Barriers to utilisation of antenatal care services in Bloemfontein, sub-district of Mangaung Metro, Free State, South Africa
- Authors: Montshiwa, Kgalalelo Christine
- Date: 2022-11
- Subjects: Prenatal care
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/26995 , vital:66212
- Description: Background: Maternal and child mortality remain a global health problem, regardless of preventative measures put in place. Antenatal care is crucial to decrease maternal and child morbidity and mortality. However, in Bloemfontein, the sub-district of Mangaung Metro in the Free State, it has been identified that women utilise this kind of service sub-optimally. The study aimed to explore and describe barriers to the utilisation of antenatal care by pregnant women in the Bloemfontein sub-district of Mangaung Metro. Methodology: This study was qualitative and used an explorative, descriptive design. Qualitative data was collected by using focus group discussions and key informants’ interviews. Three focus group discussions with twenty-five pregnant and lactating mothers, aged between 18 and 49 years, were conducted. Participants took part in one focus group discussion at each healthcare facility. Four key informant interviews were conducted with four facility managers and one professional midwife who conducted ANC at the clinic at the time of the study in the three healthcare facilities. A thematic analysis process was used to analyse the collected qualitative data under each identified barrier. The STATA version 15 was used in the analysis of the demographic characteristics of the participants. Results: Most of the participants indicated that they are aware of the importance of attending ANC appointments however, they have voiced that the delayed waiting times and staff attitudes contribute to how they feel about visiting a clinic early. Some of the participants mentioned that they have cultural barriers as they still believe that a traditional pregnant woman should not reveal her pregnancy in the early days but must rather wait until her stomach has grown significantly for her to visit the clinic. Two participants indicated that they had unplanned pregnancies and wanted to do an abortion, but their religious beliefs prevented them to choose to terminate their pregnancies. Economically, not all participants complained about their financial situation though the majority were unemployed and single. Participants from the Bloemspruit facility complained of transport as they stay far from the clinic and they are sometimes forced to walk alone which makes it difficult to attend all their booked sessions with their midwives. The results of the study revealed that there are several factors contributing to late antenatal care attendance namely provider and personal factors contributing to late antenatal care attendance in the Bloemfontein sub-district of Mangaung Metro. Personal factors that were found to be contributing to late antenatal care booking were lack of transport, especially for Bloemspruit participants, unwanted pregnancy, lack of financial support, lack of partner support, cultural and religious beliefs, and lack of knowledge. Provider factors that were found to be contributing to late booking were lack of resources like tools of the trade, long waiting times, poor infrastructure, human resources, and midwives’ attitudes. Recommendations. To deploy qualified midwives to conduct antenatal care clinics, to extend the service over the weekends as participants mentioned that they struggle to get time off from work during the week. Health promotion and community awareness campaigns on the importance of antenatal care may increase the utilisation of antenatal care services. , Thesis (MPA) -- Faculty of Health Sciences, 2023
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- Date Issued: 2022-11
Study on the effect of shade net on internal and external quality parameters and chilling injury of fruits of citrus species in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa
- Authors: Moabelo, Phillipine https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9040-1390
- Date: 2021-11
- Subjects: Fruit-culture , Horticulture , Citrus fruits
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/22622 , vital:52600
- Description: Pre-harvest technology of shade net is environmental friendly and was found previously to improve fruit growth and yield. In addition, it reduces wind blemishes and sunburn, and effectively act as a buffer against climate fluctuations, such as excessive light, wind and hail damages. However, commercial shade nets are capital intensive; therefore, it is important for farmers to understand its impact on fruit quality that is desired for export market and assess whether the investment is profitable to the industry or not. It was brought to attention that several citrus cultivars grown in Addo, Eastern Cape under 20percent commercial shade net shows sensitivity to chilling injury (CI); however. no information is yet documented about the impact of this technology on fruit quality. To determine the efficacy of 20percent-shade net technology