Readiness of Public Pediatric Services During COVID-19 Pandemic in Chile
27 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2023
Abstract
Background: The readiness of pediatric services in the face of COVID-19 has been a fundamental aspect to maintain their services and adapt them to the innovations and conditions imposed by the pandemic. Despite this, there are few studies that allow describing how pediatric services were prepared in middle- and low-income countries.
Purpose: The objective of this study was to use the R=MC2 framework to describe the readiness of pediatric services in four regions of Chile, located in the north, center and south of the country.Design and methodsTwenty-nine individual interviews and two group interviews were conducted in a semi-structured way with regional managers, local coordinators and executors of the Comprehensive Childhood Protection System 'Chile Crece Contigo'.
Results: From a thematic content analysis, a generalized feeling of poor readiness was identified, mainly linked to the lack of structural conditions, which were covered through specific capacities of the health centers and the motivation of professionals and their teams.
Conclusions: The importance of the identified factors identified in this study to the improvement of the readiness of pediatric services in a persistent pandemic context that drives modifications in the delivery and conditions of these services are discussed.
Note:
Funding Information: This work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) under Grant “Fondo de Investigación COVID -19” ID343.
Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Ethics Approval Statement: All ethical considerations were approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Universidad Santiago de Chile by means of the ETHICAL REPORT N° 017/2021.
Keywords: Organizational readiness, pediatric services, COVID-19 pandemic, Chile Crece Contigo
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