Victory Ekpin is a dedicated medical doctor and researcher who plans to impact health systems and policies in Nigeria and Africa as a whole through quality research.
Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has br... more Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has brought unprecedented fear and anxiety. Several nations, including Nigeria, instituted strict prevention and control measures to curb the spread of the disease.Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude, perception and practices towards Covid-19 among rural dwellers in Akwa-Ibom state, Nigeria.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the three senatorial districts in Akwa-Ibom state, using an interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire on the ODK data entry app to obtain data. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22. Statistical significance was set at a P value of 0.05.Results: A total of 421 respondents participated in this study with 238(56.5%) females and 183(43.5%) males. The mean age was 38.6±16.1 years. Most participants were aware of Covid-19 (97.9%) and the most common sources of information on Covid-19 were the radio (88.4%) and religious organizations (60...
Background: Universal Health Coverage seeks to ensure that all individuals have equitable access ... more Background: Universal Health Coverage seeks to ensure that all individuals have equitable access to quality health care with limited exposure to financial risk. Pooling of community members into health insurance schemes is necessary for the achievement of UHC. Most rural dwellers do not have health insurance and are susceptible to catastrophic health expenditure. Objective: This study aims to determine the willingness of rural dwellers in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria, to join health insurance schemes. Methods: The study was conducted in three local government areas in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. It was a cross-sectional study with multi-stage data collection. Participants were 286 household heads. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 22 (New York), and statistical significance was set at 0.05. Result: Majority of the household heads were 31-60years (71.0%), male (71.7%), had attained secondary education (43.0%), earned less than ₦20,000 (79.7%) and had spouses who earned less than ₦2...
Electronic medical records (EMR) are extensively used in developed countries to manage patient re... more Electronic medical records (EMR) are extensively used in developed countries to manage patient records and facilitate consultations and follow-up of treatment. This has resulted in centralised databases where different services and clinicians can quickly access patient data to support healthcare delivery. However, adoption and usage of EMR in developing countries is not common and, in most cases, non-existent. Clinicians are dependent on patients keeping their own records manually with no centralised database to manage and control the patient medical history. The key objective of this study was to investigate the propensity of clinicians and senior management personnel in healthcare facilities to adopt EMR and evaluate the contextual factors that impact or impede adoption. Using Davis's technology adoption model extended with other factors, this study determined if contextual or situational factors are associated with barriers that impede adoption of EMRs in developing countries...
Background Often, non-clinical risk factors could affect the predisposition of an individual to d... more Background Often, non-clinical risk factors could affect the predisposition of an individual to diseases. Understanding these factors and their impacts helps in disease prevention and control. This study identified risk factors for malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, chickenpox, measles, hepatitis B, and urinary tract infection in a population in an African country. Methods Our study was an observational, correlational, and quantitative one that explored relationships among risk variables and disease prevalence - without modifying or controlling the variables. Data for this study was obtained through random sampling of a population of patients and physicians in the eastern/southern, western, and northern parts of Nigeria in 2015–2016. A total of 2199 patient consultation forms were returned by 102 (out of 125) physicians, and considered useful for analysis. Demographic data of patients, physicians, and diagnosis outcomes were analysed descriptively through frequency distributions, aggre...
Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care, 2019
Background: Female hawkers are exposed to numerous hazards including sexual abuse. This study aim... more Background: Female hawkers are exposed to numerous hazards including sexual abuse. This study aimed at assessing the prevalence, forms and determinants of sexual abuse among female child hawkers in Uyo, Nigeria. Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out among female child hawkers in Uyo, Nigeria. Data was collected using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire and was analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 software. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Result: A total of 172 respondents participated in the study. The mean age was 12.9±2.3 years. School dropout rate was 11.6% among respondents. Commonest reasons for hawking included family support (66.8%), feeding (22.1%) and generating school fees (11.1%). Prevalence of any form of sexual abuse was 76.2%. Forms of sexual abuse reported included verbal abuse (54.1%), inappropriate touching (56.4%), kissing (14.5%), intercourse due to enticement (18.0%) and rape (12.2%). The commonest reason for ...
Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Hea... more Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are the first point of contact for many Nigerians in the rural areas and have been found useful in active case finding. This study assessed the effect of cash incentives and training on tuberculosis case detection by CHWs in six Local Government Areas in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A randomised control trial was conducted in three PHC clusters. The intervention Arm (A) received cash incentives for every presumptive case referred. The Training Arm(B) had no cash incentives and the control had neither training nor cash incentives. Case notification rates from the TB program were used to assess the effect of cash incentives on TB case finding. Data was analyzed using Graph Pad Prism. Descriptive data was presented in tables and bivariate data was analyzed using chi square. Mean increases in case notification rates was calculated Statistical significance was set as P=0...