in relation to the control (no shade net), the present study was designed with the objective to compare internal and external quality parameters of ‘Washington and Cambria’ navels, ‘Valley Gold’ mandarin, and ‘Eureka’ lemon fruit grown in shade netted orchards and stored at low temperatures (4 and -0.6°C) for 30 days in Addo area, Eastern Cape. Internal quality attributes assessed includes juice content, °Brixpercent, titratable acid (TA), °Brix:acid ratio and average number of seeds. External quality data assessed include rind colour, and fruit size, firmness/texture and fresh weight loss. For chilling injury, fruits were evaluated by examining the degree of rind pitting and assigning levels of severity namely 0, 1, 2 or 3 where 0 = no pitting detected, 1 = 1 pit, 2 = 2 or more pitting detected and 3 = severe pitting detected. The post-harvest experiments were done on fruits harvested from commercial citrus orchards in Sundays River Valley, between Kirkwood and Addo (33° 34' 0" South, 25° 41' 0" East), in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, over two harvesting seasons (2018 and 2019). The ‘Eureka’ lemon and ‘Washington navel’ fruit were collected from Allendale farm; the ‘Cambria’ navel fruits from the Nuwelande and Olifantsbos farms; and the ‘Valley Gold’ mandarin fruits from the Dunbrody/Unifruitti farm. The quality attributes were recorded in the Laboratory of the Citrus Research International (CRI), Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa during Season 1, and in the Horticulture lab of the University of Fort Hare (UFH), Alice, Eastern Cape, South, Africa during Season 2. The experimental layout was a typical pseudo randomised completely block design (RCBD) (not truly randomised) whereby treatments tested were subjected over time (pre-test, post-test). The two treatments i.e. shade vs. control (no shade net) could not be randomly allocated to orchards due to the practical issue of working on a commercial farm, . The sub-factor consisted of three postharvest treatments: Ambiemt temperature (at 0 days storage), 4°C and -0.6°C storages for 30 days. Secondly, an experiment to evaluate the impact of petroleum-based wax mixed with 2-(4-thiazolyl) benzimidazole [thiabendazole (TBZ)] (TBZ: 500 mg.L-1) on shade net vs control fruits was conducted. The fruits were stored at 4°C and - 0.6°C (coated) for 30 days and were evaluated after 7 days storage at room temperature. Shade net did not significantly affect the internal quality attributes of citrus fruits. The 20percent- shade net promoted size of ‘Washington’, ‘Cambria’ navels and ‘Valley Gold’ mandarin, whilst rind colour was not affect. Firmness loss was higher on ‘Eureka’ lemon and ‘Washington’ navel, regardless of the growing conditions and cold storage duration. Rind firmness of ‘Cambria’ navel and ‘Valley Gold’ mandarin were not significantly affected by shade net and storage duration. ‘Eureka’ lemon was found to be more sensitive to CI. However, the application of wax+ TBZ eliminated CI on all 4-cultivars. Therefore, it is recommended to apply wax+ TBZ in packline to eliminate CI and fungal development. , Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science and Agriculture, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2021-11
Synthesis and characterization of titanium dioxide nanotubes on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrate using electro-anodization technique
- Authors: Zinya, Simcelile https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5864-0957
- Date: 2017-12
- Subjects: Titanium dioxide , Nanotubes , Nanostructured materials
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/23979 , vital:62201
- Description: One-dimensional (1-D) titanium dioxide nanotubes (TNTs) have attracted much attention as a promising alternative electrode material for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). As compared to the randomly packed and disordered TiO2 nanoparticles (TNPs) network with numerous particle-particle interfaces, TNTs prove to have fascinating features than make them suitable candidates in DSSCs. Well-structured TNTs arrays are of great potential among the various types of 1D TiO2 nano-materials owing to their superior electron transport properties with limited grain boundaries. Vectorial transport of photon generated electrons along the TNTs has been reported to lead to higher charge mobility which is crucial for improvement of DSSC performances. In this work, highly adhesive titanium films were deposited on functional substrates (FS) using radio frequency (RF) sputtering technique at a sputtering output power of 1kW, operating pressure of 1.5 Pa and at a deposition temperature of 200 °C to obtain a thickness of 10 μm under an inert argon atmosphere. The duration period for sputter coating 10 μm thickness of titanium film layer was 122 minutes with sputter rate for titanium target of about 82 nm per minutes. Subsequently, the RF sputtered titanium films were anodized with 0.5 wt. percent ammonium fluoride + 0.35 wt. percent deionised water and 96 wt. percent glycerol electrolyte solution at room temperature