Primary care physicians use various tools and methods to identify medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). The main purpose of our study is to determine the views of Slovenian family medicine trainees ...(FMT) about using the "Careful Assessment" tool for managing patients with MUS.
A qualitative study using open survey questions focused on the experience of family medicine trainees in managing patients with MUS. The sample consisted of surveys from 184 family medicine trainees. These trainees analysed a total of 702 patients with MUS. Manual coding was used for quantitative content analysis.
In the coding process, 49 codes were developed that included broader research fields about using the "Careful Assessment" tool for managing patients with MUS. The codes were grouped into four theoretically grounded, logical categories in accordance with the elaborated theoretical concept: multi-purpose utility; improved patient management; in-depth knowledge and new skills; and patient response.
The study demonstrated that, in the view of Slovenian FMT, the "Careful Assessment" tool has multi-purpose utility. The study showed that FMT felt that this tool helps them in systematic patient management. Their opinion is that it helps them establish a trusting relationship with patients, which is a precondition for providing further treatment.
Slovenia is an aging society. Social security expenditures for the elderly are rising steadily, and the majority of Slovenians are firmly convinced that the state must provide elder care. This ...situation means that informal caregivers face many challenges and problems in their altruistic mission.
To explore the experiences and feelings of informal caregivers and to provide an understanding of how informal caregivers support the elderly and what challenges and difficulties they face in Slovenian society.
The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 caregivers. In addition to descriptive statistics, we conducted a qualitative study using the qualitative content analysis method.
We identified four themes among health caregivers' experiences with challenges and problems in providing long-term health care for the elderly. Caregivers pointed out that they are mostly left to themselves and their altruistic mission of giving informal long-term care to their elderly relatives and friends. Systemic regulation of the national public health care system is the source of many problems.
Other social systems determine and limit the position of informal caregivers in Slovenia. This qualitative study should be understood as useful stepping-stone to future research and real improvement in this area.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a broad direct impact on education, and at the same time it has significantly changed students’ lives. This study examines how Slovenian medical students experienced the ...shift to distance-based education following multiple lockdowns.
The aim of this study is to examine experiences of medical students about distance-based education in the period of multiple lockdowns in 2020/2021. We used focused interviews to collect data. The questionnaire was developed in the following manner: the first set of questions was developed after studying the literature from Slovenia and abroad about distance-based education in higher education during COVID-19 lockdowns. The researchers then discussed this set to narrow the topics. In addition to preformulated questions, additional sub-questions also typical for focused interviews were asked as part of the research. We carried out a qualitative study using a qualitative content analysis method to analyze the data.
Sixteen interviews were conducted. We defined four categories summarizing students’ experiences with distance-based education during the COVID-19 pandemic: 1) technical issues, 2) organization of distance-based education, 3) social exclusion of students, and 4) suggestions for improvement. The categories are exclusive and represent individual topics for further analysis of students’ experiences with DBE during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results are supported by quotes from the interviews.
Medical students’ experiences with DBE mainly revealed shortcomings in computer literacy. Technical issues were largely an indicator that significantly marked students’ transition to DBE. Another important finding is that medical students emphasized problems related to social exclusion. Students made suggestions for improvements that broadly relate to the higher education system, and not only to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract
Aim:
This study aimed to identify nurses’ views on influenza vaccination and factors that might explain why they do not receive influenza vaccinations, and to examine any ethical issues ...encountered in the vaccination process.
Background:
All 27 European Union member states and 2 other European countries recommended influenza vaccinations for healthcare workers in 2014–15. Data show that the influenza vaccination rate among nurses in Slovenia is even lower than in other European countries. Slovenian study showed that 41.7% of the respondents had received both the pandemic and the seasonal vaccine. Doctors had the highest level of vaccine coverage, with 44.1%, followed by registered nurses at 23.4%, whereas the lowest level was found among nursing assistants and nursing technicians (17%) at a Ljubljana health clinic.
