Published in Global health action
Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for noncommunicable diseases. This presents a major burden to health systems and to society in South Africa. Collectively, these conditions are overwhelming public healthcare. This is happening when the country has embarked on a journey to universal health coverage, hence the need to estimate the cost o...
Published in International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being
Hospital managers are best suited and located to enhance patient safety culture within their institutions. This study sought to provide insight on the perceptions of 10 managerial staff regarding the patient safety culture at a tertiary academic hospital in South Africa. In-depth interviews were conducted with strategic and operational managers wit...
Published in SAHARA J : journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance
Parent-adolescent sexuality communication, the process in which parents and their adolescent children discuss sexuality and sexual and reproductive health, is a key component for adolescents' protective behaviours. Open communication with parents, particularly mothers, enables informed sexual and reproductive health (SRH) decision-making amongst ad...
Published in Culture, medicine and psychiatry
Culturally appropriate spiritual care is increasingly recognised as a crucial component of spiritual care. As part of a larger study, we were interested in cultural and racial issues as experienced by spiritual carers in a hospice in Cape Town, South Africa. We conducted one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions with a cohort of spiritual c...
Records are important assets in the decision-making process and promote transparency and accountability. The successful provision of educational and training services in public schools relies on reliable and authentic records. Thus, evidence-based decision-making can help address the challenges in the basic education sector in public schools. The c...
Published in Frontiers in Psychology
Various studies have shown a decrease in well-being and an increase in mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, only a few studies have explored fear, depression, and well-being cross-culturally during this time. Accordingly, we present the results of a cross-cultural study that (1) compares these mental health scores for Germa...
Published in Child: care, health and development
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) remain vulnerable during the Covid-19 outbreak due to significant changes to their daily routines, social interactions and diets. In addition, these challenges may be exacerbated for children living in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) such as South Africa where there are already barriers such as p...
Published in Environmental geochemistry and health
Selenium (Se) is a vital micronutrient with widespread biological action but leads to toxicity when taken in excessive amounts. The biological benefits of Se are mainly derived from its presence in active sites of selenoproteins such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx). An enzyme whose role is to protect tissues against oxidative stress by catalysing t...
Published in AIDS and behavior
Home-based service delivery has been used to improve access to HIV testing and antiretroviral initiation across sub-Saharan Africa, but it has yet to be leveraged to improve pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake. We interviewed 37 adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Eastern Cape, South Africa to explore why they chose to initiate PrEP or no...
Published in Global public health
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may have a critical influence on adult outcomes and subsequent offspring development, but few data have explored the effects of ACEs in low-resource settings where the burdens of childhood adversity and HIV are high. Among mothers living with HIV in Cape Town, we examined the effects of ACEs on maternal psychoso...