at 60 V for 72 hours. The resulting TNTs on functional substrates (TNTs-FS) were subjected to thermal treatment at 350 °C, 450 °C, 550 °C and 650 °C for 3 hours under oxygen atmosphere. The effect of annealing temperature on the morphological, and structural properties have been scrutinized. The as prepared and thermally treated TNTs-FS were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Confocal Raman Spectroscopy (CRS). SEM and HRTEM techniques were employed to confirm the presence of the TNTs-FS and also to study the structural-morphology of the TNTs as the annealing temperature increases. SEM revealed improvement in morphology with increase in sample annealing temperature, even at high temperatures such as 650 °C with no collapsing and sintering of the TNTs-FS occurring. SEM images revealed TNTs-FS with pore diameter sizes in the range between 85-170 nm. This is in compliance with HRTEM analysis, which revealed smooth and straight tube walls and improved surface morphology with increase in annealing temperature. In addition HRTEM images revealed pore diameter of TNTs-FS in the range between 85-165 nm. Furthermore, HRTEM revealed lattice fringes of 0.351, 0.352 and 0.353 nm between the neighbouring lattice fringes. All corresponding to (101) planes of anatase phase TNTs at different annealing temperatures (350-650 °C). The crystallographic structure of TNTs-FS was characterized by XRD measurements after thermal treatment at 350 °C, 450 °C, 550 °C and 650 °C. The XRD pattern revealed peaks in the wide angle range of 2θ (20° < 2θ > 80°) discovered at 29.43°, 45.10°, 56.52°, 63.5°, 64.92° and 74.81° corresponding to the planes (101), (112), (200), (105), (211) and (204) crystalline structures of the anatase TNTs. The intensity of the peaks increased with increasing annealing temperature. The strong sharp peaks indicate the large quantities and higher degrees of crystallinity of anatase phase of the TNTs. CRS Large Area Scan (LAS) and Depth profiling (DP) were employed to evaluate the crystallinity and phase distribution of TNTs-FS thermally treated at different temperatures. CRS LAS in the XY direction of TNTs-FS revealed the presence of differently crystallized anatase phases of TiO2 with Raman vibrational modes of 159.38 cm-1 (Eg), 208.37 cm-1 (Eg), 399.67 cm-1 (B1g), 514.25 cm-1 (A1g) and 641.58 cm-1 (Eg) for the samples annealed at 350 °C. The effect of annealing temperature on TiO2 phase evolution was meticulously evaluated using CRS for TNTs-FS for the samples annealed at 350 °C, 450 °C, 550 °C and 650 °C. The FWHM was estimated from CRS and decreases with increasing annealing temperature resulting in increasing crystallinity. Increase in anatase FWHM and anatase peak intensity implies higher degree of crystallinity and increasing crystallite sizes were also confirmed by XRD. Growing of titanium dioxide on functional substrates one novel contribution towards the fabrication of efficient electrode materials for solar cell development. Our method of characterizing TNTs-FS from a large area scan along the surface of the samples and depth profiling along the TNTs tube walls using confocal Raman spectroscopy prove to be a pivotal step in the development of efficient photoelectrode materials of the solar devices. , Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science and Agriculture, 2017
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- Date Issued: 2017-12
Leaners' perceptions of factors contributing to poor academic performance in rural high schools of the Fort Beaufort Education District
- Authors: Tom, Lusu Lennox
- Date: 2013-01
- Subjects: Education, Higher , School management and organization , Teacher effectiveness
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/25272 , vital:64137
- Description: This research investigates learners’ perceptions of factors which they believe contribute to their poor academic performance in high schools. The study focuses on four schools in Fort Beaufort district of the Eastern Cape. Twenty-four learners (6 from each school) participated in this study. Using a theoretical framework drawn from Bandura (1977) the study explored the views of learners in both under and high performing schools. One main research question was posed, answered and discussed for the purpose of the study. Data was collected through individual interviews, focus group discussions and document analyses. The findings of the study revealed a number of factors contributing to poor academic performance. These were learner factors, teacher factors, home factors and teaching resources. Regarding learner factors, the study revealed that while learners were committed and motivated to do their work in order to avoid low income jobs, this did not always happen as they found themselves getting distracted during class time and this affected their performance. The study revealed that some of the teachers lacked commitment, and were very unprofessional and incompetent. This, according to the learners, contributed to poor learner performance in the various subjects. Home factors also played a role in learner performance. The study