Background Attitudes and beliefs affect women’s cervical cancer screening behavior. Methods We surveyed 228 women in Cape Town, South Africa about their screening history, knowledge, beliefs, and access barriers regarding Papanicolaou (Pap) smears and cervical cancer. Results More than half of the participants had never had a Pap smear or had 1 more than 10 years ago. One third did not know what a Pap smear was. Lengthy wait times and fatalistic beliefs also affected screening behavior. Ethnicity was associated with differences in beliefs. Conclusions Opportunistic cancer screening events are an effective way that women can obtain Pap smears and cancer education.

The need for the utilization of various teaching strategies by lecturers when facilitating learning cannot be overemphasized. The aim of this study was to establish if lecturers at a Nursing College in Mpumalanga were using teaching strategies that could facilitate the personal development of nursing learners. A quantitative approach was followed for this study. The participants of the study were all lecturers at a Nursing College in Mpumalanga. Data was gathered by means of a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to describe and summarize data regarding the type of teaching strategies used and the recommendations that could enhance the utilization of various teaching strategies. The data revealed that the teaching strategies mostly utilized required active participation of the learners namely: formal/informal writing of assignments; learner-led class presentation; group sessions; clinical case studies; role-playing and clinical rounds. Inclusion of certain strategies such as problem-based learning, structured accompaniment and computer literacy for learners could enhance the personal development of nursing learners. Although lecturers did use some of the teaching strategies that could enhance the personal development of nursing learners, staff development regarding the utilization of various teaching strategies was highlighted as an important factor to be considered. Other findings revealed that lack of resources have a negative influence on the utilization of various teaching strategies.

Radical new possibilities of improved treatment of cancer are on offer from an advanced medical technology already demonstrating its significance: next-generation sequencing (NGS). This refined testing provides unprecedentedly precise diagnoses and permits the use of focused and highly personalized treatments. However, across regions globally, many cancer patients will continue to be denied the benefits of NGS as long as some of the yawning gaps in its implementation remain unattended. The challenges at the regional and national levels are linked because putting the solutions into effect is highly dependent on cooperation between regional- and national-level cooperation, which could be hindered by shortfalls in interpretation or understanding. The aim of the paper was to define and explore the necessary conditions for NGS and make recommendations for effective implementation based on extensive exchanges with policy makers and stakeholders. As a result, the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) developed a maturity framework structured around demand-side and supply-side issues to enable interested stakeholders in different countries to self-evaluate according to a common matrix. A questionnaire was designed to identify the current status of NGS implementation, and it was submitted to different experts in different institutions globally. This revealed significant variability in the different aspects of NGS uptake. Within different regions globally, to ensure those conditions are right, this can be improved by linking efforts made at the national level, where patients have needs and where care is delivered, and at the global level, where major policy initiatives in the health field are underway or in preparation, many of which offer direct or indirect pathways for building those conditions. In addition, in a period when consensus is still incomplete and catching up is needed at a political level to ensure rational allocation of resources—even within individual countries—to enable the best ways to make the necessary provisions for NGS, a key recommendation is to examine where closer links between national and regional actions could complement, support, and mutually reinforce efforts to improve the situation for patients.

The objectives of this study were to identify the role of community nurses in the prevention of tuberculosis (TB) and to identify problems experienced by them when fulfilling this role in the Tshwane Health District of Gauteng. A non-experimental, descriptive, quantitative research design method was used to collect data from community nurses. The sample included 59 registered nurses who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study. A questionnaire was used to collect data and quantitative data analysis methods were employed. Various opinions and ideas on the role of community nurses in the prevention of TB and the problems experienced were identified. Based on the results of this research, measures to protect community nurses from contracting TB whilst on duty should be a priority. Government should support TB programmes by providing money to non-governmental organisations and direct observed treatment short course (DOTS) supporters to make follow-up visits to patients possible, thus reducing the number of defaulters. Stringent measures should be taken at all border points to ensure that foreigners are screened for TB, multidrug-resistant TB and extensively drugresistant TB. This study was limited to community nurses in the Tshwane Health District of Gauteng who were registered with the South African Nursing Council (SANC) and therefore this study could not be generalised to registered nurses in the hospital setting or even to clinics in the rest of South Africa. Introduction BackgroundFor many years tuberculosis (TB) has been one of the killer diseases in South Africa. It is still a major health problem, despite the fact that it is both preventable and curable. The World Health Organization (WHO), cited in Smeltzer et al. (2010:567), estimated that about 1% of South Africans (roughly 490 000) contracted TB in 2008. According to Vlok (2006:515), TB is associated with poverty and poor living conditions, which make a person particularly susceptible to TB if he or she comes into contact with an infected person.The WHO found that TB is the second highest cause of death globally (WHO 2005:1), after the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), as it kills nearly two million people every year. A few years ago it was thought that TB could be successfully treated and even perhaps prevented by advances in medical treatment such as chemotherapy. Unfortunately this has not been the case, and TB can still be fatal (Toth et al. 2004:28). Africa is one of the countries with the highest incidence of TB. It is estimated that 2.4 million new TB cases are diagnosed and 540 000 deaths are caused by TB every year (WHO 2005:1).Controlling TB effectively is not the responsibility of healthcare workers alone; it is also the responsibility of each individual to prevent the spread of TB. This view is supported by the results of a study conducted by Richter and Peu (2004:38) who found that caregivers can help increase awareness of the community of their right to access effective TB care. Careg...

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