Health Services Provided To Ain Shams University Students

Abstract

Little research on the health services provided to university students has incorporated a range of indicators of health services, its quality provided and study-related burdens. In addition, little research has examined these issues in the context of Egyptian university students. Likewise, very few studies have been undertaken that collected the same data (appropriate sample sizes) across many faculties within one university. Hence, the current study examined perceived health services, awareness and satisfaction provided by MAASU (Medical Administration of Ain Shams University) to Ain Shams University students, Cairo, Egypt. The aim of the study is to improve utilization of health services provided to Ain Shams University students. The study was done on university students and the health services providers; doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses. Two questionnaires were designed one for the university students and the other one for the health care workers, for the assessment of awareness and satisfaction of the different health services provided by the Medical administration of Ain Shams University (MAASU) for the university students and through the knowledge and satisfaction about the services provided through the health care workers, and the health care workers recommendations for improving such services. The total numbers of students in the study were 1090 classified as 836 students as non random samples, chosen from almost all faculties of the university through the main university campuses in Abbassia, and 254 students as users’ sample from medical centers located in different faculties, students hostels both males and females, and the student hospital. For the health care workers questionnaire 65 questionnaires were handed to; doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses. Most of them were interviewed personally for their participation. The results shows that awareness results for the medical staff was only 16.9% of participating medical staff were aware of the presence of vision for the medical. Around one third were un aware of their job description while about slightly more than half of the medical staff participants were ‘Un aware’ of the policies and procedures. More than half of the medical staff rated ‘Average’ and ‘Bad’ satisfaction for the utilization of the medical administration services by students. About the majority were ‘Un aware’ about the presence of evaluation methods for the services provided, and almost the same percentage stated there are no relation between providing services and financial rewards. Slightly more than half of health care workers stated that there are no training plans and only 38.1% had attended training courses and all of them stated that the courses they have attended was not beneficial. The majority also stated that there are no measurements for the services providers and no relation between providing the services and financial rewards. The results of the university students show that; females participated in the study accounts for 58.8% while males account for 41.2%, and their awareness rate was 79% among males and 65% among females. The majority of the students were aware of the health services provided by the medical administration in Ain Shams University while the rest were not aware of the services provided while the overall satisfaction rate was; 56% of the students were satisfied with the services provided while 44% of the students were not satisfied by the services provided; 53.8 % of ASU students who were aware of the services graded ‘poor’ and ‘average’ for the doctor’s communication. Around 56.1% of ASU students enrolled rated ‘poor’ and ‘average’ for the regular presence of doctors The rate of satisfaction among males 55.3%, students of practical faculties 50.5% and students of final years 57.6% students were more significant among than among females 44.7%, students of human sciences faculties 49.5% and students of first years 18.6% respectively The satisfaction was significantly more among students, who utilized the services 72.1%, especially those who used the ‘health centers’ 34.3% for ‘emergencies’ 52%. There was no effect for awareness sessions on the satisfaction rate of students; satisfied 27.1% and unsatisfied students 26.8%. The majority of the students knew from their friends. The rate of the presence of awareness raising posters between satisfied students was 72.2% while 62.1% were unsatisfied (table 26). For the posters titles, the majority was about smoking. The majority of the students were interested in knowing youth health issues. There was no significant association between satisfaction and living in hostels and quality of food. The majority of satisfied students rated the service ‘poor’ and ‘average’ for most of the provided services.