revealed that home factors were seen to be enabling when parents were supportive and helpful to their children. At the same time, home factors tended to impede learning when learners were given household chores to do and this impinged on their study time. Some parents were also illiterate and as a result were not able to help their children with homework or supervise them while they were busy with their homework. The lack of teaching and learning resources such as textbooks, computers and laboratories as well as overcrowded classrooms also contributed to poor learner performance. This study makes the following recommendations: Teachers should be closely monitored by principals to ensure that they come to class regularly and are punctual so that learners do not lose time necessary to cover the content on their syllabus. Teachers should plan and prepare for lessons thoroughly. Lessons must cover a wide range of activities during their teaching to actively engage learners and prepare them adequately for their assessment tasks, including examinations. Teachers should be work-shopped regularly in order to capacitate them on the latest trends and pedagogies in education as well as rejuvenate their professionalism. It is important that teachers be active researchers in class in order to appraise themselves their learners’ needs and how they can, from the learners’ point of view, improve service delivery. From time to time teachers should work closely with parents to develop strategies they can jointly use to monitor and support children’s learning effectively. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, 2013
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- Date Issued: 2013-01
Market potential and profitability of improved maize open pollinated varieties in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Sibanda, Melusi
- Date: 2012-04
- Subjects: Hybrid corn , Crops -- Effect of stress on
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/24598 , vital:63211
- Description: Maize is one of the most important crops grown by smallholder farmers in Amatole and O.R. Tambo Districts of the Eastern Cape. For this study, there were 13 maize varieties that were evaluated extensively by on-farm trials in selected areas under dry land and irrigated conditions. Nine were newly introduced and improved Open Pollinated Varieties (OPVs), while four were locally grown varieties. Among the locally grown varieties, one was a hybrid-check, while the remaining three were improved OPVs. The objectives of this study were: to investigate the potential marketability of newly introduced maize OPVs, identify factors influencing farmers‟ demand of improved maize OPVs and assess their profitability when compared with hybrids. One hundred and thirty seven sample households were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentages), gross margins and regression analyses. Data for computing gross margins was taken from the on-farm trials. Results showed that the actual production of improved maize OPVs constituted 0percent in Zanyokwe Irrigation Scheme (ZIS) and 20percent of the farmers in the O.R. Tambo District. At Silwindlala Women‟s Project (SWP), the improved maize OPV (Sahara) was grown. The majority of the farmers in the study areas were growing competitor varieties (hybrids and/or in conjunction with landraces). Results show that, there is potential market for improved maize OPVs in the Eastern Cape. The majority of the farmers, 87percent and 92percent in Amatole (SWP and ZIS) and O.R. Tambo Districts respectively, indicated that they were willing to adopt the newly introduced maize OPVs. Results showed that the hybrid PAN 6479 variety in general performed better than improved maize OPVs whereas in some areas, the improved maize OPVs had better gross margins and gross profit margins than the hybrid variety. The indicated genotypes did not show specific adaptation to selected environments. The demand model that employed a multiple regression model was used and data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) computer software. Results of the multiple regression model showed that household socio-economic factors (extension contact, access to credit, availability of household income, proportion of land area under cultivation, proportion of land area under (hybrids and landrace) and perceptions on seed color) and an input market factor (availability of the improved maize OPV seeds on the local shops) were the most important factors influencing farmers' decisions to demanding the improved maize OPVs. Extension contact, access to credit, level of household income and proportion of land area under cultivation, positively influenced the demand for the improved maize OPVs whereas the unavailability of the improved maize OPV seeds on the local shops, proportion of land area under hybrids and landraces and perceptions on seed color negatively influenced the demand for the improved maize OPVs. , Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science and Agriculture, 2012
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- Date Issued: 2012-04