ABSTRACT
To assesswhether the ophthalmic cases presenting at aNigerian tertiary eye unit are appropriate for such level of care and also drawnecessary implications for service delivery. : Data on 1;321 consecutive new patients that presented at the ophthalmic clinic of the University of Teaching Hospital; Ilorin; Nigeria between February and July 2005 were reviewed on demographics; referral routes; and reasons for patronage; diagnoses and disease categories. Information on the general situation of health infrastructures prevailing at the surrounding health facilitieswas collected fromkey-informants. One thousand and ninety-one (82.6) presentedwithout any referral and 1;095 (82.9) patronized in order to access perceived good quality of eye care service being rendered. However; only a small proportion of their ailments (191; 14.5) actually required attention at the tertiary level of eye care. The key informants painted a picture of severely-challenged general and health infrastructures particularly at the primary health care facility level An overwhelming majority of ophthalmic patients directly accessed eye care at the tertiary level; even though most of their ailments could have been satisfactorily treated at the lower facilities of health care were the latter to be functioning optimally. A better coordinated and strengthened health care system; particularly at the primary and secondary health care facilities would ease the burden of inappropriate presentations on tertiary health facilities inNigeria
Subject(s)
Delivery of Health Care , Eye Diseases , Hospitals , Patients , TeachingABSTRACT
Background: Prostate cancer is the must commonlydiagnosed cancer in men worldwide and ranked second as the cause of death in cancer-related diseases. Objective: To evaluate the awareness and attitude of the populace to screening for cancer of the prostate. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study involving 156 respondents. A structured questionnaire detailing the biodata, the knowledge of cancer of prostate, the practice of screening by prostate specific antigen (PSA) estimation and the readiness to undergo screening by the respondent was used to obtain the set-out objectives. Results: A total of 156 respondents completed the questionnaire and forms the basis of further analysis. The mean age of the respondents is 44.15 (±11.9) years. Majority of the respondents were civil servant (51.9%) followed closely by politicians. About 23.1% of them have no formal education while 53.8% have acquired tertiary education. The result shows that 78.8% have never heard any information on cancer of the prostate and only 5.8% had heard about PSA. None of the respondents have ever had PSA test, even once. Eighty four per cent of the respondents are ready to pay for prostate cancer screening test by PSA assay. Conclusion: We conclude that there is remarkable lack of awareness of prostate cancer among the Nigerian native African urban populace. Prostate cancer screening and serum PSA test for screening is globally unknown among them