StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries - Essay Example

Summary
The paper "The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries" tells us about skilled health attendants in helping to reduce maternal deaths in developing countries…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER98% of users find it useful
The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries"

Skilled Health Attendants 17 March Questions & Answers (3) A main problem with reflexive designs is the difficultyin separating the cause and the effect, especially during the initial stages of the design process. A good designer must be alert for this close relationship. In other words, the cause will create an effect but then later on the effect affects back the cause in a continuous loop. Although helpful in situations like when one is trying to get feedback, researchers often are confused with the results of their studies and the data so collected could be muddled. This in turn affects the validity of some of their conclusions or might even render the whole study as defective or at best, inconclusive. A secondary problem is when the changes are quite rapid among the study groups of a research. Reflexive designs are used to overcome the problem of comparability by collecting data on the same study group before and after the introduction of an intervention (independent variable). The problem arises when the rapid changes have a significant effect on the outcome (dependent variables) and a situation arises on how to separate the cause from the effect and the effects of the effect back on the original cause (Kumar 2005, p. 290). It would be hard to separate one from the other and will require a keen mind and a sharp eye to do so. A third problem with these reflexive designs is that they are often cumbersome as the reiteration process needs to be repeated several times (multiple repetitions). A different new variable can be introduced into the study inadvertently that significantly affects the validity of the outcomes. The design work is often then cycled back to earlier designs to incorporate new ideas, values and information that is gathered so far (Boud, Cressey & Docherty 2006, p. 90). In this connection, even the mere presence of a researcher could possibly affect the outcome. (5) When considering or evaluating the impact of a program, the researcher must be aware of two factors that can affect how the evaluation process will turn out based on the sources of data: the sampling method used and the data collection method. Sampling design and sample selection affects the outcome of the results and hence the evaluation of a certain program. The two have a significant influence on the results of the evaluation (Issel 2008, p. 413). On the other hand, collection of the evaluation data is largely dependent on the collection methods to be used. In this regard, researchers should focus more on the collection of primary data (those newly-generated data) rather than from secondary data (using existing data). A lot depends on the sample size to be used and the specific type of evaluation question also (ibid. 426). (8) External validity of an experiment refers to its generalizability and internal validity pertains to the dependability of the results obtained (Powell 1997, p. 128). There are 3 threats that makes a politicians claims invalid which are the following: research environment, threats from different designs used among or between cases and lastly, longitudinal threats. For the first threat, a politician is always bound to influence a local population and its effect is known as demand characteristics and another is known as the expectancy effect. Second threat arises when a politician selects only a particular group that is sympathetic to what he will say or to his political platform. The third threat results from three factors, namely: history (as when a supervening event occurs), maturity (change in cases) and mortality when study subjects may change their political parties (Schwab 2005, p. 74). (12) It is possible to conduct random sampling in single-subject evaluations because these can be done on different time periods; individual changes can be studied since same persons are measured over various points in time (Tripodi & Potocky-Tripodi 2007, p. 122). It is research repeated over time to understand individual cases (Colton & Covert 2007, p. 39). Introduction The paper I will critique is the significance of skilled health attendants in helping to reduce maternal deaths in developing countries. The name of this article is “The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries: Testing the Medical Model” and the author is Cynthia T. Cook which was published in Evaluation and Program Planning in 2002. The author claims using skilled health attendants can be a factor in reducing women deaths from pregnancy-related causes and complications. She used the Medical Model to explain this based on social and economic factors on why maternal mortality rates are higher in some developing countries and not in others. Although she made some interesting observations about the factors causing maternal mortality rates (MMR), her conclusions are not definite due to use of data no longer current. Further, there were data gaps from some countries she had studied (only 100 countries had comparable data out of the 150 she studied). But some of the tentative conclusions she arrived at point to some interesting findings regarding MMR. Discussion More than half a million women die from pregnancy-related causes and complications each year. Most of these deaths (99%) occur in the developing countries. Practically all these maternal deaths are also preventable if only adequate medical facilities and expert care are available. A maternal death is defined as death occurring during pregnancy or 42 days after pregnancy termination. The author used her Medical Model for a correlation between maternal mortality rate (MMR) and number of skilled health attendants available to attend to pregnant women before, during and after a pregnancy. A skilled health attendant is someone who has proper training to give supervision, advice and care during a pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period. Proper training is defined as skills to deliver babies on their own and to care for newborns. A problem encountered by the author was defining what constitutes a skilled health attendant because in developing countries, it is anyone who is a doctor, nurse, trained midwife, health care worker or a trained traditional birth attendant (Cook, 2001, p. 107). The absence of clear definition had a serious effect on separating data obtained and determining exact factors that influenced MMR. The author used some outdated data. For example, there was a mismatch in the data obtained for MMR which was in 1990 but corresponding data for the independent variables narrowed down to only three which are the number of medical doctors, registered nurses and number of births attended by skilled health attendant was obtained from 1997 (ibid. 109). Conclusion Despite these limitations and incongruities, the author has some interesting findings. A primary one is that there was a direct link between lowering MMR and raising the number of SKHA. Conversely, raising the number of medical doctors does not necessarily lower MMR. A probable explanation for this was the number of unnecessary surgical deliveries (ibid. 114). Reference List Boud, D., Cressey, P. & Docherty, P. (2006). Productive Reflection At Work: Learning for Changing Organizations. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. Colton, D. & Covert, R. W. (2007). Designing and Constructing Instruments for Social Research and Evaluation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Cook, C. T. (2002). The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries: Testing the Medical Model. Evaluation and Program Planning, 25. 107-116. Issel, L. M. (2008). Health Program Planning and Evaluation: A Practical and Systematic Approach for Community Health. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Kumar, R. (2005). Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners. Vol. 2 Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Powell, R. R. (1997). Basic Research Methods for Librarians. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Schwab, D. P. (2005). Research Methods for Organizational Studies. Florence, KY: Routledge. Tripodi, T. & Potocky-Tripodi, M. (2007). International Social Work Research: Issues and Prospects. New York, NY: Oxford University Press US. Read More

