Research Department, Association of Future African Neurosurgeons, Yaounde, Cameroon.
PLoS One. 2022 Mar 17;17(3):e0264955. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264955. eCollection 2022.
Low- and middle-income countries bear the majority of neurosurgical disease burden and patients face significant barriers to seeking, reaching, and receiving care. We aimed to understand barriers to seeking care among adult Africans by evaluating the public perception, knowledge of availability, and readiness to use neurosurgical care services.
An e-survey was distributed among African adults who are not in the health sector or pursuing a health-related degree. Chi-square test and ANOVA were used for bivariate analysis and the alpha value was set at 0.05. Odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
Six hundred and sixty-two adults from 16 African countries aged 25.4 (95% CI: 25.0, 25.9) responded. The majority lived in urban settings (90.6%) and were English-speaking (76.4%) men (54.8%). Most respondents (76.3%) could define neurosurgery adequately. The most popular neurosurgical diseases were traumatic brain injury (76.3%), congenital brain and spine diseases (67.7%), and stroke (60.4%). Unwillingness to use or recommend in-country neurosurgical services was associated with rural dwelling (β = -0.69, SE = 0.31, P = 0.03), lack of awareness about the availability of neurosurgeons in-country (β = 1.02, SE = 0.20, P<0.001), and believing neurosurgery is expensive (β = -1.49, SE = 0.36, P<0.001).
Knowledge levels about neurosurgery are satisfactory; however, healthcare-seeking is negatively impacted by multiple factors.
中低收入国家承担了大部分神经外科疾病负担，患者在寻求、获得和接受治疗方面面临着巨大的障碍。我们旨在通过评估公众对神经外科护理服务的认知、可及性的了解以及准备使用情况，了解非洲成年人寻求护理的障碍。
一项电子调查在非卫生部门工作或攻读与健康相关学位的非洲成年人中进行。使用卡方检验和方差分析进行双变量分析，alpha 值设为 0.05。计算了比值比及其 95%置信区间。
来自 16 个非洲国家的 662 名年龄在 25.4 岁（95%CI：25.0，25.9）的成年人做出了回应。大多数受访者居住在城市地区（90.6%），是讲英语（76.4%）的男性（54.8%）。大多数受访者（76.3%）能够充分定义神经外科。最受欢迎的神经外科疾病是创伤性脑损伤（76.3%）、先天性脑和脊柱疾病（67.7%）和中风（60.4%）。不愿意使用或推荐国内神经外科服务与居住在农村（β=-0.69，SE=0.31，P=0.03）、缺乏对国内神经外科医生可用性的认识（β=1.02，SE=0.20，P<0.001）以及认为神经外科费用昂贵（β=-1.49，SE=0.36，P<0.001）有关。
关于神经外科的知识水平令人满意；然而，多种因素对医疗保健的寻求产生了负面影响。
