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“Poverty is the big thing”: exploring financial, transportation, and opportunity costs associated with fistula management and repair in Nigeria and Uganda

Overview of attention for article published in International Journal for Equity in Health, June 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (94th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
blogs
2 blogs
twitter
19 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
33 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
169 Mendeley
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Title
“Poverty is the big thing”: exploring financial, transportation, and opportunity costs associated with fistula management and repair in Nigeria and Uganda
Published in
International Journal for Equity in Health, June 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12939-018-0777-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Kaji Tamanna Keya, Pooja Sripad, Emmanuel Nwala, Charlotte E. Warren

Abstract

Women living with obstetric fistula often live in poverty and in remote areas far from hospitals offering surgical repair. These women and their families face a range of costs while accessing fistula repair, some of which include: management of their condition, lost productivity and time, and transport to facilities. This study explores, through women's, communities', and providers' perspectives, the financial, transport, and opportunity cost barriers and enabling factors for seeking repair services. A qualitative approach was applied in Kano and Ebonyi in Nigeria and Hoima and Masaka in Uganda. Between June and December 2015, the study team conducted in-depth interviews (IDIs) with women affected by fistula (n = 52) - including those awaiting repair, living with fistula, and after repair, and their spouses and other family members (n = 17), along with health service providers involved in fistula repair and counseling (n = 38). Focus group discussions (FGDs) with male and female community stakeholders (n = 8) and post-repair clients (n = 6) were also conducted. Women's experiences indicate the obstetric fistula results in a combined set of costs associated with delivery, repair, transportation, lost income, and companion expenses that are often limiting. Medical and non-medical ancillary costs such as food, medications, and water are not borne evenly among all fistula care centers or camps due to funding shortages. In Uganda, experienced transport costs indicate that women spend Ugandan Shilling (UGX) 10,000 to 90,000 (US$3.00-US$25.00) for two people for a single trip to a camp (client and her caregiver), while Nigerian women (Kano) spent Naira 250 to 2000 (US$0.80-US$6.41) for transportation. Factors that influence women's and families' ability to cover costs of fistula care access include education and vocational skills, community savings mechanisms, available resources in repair centers, client counseling, and subsidized care and transportation. The concentration of women in poverty and the perceived and actual out of pocket costs associated with fistula repair speak to an inability to prioritize accessing fistula treatment over household expenditures. Findings recommend innovative approaches to financial assistance, transport, information of the available repair centers, rehabilitation, and reintegration in overcoming cost barriers.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 19 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 169 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 169 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 49 29%
Researcher 15 9%
Student > Bachelor 14 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 10 6%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 5%
Other 27 16%
Unknown 46 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 31 18%
Nursing and Health Professions 31 18%
Social Sciences 12 7%
Business, Management and Accounting 6 4%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 4 2%
Other 26 15%
Unknown 59 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 32. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 April 2020.
All research outputs
#1,215,173
of 24,960,237 outputs
Outputs from International Journal for Equity in Health
#157
of 2,169 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#26,396
of 336,728 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Journal for Equity in Health
#4
of 55 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,960,237 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,169 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,728 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 55 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.