Abstract:

Standing order is the instrument with which the community health extension workers (CHEW) were trained and are expected to use when attending to patients at primary health care facilities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of the CHEWs on the standing order. The research was prospective and cross-sectional in nature and used a self-applied structured questionnaire distributed to eligible CHEWs between the months of March and April 2022. The age of the respondents ranged between 23 and 58 years, with a mean age of 42.5 years and a standard deviation of 6.03. 81.1% responded that standing order should be used by CHEWs at all times, while 86.8% responded that all CHEWs should use it when attending to patients. The perceptions of CHEWs on acceptability and credibility of standing order were high, but that of its usefulness was low.

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