Capacity of Commune Health Stations in Chi Linh District, Hai Duong Province, for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases

Abstract

The primary health care system in Vietnam has been playing an important role in prevention and control of diseases. This study aimed to describe the capacity of commune health stations in Chi Linh district, Hai Duong province for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). A mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative approaches) approach was applied to collect data in 20 commune health stations. The participants, including health workers, stakeholders, and patients with NCDs, were selected for the study. The findings reported that the main activities of prevention and control of NCDs at commune health stations (CHSs) still focused on information-education-community (IECs), unqualified for providing screening, diagnosis, and treatments of NCDs. The capacity for prevention and control of NCDs in CHSs was inadequate to provide health care services related to prevention and control of NCDs and unmet with the community's demands. In order to ensure the role and implementation of primary care level, there is an urgent need to improve the capacity of CHSs for prevention and control of NCDs, particularly a national budget for NCDs prevention and control, the essential equipment and medicines recommended by the World Health Organization should be provided and available at the CHSs.

Readiness, Availability and Utilization of Rural Vietnamese Health Facilities for Community Based Primary Care of Non-communicable Diseases: A CrossSectional Survey of 3 Provinces in Northern Vietnam

“…Thi et al studied all CHCs in one district and concluded that healthcare workers were unqualified to provide screening, diagnosis, and treatments of NCDs. 24 Our study also found that CHC utilization was statistically significantly different among the study provinces, with the total mean number of visits lower in the mountainous region. However, because we do not have the total number of people in each CHC, we cannot make a meaningful comparison of clinical utilization rates.…”

Health system readiness for non-communicable diseases at the primary care level: a systematic review

“… 34 Limited public financial/budgetary support has also been identified as a major barrier to NCD services in primary healthcare in Vietnam. 45 47 A national-level health worker in Vietnam conveyed the following to Kien et al in 2018:…”

“… 41 Furthermore, a lack of interaction between private and public providers and stakeholders was reported for NCD prevention/management activities in Vietnam. 45 A mixed-method study found that Vietnam’s nationally targeted NCD management and control programme lacked L&G capacity. 47 …”

“…Then, 5630 studies were excluded based on a title and abstract review, with 107 meeting the inclusion criteria for a full-text review. Following the full-text review, 23 studies were ultimately included in this study (table 2): 15 were quantitative (cross-sectional),25–39 3 were qualitative40–42 and 5 were mixed-method studies 43–47. Most of the research was conducted in resource-poor settings (20 studies), mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian countries.…”

“…Of the 23 studies, 18 addressed issues related to the HSD system’s readiness in preventing and managing NCDs at the primary healthcare level. Eleven of the 18 studies were quantitative studies, assessing primary healthcare facilities’ readiness in implementing the WHO SARA reference manual25–27 29 30 36 38 45 or WHO PEN interventions 33–35. Three papers adopted the qualitative approach,40–42 while another three used the mixed-method approach 43 45 47.…”