School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria.
Department of Homeopathy, University of Johannesburg.
Afr Health Sci. 2022 Sep;22(3):703-709. doi: 10.4314/ahs.v22i3.75.
Despite the importance of healthcare acceptability, the public health community has yet to agree on its explicit definition and conceptual framework. We explored different definitions and conceptual frameworks of healthcare acceptability, and identified commonalities in order to develop an integrated definition and conceptual framework of healthcare acceptability.
We applied qualitative thematic content analysis on research articles that attempted to define healthcare acceptability. We searched online databases and purposefully selected relevant articles that we imported into ATLAS.ti 8.4 for deductive and inductive analysis which continued until there were no new information emerging from selected documents (data saturation).
Our analysis of the literature affirmed that healthcare acceptability remains poorly defined; limiting its application in public health. We proposed a practical definition attempting to fill identified gaps. We defined acceptability as a "multi-construct concept describing the nonlinear cumulative combination in parts or in whole of the fit between the expected and experienced healthcare from the patient, provider or healthcare systems and policy perspectives in a given context."
We presented and described a workable definition and framework of healthcare acceptability that can be applied to different actors including patients, healthcare providers, researchers, managers or policy makers.
尽管医疗保健可接受性很重要，但公共卫生界尚未就其明确的定义和概念框架达成一致。我们探讨了医疗保健可接受性的不同定义和概念框架，并确定了其共同点，以便制定医疗保健可接受性的综合定义和概念框架。
我们对试图定义医疗保健可接受性的研究论文进行了定性主题内容分析。我们在在线数据库中进行搜索，并有意选择了相关文章，将其导入 ATLAS.ti 8.4 进行演绎和归纳分析，直到从选定的文件中没有出现新的信息（数据饱和）。
我们对文献的分析证实，医疗保健可接受性仍然定义不明确；这限制了它在公共卫生中的应用。我们提出了一个实用的定义，试图填补已确定的空白。我们将可接受性定义为“一个多构念的概念，描述了在特定背景下，从患者、提供者或医疗保健系统和政策角度来看，预期和体验到的医疗保健之间的契合度的整体或部分的非线性累积组合。”
我们提出并描述了一个可行的医疗保健可接受性定义和框架，可应用于不同的参与者，包括患者、医疗保健提供者、研究人员、管理者或政策制定者。