Within a short duration, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread globally, affecting all facet... more Within a short duration, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread globally, affecting all facets of life and causing widespread panic. This study set out to assess the perception and practices towards COVID-19 of urban and rural residents in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional study design and multistaged sampling technique were used. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire between October and December 2020. Scores assessing perception and practices were allocated and graded based on specific stratified demarcations. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A total of 822 individuals from the selected households were interviewed (urban: 401, 48.8%; rural: 421, 51.2%). Majority of respondents urban (99.8%) and rural (97.9%) were aware of COVID-19. Most respondents had low risk-perception of COVID-19 (62.4%), with significantly more rural respondents having low-risk perception (70.6% rural vs. 54.0% urban). The general perception of COVID-19 amongst the respondents was good (79.2%) with no statistically significant difference between urban and rural residents. Most of the participants had good practices towards COVID-19, with significantly higher proportion of urban respondents having good practice (93.8%) compared to their rural counterparts (83.1%). Amongst rural residents, high-risk perception was associated with higher proportion of good practice (93.4%) compared to 84.5% of low-risk perception (P = 0.015). The participants had high level of awareness, low risk perception, good general perception and good practices toward COVID-19. However, urban respondents showed better practices towards COVID-19. More attention should be directed towards improving COVID-19 perception and practices particularly amongst rural residents.
Awareness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has been increasing over time. The aim ... more Awareness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has been increasing over time. The aim of this study was to determine the Patterns of CAM use, perceived benefits and adverse effects of CAM by the users, as well as the reasons for use. Also to estimate the monthly cost of CAM to users in the study area.A cross-sectional study design was used, and structured questionnaire was the means of data collection. Purposive sampling was done. Three hundred respondents (53.7% males and 46.3% females) participated in this study with 295 (98.3%) CAM-users and 5(1.7%) non-CAM users. The relationship between CAM use and all the socio-demographic characteristics were however not significant (p>0.05). The most popularly known CAM method was Traditional herbal medicine (95.3%) followed by vitamins (91.0%) and spiritual healing (71.7%). Majority of the respondents believed CAM products should be encouraged (91.7%), combined CAM with prescribed medications (55.5%) and did not inform their d...
Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has br... more Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has brought unprecedented fear and anxiety. Several nations, including Nigeria, instituted strict prevention and control measures to curb the spread of the disease. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude, perception and practices towards Covid-19 among rural dwellers in Akwa-Ibom state, Nigeria. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the three senatorial districts in Akwa-Ibom state, using an interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire on the ODK data entry app to obtain data. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22. Statistical significance was set at a P value of 0.05. Results: A total of 421 respondents participated in this study with 238(56.5%) females and 183(43.5%) males. The mean age was 38.6±16.1 years. Most participants were aware of Covid-19 (97.9%) and the most common sources of information on Covid-19 were the radio (88.4%) and religious organizations (60.4%). Most respondents had good knowledge (62.6%), positive attitude (85.9%), good perception (75.0%) and good practices (77.9%) towards Covid-19. Pearson correlation showed that practice of precautionary measures against Covid-19 was significantly associated with participants' Knowledge and Perception of Covid-19 (r=0.117, p=0.017 and r=0.201, p<0.0001 respectively) but not with Attitude (p=0.136). Conclusion: The results revealed that there was good knowledge, attitude, perception and practices towards Covid-19 among the study population. Practice of preventive measures was seen to be weakly correlated to knowledge and perception.
Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Hea... more Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are the first point of contact for many Nigerians in the rural areas and have been found useful in active case finding. This study assessed the effect of cash incentives and training on tuberculosis case detection by CHWs in six Local Government Areas in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A randomised control trial was conducted in three PHC clusters. The intervention Arm (A) received cash incentives for every presumptive case referred. The Training Arm(B) had no cash incentives and the control had neither training nor cash incentives. Case notification rates from the TB program were used to assess the effect of cash incentives on TB case finding. Data was analyzed using Graph Pad Prism. Descriptive data was presented in tables and bivariate data was analyzed using chi square. Mean increases in case notification rates was calculated Statistical significance was set as P=0...
Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of different (non-clinical) risk factors on... more Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of different (non-clinical) risk factors on the populations’ predisposition to tropical diseases specifically Malaria, yellow fever, typhoid fever, chicken pox, measles, hepatitis B and UTI.Subject and Methods: Data for this study was obtained through patient diagnosis forms, distributed to physicians in Nigeria. A total of 2199 patient consultation forms were returned by 102 (out of 125) physicians, and considered useful for analysis. Demographic data of patients, physicians, and diagnosis outcomes were analysed descriptively through frequency distributions, aggregate analysis, and graphs, while the influence of risk factors on the disease manifestations (diagnosis outcomes) were determined using regression analysis.Results: Findings from our study demonstrated that the difficulty in diagnosing tropical disease was associated with significant increase in morbidity and mortality especially in patients with malaria, UTI and typhoi...
Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has br... more Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has brought unprecedented fear and anxiety. Several nations, including Nigeria, instituted strict prevention and control measures to curb the spread of the disease.Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude, perception and practices towards Covid-19 among rural dwellers in Akwa-Ibom state, Nigeria.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the three senatorial districts in Akwa-Ibom state, using an interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire on the ODK data entry app to obtain data. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22. Statistical significance was set at a P value of 0.05.Results: A total of 421 respondents participated in this study with 238(56.5%) females and 183(43.5%) males. The mean age was 38.6±16.1 years. Most participants were aware of Covid-19 (97.9%) and the most common sources of information on Covid-19 were the radio (88.4%) and religious organizations (60...
Background: Universal Health Coverage seeks to ensure that all individuals have equitable access ... more Background: Universal Health Coverage seeks to ensure that all individuals have equitable access to quality health care with limited exposure to financial risk. Pooling of community members into health insurance schemes is necessary for the achievement of UHC. Most rural dwellers do not have health insurance and are susceptible to catastrophic health expenditure. Objective: This study aims to determine the willingness of rural dwellers in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria, to join health insurance schemes. Methods: The study was conducted in three local government areas in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. It was a cross-sectional study with multi-stage data collection. Participants were 286 household heads. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 22 (New York), and statistical significance was set at 0.05. Result: Majority of the household heads were 31-60years (71.0%), male (71.7%), had attained secondary education (43.0%), earned less than ₦20,000 (79.7%) and had spouses who earned less than ₦2...
Electronic medical records (EMR) are extensively used in developed countries to manage patient re... more Electronic medical records (EMR) are extensively used in developed countries to manage patient records and facilitate consultations and follow-up of treatment. This has resulted in centralised databases where different services and clinicians can quickly access patient data to support healthcare delivery. However, adoption and usage of EMR in developing countries is not common and, in most cases, non-existent. Clinicians are dependent on patients keeping their own records manually with no centralised database to manage and control the patient medical history. The key objective of this study was to investigate the propensity of clinicians and senior management personnel in healthcare facilities to adopt EMR and evaluate the contextual factors that impact or impede adoption. Using Davis's technology adoption model extended with other factors, this study determined if contextual or situational factors are associated with barriers that impede adoption of EMRs in developing countries...
Background Often, non-clinical risk factors could affect the predisposition of an individual to d... more Background Often, non-clinical risk factors could affect the predisposition of an individual to diseases. Understanding these factors and their impacts helps in disease prevention and control. This study identified risk factors for malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, chickenpox, measles, hepatitis B, and urinary tract infection in a population in an African country. Methods Our study was an observational, correlational, and quantitative one that explored relationships among risk variables and disease prevalence - without modifying or controlling the variables. Data for this study was obtained through random sampling of a population of patients and physicians in the eastern/southern, western, and northern parts of Nigeria in 2015–2016. A total of 2199 patient consultation forms were returned by 102 (out of 125) physicians, and considered useful for analysis. Demographic data of patients, physicians, and diagnosis outcomes were analysed descriptively through frequency distributions, aggre...
Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care, 2019
Background: Female hawkers are exposed to numerous hazards including sexual abuse. This study aim... more Background: Female hawkers are exposed to numerous hazards including sexual abuse. This study aimed at assessing the prevalence, forms and determinants of sexual abuse among female child hawkers in Uyo, Nigeria. Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out among female child hawkers in Uyo, Nigeria. Data was collected using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire and was analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 software. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Result: A total of 172 respondents participated in the study. The mean age was 12.9±2.3 years. School dropout rate was 11.6% among respondents. Commonest reasons for hawking included family support (66.8%), feeding (22.1%) and generating school fees (11.1%). Prevalence of any form of sexual abuse was 76.2%. Forms of sexual abuse reported included verbal abuse (54.1%), inappropriate touching (56.4%), kissing (14.5%), intercourse due to enticement (18.0%) and rape (12.2%). The commonest reason for ...
Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Hea... more Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are the first point of contact for many Nigerians in the rural areas and have been found useful in active case finding. This study assessed the effect of cash incentives and training on tuberculosis case detection by CHWs in six Local Government Areas in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A randomised control trial was conducted in three PHC clusters. The intervention Arm (A) received cash incentives for every presumptive case referred. The Training Arm(B) had no cash incentives and the control had neither training nor cash incentives. Case notification rates from the TB program were used to assess the effect of cash incentives on TB case finding. Data was analyzed using Graph Pad Prism. Descriptive data was presented in tables and bivariate data was analyzed using chi square. Mean increases in case notification rates was calculated Statistical significance was set as P=0...
