Effects on the quality of reporting of infectious diseases by making EU definition of cases the primary care physician in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Date
2014-11-11Author
Jakubcova, D.
Rusnak, M.
Rusnakova, V.
Duric, Predrag
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Jakubcova, D., Rusnak, M., Rusnakova, V. & Duric, P. (2014) Effects on the quality of reporting of infectious diseases by making EU definition of cases the primary care physician in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, , , , , Tale, Slovak Republic
Abstract
Introduction: The Public Health Reform II project was implemented
in Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 2011 till December 2013 and
funded by European Union. Principal aim of the project was to strengthen
public health services in the country through improved control of public
health threats. During several rounds of interviews with general
practitioners inadequate use of case definitions was revealed. Trainings for
family primary care physicians were organized to improve the situation and
increase notification rates in eight selected primary care centres. The main
aim was to increase notifications by trainings provided for primary care
physicians. Methods: We compared quality of notifications from physicians
in Tuzla before and after training, which took place on 15th of March 2013.
The timeliness was used as indicator of quality. Timeliness reflects the
speed between steps in a public health surveillance system. it means time
interval between the first symptoms of diseases and reporting. We compared
medians of timeliness before and after training by Wilcox test and averages
by t.testusing R project with level of significance p<0.05. Results: There
were 980 reported cases, 80% were before training and 20% were reported
after the training. We found out significantly lower median of timeliness
of all reported cases after the training (median=1 day) compared to the median of timeliness before the training (median=6 days) (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Significant reduction in time response between the first
symptoms and disease diagnosis represent results of the training in Tuzla.
Primary care physicians provided better quality of reported data after the
training.