Assessment of selected non-communicable diseases in an urban health district of South Africa
Date
2015-03-27
Authors
Makhudu, Modise Elias
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Abstract
Background: The World Health Organization predicts that the deaths related to Non-
Communicable Diseases in Africa will rise by 27% over the next decade. As a
response to the problem, the National Department of Health in South Africa
introduced interventions that focussed on implementing health facility based Non-
Communicable Diseases register and a monitoring tool. The Gauteng Department of
Health in South Africa started introducing the monitoring tool in public health
facilities since April 2011 in a phased manner. This study used a one week data
collected in the month of April 2011 in selected health facilities within the
Johannesburg Health District.
Aim: To describe the socio-demographic and clinical profiles of the study population
attending the health facilities in Johannesburg Health District.
Methodology: A cross-sectional study design was used for the study. The data was
collected from the selected Community Health Centres using the monitoring tool
developed by the National Department of Health. The data were collected for a
week from randomly selected health facilities in 2011.
Results: Nine-hundred and sixty eight study participants were recruited from the five
community health centres for the assessment of non-communicable diseases.
Among the study participants, the prevalence of hypertension (94.6%) was highest
followed by diabetes (39.4%) and hyper-cholesterolaemia (4.6%). A number of study
participants had comorbidity associated with all three conditions. The majority of
them were 45 years and above (88%), female (53%), and black (98%); There were no
significant association between these three conditions and risk factors such as
smoking and alcohol drinking. The complications among the study participants
include nephropathy, cardiac diseases and retinopathy. Annual screening was done
for a number of study participants but it was erratically done so that all study
participants were not screened. Twenty-two percent of 968 study participants have
blood pressure of more than 140/90mmHg. Twenty percent of study participants
have a weight more than 90kg. The sugar level of 22% study participants was more
than 7mmol/l.
Conclusion: The NCD monitoring tool could be used as an effective tool for
management of NCD in PHC setting like Johannesburg Health District.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the
Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Public Health in the field of Hospital Management
October, 2014