Healthcare Evidence-Based Management: Towards Overcoming its Barriers in Uganda’s Local Government Healthcare System
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Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Texila International Journal of Public Health
Abstract
This article identifies local barriers and potential promoters of healthcare evidence-based
management decision-making in Uganda’s local government context. It puts to local context feasible
measures for increasing research evidence utilization by healthcare decision-makers, as part of the
efforts to make research more beneficial to intended users, and ultimate recipients of the services. The
findings were a result of a cross- sectional semi-structured questionnaire survey of 225 clustered
healthcare authorities1
in Arua District Local Government, West Nile Sub-region of Uganda. The
survey data were triangulated with nine key informant interviews (KIIs). Analysis reveals existence of
multiple barriers at individual, organizational and system’s levels of the local government healthcare
management. Standing out prominently were barriers related to attitude, perceptions and beliefs of
healthcare managers, dissemination, accessibility, communication, participation, engagement,
capacity, knowledge, skills, cost, time, staffing, workload, leadership, policy enforcement, and culture.
Other barriers related to researchers were their competence, authority and level of mutual trust.
Fortunately, most of these barriers are consistent with those reported previously by other studies in
developing countries. Through a critical logical analysis, recommended strategies for increasing
utilization of research evidence were combined into five broad categories; stakeholders’ engagement
and participation, contextualized dissemination, capacity building, local leadership and democracy,
and knowledge marketing, awareness and visibility. Again, these are not naïve, but important is the
manner and details in which they have been contextualized. Hence, this article adds to existing
knowledge about multifactorial contextual nature of barriers and promoters of research evidence
utilization, and the importance of action research in providing evidence for improving quality of
healthcare service delivery.
Description
Keywords
healthcare authorities., Barriers, Promoters, Research evidence
Citation
Andua, M. D., & Anguzu, P. Y. Healthcare Evidence-Based Management: Towards Overcoming its Barriers in Uganda’s Local Government Healthcare System.