]. / Vulnérabilité périnatale et soutien social en période postnatale : une revue de la littérature.

OBJECTIVE: To present the results of an integrative review of the literature that summarized empirical knowledge on dimensions of vulnerability during the perinatal period leading to informal and semi-formal postnatal support needs. METHOD: The literature search was performed in ten databases, covering the period from 1990 to March 2013. Relevant information was extracted and analysed in an integrative mode according to four main vulnerability dimensions: biological, psychological, social, cognitive. RESULTS: Thirty studies were included. Biological vulnerabilities mainly concern tiredness and breastfeeding difficulties; psychological vulnerabilities consist of stress, feelings of parental incompetence and need for reassurance; social vulnerabilities comprise performance pressure concerning new responsibilities and entertainment needs, instrumental assistance and peer social support; and cognitive vulnerabilities correspond to a need for participatory information on the prenatal period from peers. CONCLUSION: The transition to parenthood is an important step during which individuals may experience a state of vulnerability with numerous and interconnected dimensions. The variousforms of postnatal support therefore need to be harmonised in order to support parents. Research is needed on the harmonisation of the various support networks, which raises significant challenges, especially in terms of resources, funding, and information exchange, that must be documented.

Importance of a Regular Source of Primary Care in Adolescents: The Case of Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis.

AIM: Primary care practitioners should screen young adolescent patients for idiopathic scoliosis and refer those who could benefit from bracing to prevent curve progression and the need for surgery. Adolescents without a regular source of primary care may be at higher risk for not having their scoliosis diagnosed in time to benefit from bracing. We sought to determine whether adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis and a regular source of primary care are at lower risk of scoliosis surgery. METHODS: We followed a cohort of 3722 adolescents (10-18 years) whose diagnosis of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis was confirmed by an orthopedist or physiatrist, using linked administrative data of physician visits and hospital admissions, from 2001 to 2010. We used survival analysis to compare those with and without a regular source of primary care with regard to having scoliosis surgery, adjusting for covariates. RESULTS: Among the 3722 adolescents with scoliosis, 12% did not have a regular source of primary care and 158 had scoliosis surgery. Adolescents with a regular source of primary care had a lower risk of scoliosis surgery (hazard ratio 0.60, 95% confidence interval 0.40-0.89), especially those whose regular source of primary care was a pediatrician (hazard ratio 0.48, 95% confidence interval 0.30-0.76). CONCLUSION: Adolescents with scoliosis and a regular source of primary care were less likely to undergo scoliosis surgery. Policy makers need to be aware of the importance of primary health care for children and adolescents and ensure that they are not forgotten in their campaign for primary care improvement.

Reforming healthcare systems on a locally integrated basis: is there a potential for increasing collaborations in primary healthcare?

BACKGROUND: Over the past decade, in the province of Quebec, Canada, the government has initiated two consecutive reforms. These have created a new type of primary healthcare - family medicine groups (FMGs) - and have established 95 geographically defined local health networks (LHNs) across the province. A key goal of these reforms was to improve collaboration among healthcare organizations. The objective of the paper is to analyze the impact of these reforms on the development of collaborations among primary healthcare practices and between these organisations and hospitals both within and outside administrative boundaries of the local health networks. METHODS: We surveyed 297 primary healthcare practices in 23 LHNs in Quebec's two most populated regions (Montreal & Monteregie) in 2005 and 2010. We characterized collaborations by measuring primary healthcare practices' formal or informal arrangements among themselves or with hospitals for different activities. These collaborations were measured based on the percentage of clinics that identified at least one collaborative activity with another organization within or outside of their local health network. We created measures of collaboration for different types of primary healthcare practices: first- and second-generation FMGs, network clinics, local community services centres (CLSCs) and private medical clinics. We compared their situations in 2005 and in 2010 to observe their evolution. RESULTS: Our results showed different patterns of evolution in inter-organizational collaboration among different types of primary healthcare practices. The local health network reform appears to have had an impact on territorializing collaborations firstly by significantly reducing collaborations outside LHNs areas for all types of primary healthcare practices, including new type of primary healthcare and CLSCs, and secondly by improving collaborations among healthcare organizations within LHNs areas for all organizations. This is with the exception of private medical clinics, where collaborations decreased both outside and within LHNs. CONCLUSION: Health system reforms aimed at creating geographically based networks influenced primary healthcare practices' both among themselves (horizontal collaborations) and with hospitals (vertical collaborations). There is evidence of increased collaborations within defined geographic areas, particularly among new type of primary healthcare.

Impact of physician distribution policies on primary care practices in rural Quebec.

