Low utilization of skilled delivery services in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a case for facility delivery improvement.

Maternal mortality remains a pressing global challenge, with sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) disproportionately affected. Despite efforts to improve access to skilled delivery services, utilization remains low, especially in rural areas. This paper synthesizes the extant literature and empirical evidence from rural Ghana to highlight the critical issue of low-skilled delivery services uptake in rural SSA.

The Bacterial Species Behind the Wound and Their Antibacterial Resistant Pattern: A Three-Year Retrospective Study at St. Dominic Hospital, Akwatia, Ghana.

Background: Wound infections are often underestimated issues that can lead to chronic illnesses, and since the introduction of antibiotics, wound complications have become less common. However, due to the increased and irrational use of these antibiotics, the resistance in the bacterial isolates has become very common. This has led to reduced treatment options, delay in wound healing, and high treatment costs.

Persuasive Systems Design Trends in Coronary Heart Disease Management: Scoping Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Background: Behavior change support systems (BCSSs) have the potential to help people maintain healthy lifestyles and aid in the self-management of coronary heart disease (CHD). The Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model is a framework for designing and evaluating systems designed to support lifestyle modifications and health behavior change using information and communication technology. However, evidence for the underlying design principles behind BCSSs for CHD has not been extensively reported in the literature.

Advancing the Global Fight Against HIV/Aids: Strategies, Barriers, and the Road to Eradication.

HIV/AIDS remains one of the most significant global health challenges, affecting millions of people worldwide. Since the inception of the disease, various global response strategies have been devised and implemented, aiming to mitigate its impact and ultimately eradicate it. While these strategies have yielded remarkable progress, there are still key barriers impeding the global fight against the disease.

The Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Rates of in a Rural Hospital from the Eastern Region, Ghana: A Retrospective Study, 2022.

Low- and middle-income countries bear a disproportionate burden of antimicrobial resistance and often lack adequate surveillance due to a paucity of microbiological studies. In this 2022 study, our goal was to contribute to a more precise antimicrobial treatment by understanding the prevalence of resistance in a rural environment, promoting antibiotic stewardship, and raising awareness about antimicrobial resistance. We assessed the prevalence of Multidrug-Resistant (MDR) and Extensively Drug-Resistant (XDR) in clinical samples from 2905 patients being treated at Saint Dominic's Hospital, Akwatia, in the countryside of the Eastern Region, Ghana, in the year 2022.

Mitigating Issues With/of/for True Personalization.

A common but false perception persists about the level and type of personalization in the offerings of contemporary software, information systems, and services, known as Personalization Myopia: this involves a tendency for researchers to think that there are many more personalized services than there genuinely are, for the general audience to think that they are offered personalized services when they really are not, and for practitioners to have a mistaken idea of what makes a service personalized. And yet in an era, which mashes up large amounts of data, business analytics, deep learning, and persuasive systems, true personalization is a most promising approach for innovating and developing new types of systems and services-including support for behavior change. The potential of true personalization is elaborated in this article, especially with regards to persuasive software features and the oft-neglected fact that users change over time.

The Epidemiology of Bloodstream Infections and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Patterns: A Nine-Year Retrospective Study at St. Dominic Hospital, Akwatia, Ghana.

Background: Bloodstream infections are among the top causes of morbidity and mortality in people of all ages, especially in immunocompromised patients in sub-Saharan Africa. This study aimed at describing the epidemiology of bloodstream infections and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern over a nine-year period at St. Dominic Hospital, Akwatia, in the Eastern Region of Ghana.