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Effects of Skilled Health Attendants on Reducing Maternal Deaths in Developing Countries

Maternal Mortality in Australia

Moreover, among the 99 maternal deaths in Australia, 39 deaths were reported to be directly related with pregnancy and the rest 60 deaths were indirect maternal death (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014).... As per the World Health Report (2010), during the year 2006-2010 about 99 maternal deaths were reported in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014).... The rate of maternal death in Australia is much less, compared to other countries....
6 Pages (1500 words) Term Paper

Maternal Health in Kenya

This reveals a greater risk which is 175 times higher than that in the developed countries which has been put at one in 2,800.... These are best epitomized by the fact that various governments in this region have been reluctant to enhance the nature of maternal health in their various countries, mostly related to the employment of trained staff as well as equipping the health facilities.... his has seen a great variance of anti-natal care (ANC) in these countries with Pell et....
8 Pages (2000 words) Case Study

Maternal Health Inequity in Bangladesh

According to The United Nations through the World Health Organisation (WHO), (2010) a majority of women do not receive any kind of maternal healthcare expertise during pregnancy and labour in developing countries.... By improving the Quality of life (QOL) for women in developing countries by empowering them economically, the United Nations aims at assisting them to facilitate their own maternal well beings (Hunt, Mesquita, 2013).... A majority of these people are found in developing nations....
15 Pages (3750 words) Research Paper

Global Maternal Health

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 515 000 women die each year from pregnancy-related causes, and almost all of these deaths occur in developing countries.... Significant declines in maternal mortality in Sri Lanka and Malaysia over the past 50 to 60 years provide evidence that the implementation of maternal health interventions in developing countries is feasible.... Where interventions are concerned most quasi-experimental studies have found a decline in maternal deaths following the implementation of the intervention (Ross, Simkhada, and Smith, 2005)....
9 Pages (2250 words) Literature review

Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health

One of the leading causes of death in children who are below the age of five in developing countries is neonatal death.... The author of the paper "Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health" argues in a well-organized manner that global statistics on the deaths of mothers and newborns will reveal that the problem is devastating and especially in third-world countries.... This is especially so in countries with a high number of people living below the poverty line....
9 Pages (2250 words) Term Paper

The Problem of Maternal Mortality in the Developing World

The paper "The Problem of Maternal Mortality in the Developing World" states that the WHO and other international agencies have provided statistical evidence which supports the conclusion that maternal health is still an issue of concern in developing countries.... s one of the MDGs, maternal health is therefore an issue of fundamental importance in improving the quality of life in developing countries.... in developing countries, pregnancy-related complications are the leading cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age with 20 women suffering injury, infection, or disease for every one that dies during or immediately after childbirth (Nanda Switlick and Lule, 2005)....
12 Pages (3000 words) Literature review

Magnitude and Causes of Maternal Mortality in Tanzania

Hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal deaths in Tanzania.... Over the years, maternal mortality rate has been one of the key public health problems within developing countries.... The obstetric care indicates efforts of reducing maternal mortality within the country but the hospital is typified with the shortage of doctors and nurses and also the hospital has shortage of professional having required expertise in performing caesarean section along with other procedures....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Essential Obstetrics Care in Cambodia

Evidently, 99% of such reported cases occur in developing countries such as Cambodia.... t is estimate that across the world and especially in developing countries, large proportions of deaths occur 24 hours after delivery.... Graham (2004) maintains that, slow improvement of health care within this country has made Cambodia maternal mortality rate gradually increase.... he government of Cambodia is engaged in both basic and comprehensive types of EOC to ensure that maternal mortality is greatly reduced....
8 Pages (2000 words) Research Proposal
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us