HEALTH-SEEKING BEHAVIOURS RELATED TO HYPERTENSION AMONG ELDERLY IMMIGRANTS IN THE HAUSA COMMUNITY OF IBADAN NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OYO STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Health Promoting Hospital (HPH) is a concept for hospital development within the framework of re-orientation of health care services. It is one of the major action areas for an overall health promotion (HP) development within the World Health Organisation (WHO) Ottawa Charter. There is little evidence about the extent to which secondary health care facilities are incorporating health promotion activities into service provision in nigeria. Therefore, this study was designed to access health promotion activities in secondary school health care (SHC)facilities in ibadan. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 7 purposively selected SHC facilities. The number of respondents From each hospital was determined by proportionate sampling technique. A 2-stage random sampling was used to select unit/wards and 310 health professionals from the selected SHCs providing mixed health services. The WHO five standards for health promoting hospitals namely management policy, patient assessment, patient information and intervention, promoting a healthy workplace and continuity and cooperation were modified to develop semi-structured questionnaire. The semi-structured questionnaire included questions on socio-demographic characteristics. level of awareness about health promoting hospitals health promotion activities and perception or health workers on the implementation of health promoting hospitals. Perception was measured on an 18-point scale; scores ≤9 and >9 were categorized as poor and good, respectively. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and CM-square test at p1.0.05. Respondents' age was 40.6± 10.9 years and majority were nurses (76.6%). Nurses (66.8%) significantly had a higher level of awareness on HP activities than doctors (273%). Seventy-nine percent had spent over four years in service. Thirty-five percent had undergone training in health promotion. There was no health promotion policy adopted by any of the hospitals. A total of 175(53.0%) had heard about HPH. Only 18.1% correctly described HPH as a setting that provides holistic health care, improve relationship between health community and satisfaction of patients, relatives and staff. About 24.0% were aware that management allocates resources for implementation of HP activities. Sixty-three percent were aware of risk management procedures and 59.0% stated that patients were assessed for risk factors on admission to the hospital. About 89.7% indicated that patients were informed when these risk factors are detected. Majority (76.1%) stated that general health information was available to patients through posters. Information on health issues was available to staff (51.5%) and only 19.1% were aware of stress management programmes. Majority (89.4%) had good perception of implementation relating to HP activities in hospitals. The proportion of respondents with good perception on implementation of HP activities was significantly higher in nurses (71.4%) than doctors (20.0%). Major barriers to HPH were inadequate human resources (83.9%), lack of guidelines, (80.3%) and unclear objectives for HPH(74.8%). Patient assessment, patient information and intervention were well practiced in the hospitals. However, there was no health promotion policy adopted by any of the health institutions. Therefore, advocacy to encourage health service managers and policy makers to integrate the World Health Organisation five standards of health promoting hospitals into health institutions is recommended. Keywords: Health promoting hospitals, Health promotion policy, Health professionals Word count: 493