INTRODUCTION: Accessibility and continuity of primary health care in rural Canada are inadequate, mainly because of a relative shortage of family physicians. To alleviate the uneven distribution of physicians in rural and urban regions, Quebec has implemented measures associated with 3 types of physician practices in rural areas. The objectives of our study were to describe the practices of these types of physicians in a rural area and to analyze the impact of physician distribution policies aimed at offsetting the lack of resources. METHODS: Data were drawn from a medical administrative database and included information related to physicians' practices in the rural area of Beauce, Que., in 2007. RESULTS: The practices of permanently settled physicians in rural areas differ from those of physicians who substitute for short periods. Permanently settled physicians offer mostly primary care services, whereas physicians who temporarily substitute devote much of their time to hospital-based practice. CONCLUSION: Physician distribution policies implemented in Quebec to compensate for the lack of medical resources in rural areas have reduced the deficit in hospital care but not in primary care.

Evaluation of the implementation of an integrated primary care network for prevention and management of cardiometabolic risk in Montréal.

BACKGROUND: The goal of this project is to evaluate the implementation of an integrated and interdisciplinary program for prevention and management of cardiometabolic risk (PCMR). The intervention is based on the Chronic Care Model. The study will evaluate the implementation of the PCMR in 6 of the 12 health and social services centres (CSSS) in Montréal, and the effects of the PCMR on patients and the practice of their primary care physicians up to 40 months following implementation, as well as the sustainability of the program. Objectives are: 1-to evaluate the effects of the PCMR and their persistence on patients registered in the program and the practice of their primary care physicians, by implementation site and degree of exposure to the program; 2-to assess the degree of implementation of PCMR in each CSSS territory and identify related contextual factors; 3-to establish the relationships between the effects observed, the degree of PCMR implementation and the related contextual factors; 4-to assess the impact of the PCMR on strengthening local services networks. METHODS/DESIGN: The evaluation will use a mixed design that includes two complementary research strategies. The first strategy is similar to a quasi-experimental "before-after" design, based on a quantitative approach; it will look at the program's effects and their variations among the six territories. The effects analysis will use data from a clinical database and from questionnaires completed by participating patients and physicians. Over 3000 patients will be recruited. The second strategy corresponds to a multiple case study approach, where each of the six CSSS constitutes a case. With this strategy, qualitative methods will set out the context of implementation using data from semi-structured interviews with program managers. The quantitative data will be analyzed using linear or multilevel models complemented with an interpretive approach to qualitative data analysis. DISCUSSION: Our study will identify contextual factors associated with the effectiveness, successful implementation and sustainability of such a program. The contextual information will enable us to extrapolate our results to other contexts with similar conditions. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01326130.

A global approach to evaluation of health services utilization: concepts and measures.

Health services utilization has been the object of many books and papers in the literature. Measures associated with utilization are often a function of volume of services. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive approach to the evaluation of health services utilization and of associated measures, using databases. Based on the theoretical framework of Starfield (1998), we analyze health services utilization with the help of indicators that are not directly linked to volume but that indirectly provide an estimate, while also documenting the qualitative aspects of utilization. The indicators mark accessibility, continuity, comprehensiveness and productivity of care. Once the concepts have been defined, we propose their operationalization using the databases. We then present the advantages of multidimensional conceptualization of health services utilization through a simultaneous analysis of these indicators. Researchers and decision-makers in public health and health planning have much to gain from this innovative multidimensional approach, which presents a dynamic conceptualization of health services utilization based on health administrative data.This paper was originally published in French, in the journal Pratiques et Organisation des Soins 2011 42(1): 11-18.

Assessing the evolution of primary healthcare organizations and their performance (2005-2010) in two regions of Québec province: Montréal and Montérégie.

BACKGROUND: The Canadian healthcare system is currently experiencing important organizational transformations through the reform of primary healthcare (PHC). These reforms vary in scope but share a common feature of proposing the transformation of PHC organizations by implementing new models of PHC organization. These models vary in their performance with respect to client affiliation, utilization of services, experience of care and perceived outcomes of care. OBJECTIVES: In early 2005 we conducted a study in the two most populous regions of Quebec province (Montreal and Montérégie) which assessed the association between prevailing models of primary healthcare (PHC) and population-level experience of care. The goal of the present research project is to track the evolution of PHC organizational models and their relative performance through the reform process (from 2005 until 2010) and to assess factors at the organizational and contextual levels that are associated with the transformation of PHC organizations and their performance. METHODS/DESIGN: This study will consist of three interrelated surveys, hierarchically nested. The first survey is a population-based survey of randomly-selected adults from two populous regions in the province of Quebec. This survey will assess the current affiliation of people with PHC organizations, their level of utilization of healthcare services, attributes of their experience of care, reception of preventive and curative services and perception of unmet needs for care. The second survey is an organizational survey of PHC organizations assessing aspects related to their vision, organizational structure, level of resources, and clinical practice characteristics. This information will serve to develop a taxonomy of organizations using a mixed methods approach of factorial analysis and principal component analysis. The third survey is an assessment of the organizational context in which PHC organizations are evolving. The five year prospective period will serve as a natural experiment to assess contextual and organizational factors (in 2005) associated with migration of PHC organizational models into new forms or models (in 2010) and assess the impact of this evolution on the performance of PHC. DISCUSSION: The results of this study will shed light on changes brought about in the organization of PHC and on factors associated with these changes.