Study locations
1. South-West; The Lepers’ Colony, Ogbomosho, Oyo state
2. South-South; The Lepers’ Colony, Osiomo, Edo state
3. South-East; Uzuakoli Leprosy Colony, Abia state
4. North-Central; Chanchaga Leprosy Hospital, Niger state
5. North-East; RafinKada Leper Colony, Wukari, Taraba state
6. North-West; Lepers’ Colony, kutareGusau in Zamafara state
7. Alheri community, Yangoji village, Kwali Area Council, FCT
The questionnaire assessment includes the state of health centres, water
supply, sanitation, hygiene, human resources, and healthcare resources.
The Focus group discussions and interviews with settlement leaders
include descriptions of the quality of life of people living in leprosy
communities and the amenities available. The questionnaire and interview
questions were drafted after a literature review and were pretested
first with 4 participants and the person in charge at the leprosy
settlement in Abuja as pilot study participants. The two representatives
of The Leprosy Mission Nigeria, Abuja were also part of the Pilot study.
The questionnaire and FGDs were then consolidated with insights from the
pilot. The Key Informant Interviews explore the contribution of
non-governmental organisations to leprosy control and management in
Nigeria.
The FGD sessions enabled exploratory and confirmatory questions to be
asked to achieve a deeper understanding of their interests and needs.
Focus groups were constructed in ways that will not hamper the
discussion of sensitive topics due to differences in occupation,
lifestyle, roles, and status in the community. This allowed participants
to discuss topical issues in detail, and explore and clarify their
points of view, thus enhancing in-depth discussions. The questionnaire
and interview questions were translated into local languages before data
collection. Two data collectors who understand local languages
accompanied research assistants to the selected leprosy settlements.This
study does not measure the expertise but explores the experiences of
professionals working at leprosy settlements or that of representatives
of organisations concerned about leprosy control in Nigeria.
Data analysis: NVIVO and IBM SPSS 25 were used for qualitative
analysis and quantitative analysis of responses respectively.
Quantitative data were entered into Microsoft Excel 2010 from where the
dataset was imported into SPSS. Data were subsequently cleaned, coded
and analysed. Quantitative data were presented as frequencies and
proportions. For the qualitative data, transcripts and field notes were
analysed using thematic analysis to provide an accurate reflection of
participants’ ideas. NVIVO 10 software was used for the systematic data
coding to generate recurring themes by 2 data analysts. Another member
of the team subsequently triangulated 10% of the transcripts to improve
validity and draw up more perspectives which were compared with those
generated by NVIVO analysis. This is necessary to reduce bias and revise
the themes that might have occurred due to discrepancies and unexpected
findings . The team subsequently reviewed the generated themes to ensure
that they reflect respondents’ ideas as opposed to the likelihood of
bias often associated with a single analyst.
The outcomes of the study are listed below, no cause-effect relationship
was measured. Also, outcomes were not measured but only described based
on responses from respondents.
- Experiences of people living with and affected by leprosy in Nigeria
- Challenges faced in leprosy settlements in Nigeria
- Experience of medical professionals working at leprosy settlements
- Reasons for abysmal financing and reporting measures of health
financing
- State of health at leprosy settlements
- State of the settlements and recommendations for improvement
- Recommendations for leprosy control in Nigeria
Ethical Considerations: Ethical approval was gotten from the
Health research ethics committee of Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria,
and consent was gotten as appropriate for all the data collection steps.
The anonymity of respondents’ identity was guaranteed. Approval Number:
FHREC/2021/01/137/8-12-21