Evaluation of actions of rural health centers during the epidemic of covid 19 Case study: Central part of Mashhad county

جغرافیاوتوسعه ناحیه ای

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 05 October 2024

Document Type: scientific-research article

DOI: 10.22067/jgrd.2024.84569.1335

Authors

haneyeh moayerian¹; maryam ghasemi^{* 2}

¹Geography

²*

Abstract

Healthcare services were of great importance during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since access to healthcare services and the quality of access to these services are important components of health, the present research evaluates the actions of rural healthcare centers in this regard during the covid-19 epidemic in the central part of Mashhad county. The research method is descriptive, analytical and of the type of applied research. Information was collected in two ways, documentary and field. In this research, 10 villages were randomly selected from the total of 66 villages with health care centers in the central part of Mashhad county, which have registered positive statistics of Covid-19. The unit of analysis was 181 people from rural households in the sample villages. The quality of health care centers was quantified with the help of 12 indicators under the four components of responsiveness, safety, effectiveness and cost of services. Also, access to health care services was investigated with the help of 13 indicators under the three components of geographical access, usability, and access to protective facilities. The results showed that about 40% of the heads of the investigated households were infected with Covid-19, and in 10% of the investigated households, all family members were infected with Covid-19, and only 38% of the infected went to rural health centers. Also, 4% of the surveyed households have died due to covid-19, which is a high figure compared to the general statistics of the country. According to the findings, villagers' access to health care services in the face of Covid-19 is significantly lower than the theoretical average with an average of 2.89 on the Likert scale. Also, the quality of health care services with an average of 3.08 is not significantly different from the theoretical average and is evaluated as average.

Keywords

Covid-19; rural health centers; quality of health care services; access to health care services