Journal article
Early postnatal home visits: a qualitative study of barriers and facilitators to achieving high coverage
published 3 September 2018
published 3 September 2018
A paper co-authored by Yared Amare, Pauline Scheelbeek and IDEAS team members Zelee Hill, Joanna Schellenberg, and Della Berhanu and published in BMC Public Health concludes that if timely postnatal home visits are to occur community health workers need realistic catchment areas that reflect their workload. Inaccessible areas may need their own community health workers. Good notification systems are essential, families will notify health workers if they have a clear reasons to do so, and more work is needed on how to ensure notification systems function.
Work ethic was a clear influencer on whether home visits occur, studies to date have focused on understanding the motivation of community health workers as a group, more studies on understanding motivation at an individual level are needed.