Methods:
A qualitative study was carried out. Nineteen nurses who did not receive influenza vaccination took part in the study. Thematic interviews were conducted in December 2018. Interview transcripts were read, coded, reviewed and labelled by three independent researchers. The collected material was processed using qualitative content analysis.
Findings:
Thirteen categories and four themes were identified and coded, which enabled an understanding of the nurses’ views regarding influenza vaccination. Most of their experiences were positive in one way: they recognised the importance of vaccination and people’s awareness of it. However, they did not obtain the influenza vaccine themselves. The main barriers to vaccination were doubt regarding the vaccine’s effectiveness, the potential for side effects, the belief that young healthcare professionals are well protected and not at high risk, an overrated trust in their own immune systems, and the belief that pharmaceutical industry marketing was targeting them. The nurses suggested several ways that vaccination could be promoted and improved vaccination coverage achieved. These findings call attention to the importance of recognising both the need for targeted information for the nurses and the need for different approaches to healthcare provision.
Croatia and Slovenia were the transit countries on the Balkan route for migrants and refugees from Middle East countries in 2015 and 2016. They had to optimize health care delivery in the special ...circumstances in refugee camps and transit centres. Little is known about health care provision in border camps where a large number of migrants stay for only couple of hours. Previous studies emphasize that language barriers and cultural differences play a central part in the relationship between health workers and migrants inside the transit zone. The aim of the study was to identify specific characteristics of health care provision experienced by primary healthcare providers in order to prepare solutions on how to organise health care in refugee settings.
Twelve thematic interviews were conducted in the middle of the most intense migration movements to the North-West Europe between November and December 2015 with health workers from Croatia and Slovenia. Interview transcripts were read, coded, reviewed, and labelled. We used qualitative content analysis.
Four themes about the health service provision for refugees at Schengen border were identified. The circumstance when mutual understanding is poor and the consultation not successful, cultural differences represent a central barrier. Participants highlighted that the importance of respecting human dignity is crucial for the provision of basic medical care for migrants in transit.
Successful overcoming language barriers, respecting cultural differences, humanity, susceptibility to social deprivation and traumatic experiences are the key factors important for organisation of health care in transit centers and camps. This article gives some useful tips for healthcare workers and policy makers who are participating in health services provision for migrants and other refugees. Health workers should be prepared to work in special working conditions with a lack of resources. Their work would require timely planning and reflection on the organization of more transit camps.
Ethical Committee of the Republic of Slovenia approved the study as a project number 112/02/16.
Background: Most patients that commit suicide consult their GPs before their death. This topic is often surrounded by secrecy and associated with guilt and shame. There is a lack of knowledge about ...support for GPs after patient suicide.
Objectives: To identify the widest range of Slovenian GPs' problems and needs in connection with patient suicide, and, based on the findings of the study, to prepare ways to assist GPs after patient suicide.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were held with GPs that had experienced a patient's suicide during their professional career until saturation was reached. The interview guide was piloted. Twenty-two in-depth interviews were carried out between April 2012 and February 2013. Transcripts were coded and thematically analysed using qualitative content analysis.
Results: Participating GPs suggested possible forms of support, most frequently individual consultation with a psychologist or a psychiatrist, in person, by phone, or via e-mail. Balint groups, group consultations and various workshops on suicide or depression would be a preferable form of support. Some GPs perceived critical incident review as an attempt to blame them, whereas others saw it as an opportunity for support. A group of peers that could discuss professional dilemmas in which more experienced GPs would help younger GPs would be helpful.
Conclusion: Slovenian GPs did not have any formal support system at the time of the research, but they would appreciate such a possibility.
AimWe sought to examine strength of primary care service delivery as measured by selected process indicators by general practitioners from 31 European countries plus Australia, Canada, and New ...Zealand. We explored the relation between strength of service delivery and healthcare expenditures.
