WHO implemented the Rapid Assistive Technology Assessment in 2021. This is a household survey on self-reported use, need and barriers for accessing AT in 35 countries globally. In order to obtain comparable data, all surveys followed guidelines developed by WHO, including national two-stage random sampling of households. The 2021 rATA survey included 32 of a total of 140 LMICs globally. Around 40 % of the total respondents (all countries) estimated travel distance to be <5 km, varying from less than 10 % to almost 60 % among the countries. Around 15 % had to travel more than 50 km, varying from 1.3 % to 37.5 %. More individuals living in rural as compared to urban areas had to travel more than 25 km to get their main assistive product. Gender differences were marginal. By far the most prevalent barrier to access assistive products was "Cannot afford", amounting to 39.9% and varying from 6.7 % to 79.1 % among countries. This was followed by "No support" with 14.3 %, varying from 2.3 % to 36.9 %, and "Not available" with 8.1 %, varying from 1 % to 21.5 %. More barriers were reported in rural than urban areas and women report more barriers than men. Variation between countries in both travel time and barriers is substantial and country-specific service development is needed to guide service development.
Patient participation in decision making concerning nursing needs is an important aspect of high quality care, of interest for both planning and implementing care. However, patients' perspective on participation in clinical decision making has not been studied extensively and the literature is inconclusive of what roles patients prefer to adopt. The aim was to investigate associations between patient demographics and preferences for participation in clinical decision making and to compare patients and RNs perceptions of the patients' preferences for participation. A cross sectional study including 80 nurse-patient dyads was adopted. The Control Preference scale was used to collect data. The findings showed that younger and more educated patients preferred to be more active in some aspects of decision making than older and less educated patients did. Further, in comparison with RNs inference of patient preferences for participation, patients preferred to be more passive in decision making in relation to nursing needs in general, as well as for physical and psychosocial needs. Differences in perceptions between patients and RNs concerning patient participation could hamper high quality care and need to be addressed.
This methodological paper describes how qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) is being used to manage and support a three-step protocol analysis (PA) of think aloud (TA) data in a study examining emergency nurses' reasoning during triage. The authors believe that QDAS program QRS NVivo will greatly facilitate the PA and will allow them to identify and describe the information that triage nurses concentrate on during triage, and how they structure this information to make a triage decision. These findings could assist in designing and creating decision support systems to guide nurses' triaging. Additionally, details about how to use QRS NVivo for PA of TA data may assist and guide future informatics research using similar methodology are presented here. This innovative use of QDAS holds great promise for future nursing informatics research.