Background: Despite many initiatives made by the National Department of Health through the Minister of Health, the provision of quality health care services remains a serious challenge in South Africa, especially in public rural clinics.Aim: The study aims to determine the perceptions of professional nurses on the factors affecting the provision of quality health care services at selected public primary health care clinics in rural areas of the Capricorn District, Limpopo Province.Setting: The study was conducted at selected public primary health care clinics in rural areas of the Capricorn District, Limpopo Province.Methods: This study utilised a quantitative method, descriptive and a cross-sectional study conducted for three months at the selected public primary health care clinics. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 155 professional nurses who met the selection criteria. Data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences programme version 26.0.Results: The results of 155 professional nurses were only 116 (74%) and reported that the use of modern technology such as electronic blood pressure, sonar machines and pulse reading computers improves the quality of health care services. Also 129 (84%), 124 (77%) and 118 (76%) reported that they were overwhelmed by the workload, the staff attitude and cleanliness of the clinic, respectively, which all affect the quality of health care services rendered. Moreover, only about 29 (19%) were satisfied with the salary they earned.Conclusion: Despite the effort and interventions put in place by the Department of Health with regard to the Ideal Clinic Realisation and Maintenance in response to the current deficiencies in the quality of primary health care services and to lay a strong foundation for the implementation of National Health Insurance. The quality of health care services is still hindered by several factors such as an overwhelming workload, the attitude of the staff and cleanliness in the work environment, poor infrastructure and the professional nurses perceive the environment as lacking equipment.

Background Maternal and child health (MCH) is a global health concern, especially impacting low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Digital health technologies are creating opportunities to address the social determinants of MCH by facilitating access to information and providing other forms of support throughout the maternity journey. Previous reviews in different disciplines have synthesized digital health intervention outcomes in LMIC. However, contributions in this space are scattered across publications in different disciplines and lack coherence in what digital MCH means across fields. Objective This cross-disciplinary scoping review synthesized the existing published literature in 3 major disciplines on the use of digital health interventions for MCH in LMIC, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Methods We conducted a scoping review using the 6-stage framework by Arksey and O’Malley across 3 disciplines, including public health, social sciences applied to health, and human-computer interaction research in health care. We searched the following databases: Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, and PLOS. A stakeholder consultation was undertaken to inform and validate the review. Results During the search, 284 peer-reviewed articles were identified. After removing 41 duplicates, 141 articles met our inclusion criteria: 34 from social sciences applied to health, 58 from public health, and 49 from human-computer interaction research in health care. These articles were then tagged (labeled) by 3 researchers using a custom data extraction framework to obtain the findings. First, the scope of digital MCH was found to target health education (eg, breastfeeding and child nutrition), care and follow-up of health service use (to support community health workers), maternal mental health, and nutritional and health outcomes. These interventions included mobile apps, SMS text messaging, voice messaging, web-based applications, social media, movies and videos, and wearable or sensor-based devices. Second, we highlight key challenges: little attention has been given to understanding the lived experiences of the communities; key role players (eg, fathers, grandparents, and other family members) are often excluded; and many studies are designed considering nuclear families that do not represent the family structures of the local cultures. Conclusions Digital MCH has shown steady growth in Africa and other LMIC settings. Unfortunately, the role of the community was negligible, as these interventions often do not include communities early and inclusively enough in the design process. We highlight key opportunities and sociotechnical challenges for digital MCH in LMIC, such as more affordable mobile data; better access to smartphones and wearable technologies; and the rise of custom-developed, culturally appropriate apps that are more suited to low-literacy users. We also focus on barriers such as an overreliance on text-based communications and the difficulty of MCH research and design to inform and translate into policy.

Introduction: Digital health support using mobile and digital technologies, such as MomConnect and WhatsApp, is providing opportunities to improve maternal and child healthcare in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, the perspective of health service providers, pregnant women, and mothers as recipients of digital health support is under-researched in rural areas. Material and Methods: An exploratory-descriptive qualitative research approach was adopted to reflect on the experiences of mothers, community leaders, and community health workers on mobile health opportunities in the context of maternal and child health in rural areas. Purposive sampling was used to select 18 participants who participated in the two focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews for data collection about digital maternal and child health support. The thematic open coding method of data analysis assisted authors in making sense of the given reflections of mothers, community leaders, and healthcare workers about digital health support. Results: Participants commented on different existing digital support apps and their importance for maternal and child health. For example, MoMConnect, Pregnancy+, WhatsApp, and non-digital resources were perceived as useful ways of communication that assist in improving maternal and child health. However, participants reported several challenges related to the use of digital platforms, which affect following the health instructions given to pregnant women and mothers. Conclusions: Participants expressed the significant role of digital support apps in maternal and child health, which is impacted by various challenges. Addressing the lack of digital resources could improve access to health instructions for pregnant women and mothers.

Skills laboratory training for nurses is an educational intervention that assists nursing students to become experts in performing clinical skills in a clinical context -it enhances their critical thinking when they provide patient care. Clinical laboratory sessions or simulations are conceptualised as a concentrated, individualised effort to improve the performance of a specific skill. [1] Simulation is the reproduction approach of the essential features of a real-life situation and provides students with a learning opportunity regarding clinical and decision-making skills. [2] However, the approach can be categorised as low-fidelity and high-fidelity simulations. [3] Although nurse educators strive to mirror real situations in their skills laboratories using low-fidelity simulation, they often find that nursing students do not have the imaginative attitude necessary to visualise a dummy model as a real patient. Consequently, students frequently experience difficulty in making the transition from skills laboratory learning to real-patient situations in the clinical area. To facilitate this transition, nursing education institutions now use computerised simulation of high-fidelity medical simulations to facilitate clinical learning under the correct conditions, i.e. simulation-based nursing education. [4] Notably, first-level students in all healthcare professions, including nursing, do not have training for handling patients before they start their university programmes. Therefore, clinical laboratory sessions are a suitable way to teach nursing students how to deal with real-life situations. [5] Imran et al. [6] maintain that it is important for students to acquire clinical skills in the skills laboratory, thus making such sessions the best option to assist health professional students to acquire clinical skills before being exposed to real-life settings. [6] These sessions serve to improve clinical acumen and understanding, as well as to enhance the competency of their clinical skills in healthcare settings. Skills laboratory sessions also assist students to be efficient and effective when they are placed in hospital settings, as they can provide quality care to patients, based on the orientation acquired from the sessions. [5] However, students' effectiveness in the given sessions depends on the role played by clinical lecturers.The duties of clinical skills laboratory lecturers include planning and organising of teaching sessions, designing a learning programme and evaluating programmes to ascertain that the objectives have been met. Clinical skills laboratory lecturers are also expected to develop study materials, including study guides for skills training, to demonstrate clinical skills to students and to assess students regarding these skills, to measure their performance and to keep records as required. [7][8][9] Lӧfmark et al. [10] point out that students gained greater independence through clinical learning. Nursing education institutions have to design and implement clinical learning activities that p...

Gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia are the most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa leading to undesirable perinatal and maternal outcomes. In South Africa, a high rate of maternal death was noted due to pre-eclampsia. However, the use of digital maternal health in South Africa has become of significance for reinforcement of health care. Digital health initiatives such as mobile health technologies were developed to improve better access to communities in low and middle-income countries. The implementation and practices of digital health seem to be growing expandable to achieve the UHC goals in the provision of care to all globally and nationally. This review aims to review existing literature on the use of digital maternal health to minimise admission of pre-eclampsia and early identification of gravid women who are at risk of developing pre-eclampsia.