Within a short duration, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread globally, affecting all facet... more Within a short duration, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread globally, affecting all facets of life and causing widespread panic. This study set out to assess the perception and practices towards COVID-19 of urban and rural residents in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional study design and multistaged sampling technique were used. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire between October and December 2020. Scores assessing perception and practices were allocated and graded based on specific stratified demarcations. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A total of 822 individuals from the selected households were interviewed (urban: 401, 48.8%; rural: 421, 51.2%). Majority of respondents urban (99.8%) and rural (97.9%) were aware of COVID-19. Most respondents had low risk-perception of COVID-19 (62.4%), with significantly more rural respondents having low-risk perception (70.6% rural vs. 54.0% urban). The general perception of COVID-19 amongst the respondents was good (79.2%) with no statistically significant difference between urban and rural residents. Most of the participants had good practices towards COVID-19, with significantly higher proportion of urban respondents having good practice (93.8%) compared to their rural counterparts (83.1%). Amongst rural residents, high-risk perception was associated with higher proportion of good practice (93.4%) compared to 84.5% of low-risk perception (P = 0.015). The participants had high level of awareness, low risk perception, good general perception and good practices toward COVID-19. However, urban respondents showed better practices towards COVID-19. More attention should be directed towards improving COVID-19 perception and practices particularly amongst rural residents.
Awareness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has been increasing over time. The aim ... more Awareness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has been increasing over time. The aim of this study was to determine the Patterns of CAM use, perceived benefits and adverse effects of CAM by the users, as well as the reasons for use. Also to estimate the monthly cost of CAM to users in the study area.A cross-sectional study design was used, and structured questionnaire was the means of data collection. Purposive sampling was done. Three hundred respondents (53.7% males and 46.3% females) participated in this study with 295 (98.3%) CAM-users and 5(1.7%) non-CAM users. The relationship between CAM use and all the socio-demographic characteristics were however not significant (p>0.05). The most popularly known CAM method was Traditional herbal medicine (95.3%) followed by vitamins (91.0%) and spiritual healing (71.7%). Majority of the respondents believed CAM products should be encouraged (91.7%), combined CAM with prescribed medications (55.5%) and did not inform their d...
Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has br... more Context: The novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has brought unprecedented fear and anxiety. Several nations, including Nigeria, instituted strict prevention and control measures to curb the spread of the disease. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude, perception and practices towards Covid-19 among rural dwellers in Akwa-Ibom state, Nigeria. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the three senatorial districts in Akwa-Ibom state, using an interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire on the ODK data entry app to obtain data. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22. Statistical significance was set at a P value of 0.05. Results: A total of 421 respondents participated in this study with 238(56.5%) females and 183(43.5%) males. The mean age was 38.6±16.1 years. Most participants were aware of Covid-19 (97.9%) and the most common sources of information on Covid-19 were the radio (88.4%) and religious organizations (60.4%). Most respondents had good knowledge (62.6%), positive attitude (85.9%), good perception (75.0%) and good practices (77.9%) towards Covid-19. Pearson correlation showed that practice of precautionary measures against Covid-19 was significantly associated with participants' Knowledge and Perception of Covid-19 (r=0.117, p=0.017 and r=0.201, p<0.0001 respectively) but not with Attitude (p=0.136). Conclusion: The results revealed that there was good knowledge, attitude, perception and practices towards Covid-19 among the study population. Practice of preventive measures was seen to be weakly correlated to knowledge and perception.
Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Hea... more Background: Case detection for Tuberculosis remains low in high burden communities. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are the first point of contact for many Nigerians in the rural areas and have been found useful in active case finding. This study assessed the effect of cash incentives and training on tuberculosis case detection by CHWs in six Local Government Areas in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A randomised control trial was conducted in three PHC clusters. The intervention Arm (A) received cash incentives for every presumptive case referred. The Training Arm(B) had no cash incentives and the control had neither training nor cash incentives. Case notification rates from the TB program were used to assess the effect of cash incentives on TB case finding. Data was analyzed using Graph Pad Prism. Descriptive data was presented in tables and bivariate data was analyzed using chi square. Mean increases in case notification rates was calculated Statistical significance was set as P=0...
Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of different (non-clinical) risk factors on... more Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of different (non-clinical) risk factors on the populations’ predisposition to tropical diseases specifically Malaria, yellow fever, typhoid fever, chicken pox, measles, hepatitis B and UTI.Subject and Methods: Data for this study was obtained through patient diagnosis forms, distributed to physicians in Nigeria. A total of 2199 patient consultation forms were returned by 102 (out of 125) physicians, and considered useful for analysis. Demographic data of patients, physicians, and diagnosis outcomes were analysed descriptively through frequency distributions, aggregate analysis, and graphs, while the influence of risk factors on the disease manifestations (diagnosis outcomes) were determined using regression analysis.Results: Findings from our study demonstrated that the difficulty in diagnosing tropical disease was associated with significant increase in morbidity and mortality especially in patients with malaria, UTI and typhoi...
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