The strength of a country's primary care is determined by the degree of development of a combination of core primary care dimensions in the context of its healthcare system. This study analyses the strength of service delivery in primary care as measured through process indicators in 31 European countries plus Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
A comparative cross-sectional study design was applied using the QUALICOPC GP database. Data on the strength of primary healthcare were collected using a standardized GP questionnaire, which included 60 questions divided into 10 dimensions related to process, structure, and outcomes. A total of 6734 general practitioners participated. Data on healthcare expenditure were obtained from World Bank statistics. We conducted a correlation analysis to analyse the relationship between strength and healthcare expenditures.FindingsOur findings show that the strength of service delivery parameters is less than optimal in some countries, and there are substantial variations among countries. Continuity and comprehensiveness of care are significantly positively related to national healthcare expenditures; however, coordination of care is not.
This paper assesses three sustainable development strategies--the European Union's Sustainable Development Strategy in its revised version, the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development and ...Slovenia's Development Strategy--according to the level of sustainability these strategies provide. Deriving from three diverse sustainable development regimes, selected strategies are scrutinised for the presence of the five general principles of effective sustainable development strategies promoted by the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Building on George and Kirkpatrick's (2006) framework for analysis, we concentrate on principles of strategic planning and sustainable development, and a coordinated set of measures to ensure their implementation. The results reveal that the major differences between the assessed strategies are present in the sophistication of the theoretical bases and the integration of three main pillars of sustainable development (i.e. environmental, economic and social). In general, the assessed strategies reflect a high degree of inclusiveness of a variety of interests. However, there is a common weakness among them in terms of implementation, be it in the provision of adequate resources, the guarantee of adequate implementing capacity of the institutions designated for implementation or the precise definition of the institutional framework responsible for the implementation of the strategy. Keywords: sustainable development, sustainability assessment, European Union Sustainable Development Strategy, Slovenia's Development Strategy, Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development, sustainable development principles, Slovenia.
Election posters are a visual means of communicating political messages to a large audience, and they are an important print medium for political communication that is directly controlled by ...political actors. Posters have played a large role in election campaigns for the past two centuries, and as a result, this trend continues in many countries today. The legacy of socialism and the rule of the Communist Party made posters even more important in Slovenia, due to the medium's significant function in the propaganda machinery. By employing the informative-persuasive framework (Mueller and Stratmann 1994), we analysed the nature of electoral competition in Slovenian poster campaigning as well as the extent of its (dis)continuity with posters from the period of communist monism. Based on the content analysis of 841 posters from the communist and noncommunist periods, we observed that Slovenian posters in the post-1991 democratic era reflect patterns of poster campaigning characteristic of liberal democracies and demonstrate a clear break with posters from the communist regime. Those patterns confirm the general assumption that dominant political actors employ more persuasive poster campaigning, while the less established devote more attention to informative activities.
The study focuses on the programmatic bases of Slovenian political parties since independence. It presents an analysis of party programs and their preferences regarding doctors and other health ...workers, as well as the contents most commonly related to them. At the same time, the study also highlights the intensity of the presence of doctors on the policy agenda through time.
In the study, 83 program documents of political parties have been analysed. The study includes programmes of political parties that have occurred in parliamentary elections in Slovenia between 1992 and 2014 and have exceeded the parliamentary threshold. The data were analysed using the content analysis method, which is suitable for analysing policy texts. The analysis was performed using ATLAS.ti, the premier software tool for qualitative data analysis.
The results showed that doctors and other health workers are an important political topic in non-crisis periods. At that time, the parties in the context of doctors mostly dealt with efficiency and the quality of services in the health system. They often criticize doctors and expose the need for their control. In times of economic crisis, doctors and other health workers are less important in normative commitments of parties.
Slovenian political parties and their platforms cannot be distinguished ideologically, but primarily on the principle of access to government. It seems reasonable to conclude that parties do not engage in dialogue with doctors, and perceive the latter aspassive recipients of government decisions-politics.
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