IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0126820.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Telemedicine’s Potential to Support Good Dying in Nigeria: A Qualitative Study

Author

Listed:
  • Jelle van Gurp
  • Olaitan Soyannwo
  • Kehinde Odebunmi
  • Simpa Dania
  • Martine van Selm
  • Evert van Leeuwen
  • Kris Vissers
  • Jeroen Hasselaar

Abstract

Objectives: This qualitative study explores Nigerian health care professionals’ concepts of good dying/a good death and how telemedicine technologies and services would fit the current Nigerian palliative care practice. Materials and Methods: Supported by the Centre for Palliative Care Nigeria (CPCN) and the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria, the authors organized three focus groups with Nigerian health care professionals interested in palliative care, unstructured interviews with key role players for palliative care and representatives of telecom companies, and field visits to primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare clinics that provided palliative care. Data analysis consisted of open coding, constant comparison, diagramming of categorizations and relations, and extensive member checks. Results: The focus group participants classified good dying into 2 domains: a feeling of completion of the individual life and dying within the community. Reported barriers to palliative care provision were socio-economic consequences of being seriously ill, taboos on dying and being ill, restricted access to adequate medical–technical care, equation of religion with medicine, and the faulty implementation of palliative care policy by government. The addition of telemedicine to Nigeria’s palliative care practice appears problematic, due to irregular bandwidth, poor network coverage, and unstable power supply obstructing interactivity and access to information. However, a tele-education ‘lite’ scenario seemed viable in Nigeria, wherein low-tech educational networks are central that build on non-synchronous online communication. Discussion: Nigerian health care professionals’ concepts on good dying/a good death and barriers and opportunities for palliative care provision were, for the greater part, similar to prior findings from other studies in Africa. Information for and education of patient, family, and community are essential to further improve palliative care in Africa. Telemedicine can only help if low-tech solutions are applied that work around network coverage problems by focusing on non-synchronous online communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Jelle van Gurp & Olaitan Soyannwo & Kehinde Odebunmi & Simpa Dania & Martine van Selm & Evert van Leeuwen & Kris Vissers & Jeroen Hasselaar, 2015. "Telemedicine’s Potential to Support Good Dying in Nigeria: A Qualitative Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0126820
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126820
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126820
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126820&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0126820?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lehoux, P. & Sicotte, C. & Denis, J. -L. & Berg, M. & Lacroix, A., 2002. "The theory of use behind telemedicine: : how compatible with physicians' clinical routines?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 889-904, March.
    2. van der Geest, Sjaak, 2004. "Dying peacefully: considering good death and bad death in Kwahu-Tafo, Ghana," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(5), pages 899-911, March.
    3. Seale, Clive, 2000. "Changing patterns of death and dying," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 917-930, September.
    4. Lucas, Henry, 2008. "Information and communications technology for future health systems in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 2122-2132, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chabot, Boudewijn E. & Goedhart, Arnold, 2009. "A survey of self-directed dying attended by proxies in the Dutch population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 1745-1751, May.
    2. Silvana Rossy Brito & Aleksandra Socorro da Silva & Eulália Carvalho Mata & Nandamudi Lankalapalli Vijaykumar & Cláudio Alex Jorge Rocha & Maurílio Abreu Monteiro & João Crisóstomo Weyl Albuquerque Co, 0. "An approach to evaluate large-scale ICT training interventions," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-17.
    3. Andrew McNee, 2012. "Illuminating the local: can non-formal institutions be complementary to health system development in Papua New Guinea?," Development Policy Centre Discussion Papers 1215, Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    4. Lang, Alexander & Frankus, Elisabeth & Heimerl, Katharina, 2022. "The perspective of professional caregivers working in generalist palliative care on ‘good dying’: An integrative review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    5. Paolo Rossi & Matteo Crippa & Gianlorenzo Scaccabarozzi, 2021. "The Relationship between Practitioners and Caregivers during a Treatment of Palliative Care: A Grounded Theory of a Challenging Collaborative Process," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-15, July.
    6. Silvana Rossy Brito & Aleksandra Socorro da Silva & Eulália Carvalho Mata & Nandamudi Lankalapalli Vijaykumar & Cláudio Alex Jorge Rocha & Maurílio Abreu Monteiro & João Crisóstomo Weyl Albuquerque Co, 2018. "An approach to evaluate large-scale ICT training interventions," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 883-899, August.
    7. Nicolini, Davide, 2006. "The work to make telemedicine work: A social and articulative view," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2754-2767, June.
    8. Marco Remondino, 2018. "Information Technology in Healthcare: HHC-MOTES, a Novel Set of Metrics to Analyse IT Sustainability in Different Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-20, August.
    9. Mostafa Sheykhotayefeh & Reza Safdari & Marjan Ghazisaeedi & Niloofar Mohammadzadeh & Seyed Hossein Khademi & Vahid Torabi & Mohamad Jebraeily & Elham Maserat & Seyedeh Sedigheh Seyed Farajolah, 2017. "Hospital Information Systems Implementation: An Evaluation of Critical Success Factors in Northeast of Iran," Global Journal of Health Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(2), pages 1-93, February.
    10. Brown, Tim & Bell, Morag, 2008. "Imperial or postcolonial governance? Dissecting the genealogy of a global public health strategy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(10), pages 1571-1579, November.
    11. Muhammad Tariq Majeed & Farzana Naheed Khan, 2019. "Do information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to health outcomes? An empirical analysis," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 183-206, January.
    12. Johanna Brinkel & Alexander Krämer & Ralf Krumkamp & Jürgen May & Julius Fobil, 2014. "Mobile Phone-Based mHealth Approaches for Public Health Surveillance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-24, November.
    13. Joachim Cohen & Paul Landeghem & Nico Carpentier & Luc Deliens, 2014. "Public acceptance of euthanasia in Europe: a survey study in 47 countries," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 59(1), pages 143-156, February.
    14. Iedema, Rick & Sorensen, Roslyn & Braithwaite, Jeffrey & Flabouris, Arthas & Turnbull, Liz, 2005. "The teleo-affective limits of end-of-life care in the intensive care unit," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 845-857, February.
    15. Bervell, Brandford & Al-Samarraie, Hosam, 2019. "A comparative review of mobile health and electronic health utilization in sub-Saharan African countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 1-16.
    16. Joanna Broad & Merryn Gott & Hongsoo Kim & Michal Boyd & He Chen & Martin Connolly, 2013. "Where do people die? An international comparison of the percentage of deaths occurring in hospital and residential aged care settings in 45 populations, using published and available statistics," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 58(2), pages 257-267, April.
    17. Peretti-Watel, P. & Bendiane, M.K. & Moatti, J.P., 2005. "Attitudes toward palliative care, conceptions of euthanasia and opinions about its legalization among French physicians," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 1781-1793, April.
    18. Jakobsson, Eva & Bergh, Ingrid & Ohlen, Joakim & Oden, Anders & Gaston-Johansson, Fannie, 2007. "Utilization of health-care services at the end-of-life," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 276-287, August.
    19. Rian Marais & Sara S. Grobbelaar & Imke H. de Kock, 2020. "Healthcare Technology Transfer in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Inductive Approach," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(08), pages 1-39, January.
    20. Vandrevala, Tushna & Hampson, Sarah E. & Daly, Tom & Arber, Sara & Thomas, Hilary, 2006. "Dilemmas in decision-making about resuscitation--a focus group study of older people," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 1579-1593, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0126820. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.