Document Type
Article
Original Publication Date
2014
Journal/Book/Conference Title
BMC Psychiatry
Volume
14
Issue
31
DOI of Original Publication
10.1186/1471-244X-14-31
Date of Submission
August 2014
Abstract
Background
A performance measurement system is planned for South African substance abuse treatment services. Provider-level barriers to implementing these systems have been identified in the United States, but little is known about the nature of these barriers in South Africa. This study explored the willingness of South African substance abuse treatment providers’ to adopt a performance measurement system and perceived barriers to monitoring service quality that would need to be addressed during system development.
Methods
Three focus group discussions were held with treatment providers from two of the nine provinces in South Africa. These providers represented the diverse spread of substance abuse treatment services available in the country. The final sample comprised 21 representatives from 12 treatment facilities: eight treatment centres in the Western Cape and four in KwaZulu-Natal. Content analysis was used to extract core themes from these discussions.
Results
Participants identified barriers to the monitoring of service quality that included outdated modes of collecting data, personnel who were already burdened by paperwork, lack of time to collect data, and limited skills to analyse and interpret data. Participants recommended that developers engage with service providers in a participatory manner to ensure that service providers are invested in the proposed performance measurement system.
Conclusion
Findings show that substance abuse treatment providers are willing to adopt a performance measurement system and highlight several barriers that need to be addressed during system development in order to enhance the likelihood that this system will be successfully implemented.
Rights
© 2014 Myers et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Is Part Of
VCU Psychology Publications
Focus Group Protocol for Service Providers
Comments
Originially published at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/14/31