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Personal and professional challenges in the management of deliberate self-poisoning patients in rural Sri Lanka: a qualitative study of rural hospital doctors' experiences and perceptions

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, October 2008
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About this Attention Score

  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (66th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (58th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 policy source
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1 X user

Citations

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28 Dimensions

Readers on

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66 Mendeley
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Title
Personal and professional challenges in the management of deliberate self-poisoning patients in rural Sri Lanka: a qualitative study of rural hospital doctors' experiences and perceptions
Published in
BMC Public Health, October 2008
DOI 10.1186/1471-2458-8-373
Pubmed ID
Authors

Lalith Senarathna, Jon Adams, Dhammika De Silva, Nick A Buckley, Andrew H Dawson

Abstract

Deliberate self-poisoning is a major public heath issue in developing countries. In rural Sri Lanka deliberate self-poisoning is one of the leading causes of hospital death. The majority of patients with poisoning present to rural hospitals for initial treatment that are staffed by non-specialist and often relatively junior doctors. The treatment of self-poisoning patients poses numerous clinical challenges and further difficulties are experienced if patients are uncooperative and aggressive, intoxicated with alcohol or suffering mental illness. Previous research in developed countries has examined self-poisoning patients and their treatment but little is know about self-poisoning patient care in the context of rural health provision in developing countries. This study provides the first focused exploration of the experiences and perceptions of primary care rural hospital doctors in Sri Lanka toward the treatment of self-poisoning patients. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen doctors from rural hospitals in the North Central Province, Sri Lanka. All interviews were recorded and transcribed and subject to thematic analysis. Participating doctors did perceive that treating self-poisoning patients in a primary care rural hospital as potentially confidence-building. However, resource issues such as the lack of medication, equipment and staffing were seen as important challenges to treating self-poisoning patients. Other challenges identified included disparity with community and other staff members regarding expectations of care, a sense of professional isolation and a lack of continuing education programs. Addressing professional isolation through educational and trainee programs for doctors and reducing the variance in expectations between professional groups and the community has the potential to improve delivery of care for self-poisoning patients.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 66 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Iran, Islamic Republic of 1 2%
South Africa 1 2%
Australia 1 2%
Unknown 63 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 10 15%
Student > Master 9 14%
Researcher 7 11%
Student > Postgraduate 5 8%
Other 5 8%
Other 16 24%
Unknown 14 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 23 35%
Nursing and Health Professions 10 15%
Psychology 5 8%
Business, Management and Accounting 2 3%
Unspecified 2 3%
Other 8 12%
Unknown 16 24%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 March 2018.
All research outputs
#6,832,267
of 23,885,338 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#7,183
of 15,685 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,829
of 93,839 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#15
of 39 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,885,338 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,685 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 93,839 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 39 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its contemporaries.