 and welcome to Health Focus, a production of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. I am Fener Leption. Health Focus is a 15-minute discussion program bringing you in-depth knowledge on different health issues. Today we have with us the medical surveillance officer Dr. Gemma Sherry who will provide us with information on the CAHPS survey. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Right now the world is dealing with the pandemic of COVID-19 and of course for Saint-Saint-Noche, one of the ways of responding to this pandemic is actually the use of the CAHPS survey. Can you tell us what is the CAHPS survey and why the need to undertake the survey? The CAHPS survey is basically a knowledge attitudes and practices survey. When we speak about knowledge we want to know what it is that people know. In terms of attitudes what it is that they believe what their thoughts are and practices what is it that they do with the knowledge that they have gained thus far since the COVID epidemic began. So on March 10, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Since then the ministry has been undertaking a number of activities. We recorded our first confirmed case in March and as a result of that government has had to take a number of measures and most of these measures have actually affected our daily lives as people living in the country. Now for these measures to actually work people need to adhere to these measures. So adherence a lot of it is about gaining knowledge using that knowledge to be able to do things and for persons to understand what is happening. So the CAHPS survey basically it seeks to assess persons knowledge as it pertains to COVID-19. Knowing what people think about COVID-19 the level of knowledge it would help us in terms of our public health our public education campaign. So the Bureau of Health and other agencies have been involved in a number of public health campaigns. So for example you would have seen me showing the public how to put on a surgical mask. There would have been messages about hand washing. There would have been messages about social distancing. There would have been messages in English and in Creole as it put in to curfews and other measures. So we basically want to know if all of that information that has been put out there if people are really if or if it's rather really getting to the persons that it's supposed to get and what people are doing with that information that they've been getting. It would also help us to assess thus far our public health response because there are general questions that would ask certain questions and it would give us responses as to what people think in terms of the response that we've undertaken and whether or not they think that we are capable of winning this war against COVID-19 and it also provides us with some baseline information as it regards to knowledge, attitudes and practices of persons living in St. Lucia during this period of COVID-19 outbreak. Okay and you mentioned in terms of the health efforts but what benefit would you say it would have for the average St. Lucia? Okay participating in the survey has no direct benefits for the persons who participate in the survey but what the benefit is for the country as a whole so for example we can use that information to see to know what information is reaching persons, what persons know as it put in to COVID-19, what people think right in terms of their attitudes, what their thoughts, what their beliefs are and what their practices are and so that can help us strengthen the current response and of course it would help us to safeguard persons living in St. Lucia as it regards COVID-19. Okay and what is the target audience for the survey? Okay so basically we're targeting persons 18 years and older. The survey is actually a web-based survey so given what is happening and all the social distancing measures etc that have been put in place and we did not find it fitting to go on the ground and actually go to people's homes and interview them so we felt that a web-based survey would have been the best way to collect the information. So persons are going to get an invitation asking them to participate in the survey and so the flow and digital have agreed to partner with us to send out those text messages asking persons who use their services to participate in the survey. We would also be posting the link on Facebook so you can look at the GIS website, the Bureau of Health website. We would also be using WhatsApp and other social media platforms to actually put out these invitations asking persons to participate. Now participating it's at your own will. You're not forced to participate in the survey but we would prefer if persons who receive the invitation would participate in the survey because the more information and the more persons who participate, the more information we have and it would help us to make decisions that would better help us in terms of safety measures and control where COVID-19 is concerned. Wonderful. Well we are due for a break so we'll definitely continue this discussion. We'll be back in a moment. Good day everyone. I am Dr Sharon Belmont George, Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health and Wellness. In the management of COVID-19 there are actions that must be taken if you begin to feel unwell. First you must monitor your symptoms. If you develop respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, call one of the clinical support telephone numbers for advice. If the medical care provider tells you that the symptoms are mild please follow the recommended steps of care. If your symptoms are moderate to severe you will be advised to go to the respiratory clinic closest to you. Wear face mask when leaving the house especially if you are coughing or sneezing. This will prevent others from getting the infection. We recommend regular hand washing and the use of hand sanitizer when away from home. Also avoid direct contact with others and also to reduce touching other surfaces. When going to the medical facility please go directly to the medical provider. Do not sit among the other patients. Testing and treatment and care to persons with COVID-19 is free of charge. Work with the Ministry of Health and Wellness as we reduce the impact of COVID-19 on you and your families. For further information please contact the Bureau of Health Education at 468-5347-468-5349 or 468-5350. Welcome back we will continue our discussion with Dr Gemma Sherry on the CUP survey. Before we took the break you were discussing in terms of the survey and you touched a little bit on the structure. Can you tell us what exactly is the structure and how long will it take for someone to actually complete the survey? Okay the survey takes 10 minutes about 10 minutes to be completed. It is not a very long survey so it's broken up into a demographic section where we basically asking you information about your age, your age, your community, you come from etc. Then we go into the knowledge section of it so we want to know what it is that you know about COVID-19. Then there's an attitudes section like I said it's basically for us to know what you believe, what your thoughts are as it pertains to certain things regarding COVID-19 and there's a practices section where we want to know what it is that persons have been practicing since the start of the epidemic because all this information is out there what are people doing differently that they were not doing before and of course you have a general section which contains I think three questions and it's just for you to tell us if you think we could win the war against COVID-19 just general questions. Great and when will the survey commence and for how long? Okay the survey is actually due to commence on Monday the 29th of June and it will run for a two-week period. Great and for some for some persons the concern might be of confidentiality can you speak on that as it relates to the survey? Okay so the survey we're not asking you any personal information for for example we're not asking you for name we're not asking for religion or anything like that what we are asking for is your age your marital status your level of education etc that information will be kept confidential so you if you take part in the survey nobody has to know that this response for example if you for NEL take part in the survey nobody has to know that this response came from for NEL what we are going to do we are going to put it all together at the end and we are going to make a summary that information is also going to be kept on computers that are password protected so there's no way that anybody will say or Jim Jack or Joan was the one who gave us the information so there's no need for persons to feel afraid that somebody's going to know that it was me who gave the response. Great and you mentioned in terms of the information that we received from the survey what part will it actually play in the public health efforts in terms of our response to COVID-19? Okay so it can actually help to strengthen our public health education campaign so for example the the adverts on masks etc are out there so if people depend on the responses they give we would actually know why persons do where they mask why persons don't do certain things and we can now tailor the messages it would also help us in terms of policy decisions that would be taken and we could also find out for example if some of the information is not reaching the population as it's supposed to we can actually now go back and look at revisit these messages that we have there and we can now tailor them to the needs of the public. Okay so we can definitely say that it will strengthen the health communication and social engagement. Certainly it will. Wonderful and as it relates to the survey would it lend to documentants in Russia's experience in managing COVID-19? Oh certainly it will because we've had a number of outbreaks and we've not documented so we had Chikungunya, we had Zika and you have lots of countries documenting the experiences and thus far if you look at news items international news items you would see that Senucia has been getting lots of praise for the way it has handled the outbreak so far so this would just be one other step in documenting part of our response as it relates to COVID-19 so it actually puts us there again on the map. Great and what message would you like to leave for Saint Lucians as it relates to the survey? Okay I would like to encourage Saint Lucians to participate in the survey because here's your chance to actually play a part in what is happening as it relates to COVID-19 and the measures that we put in place. Here's your chance to be part of history and I would like to encourage Saint Lucians please be as truthful as possible because at the end of the day we're not just asking you the information because we want to know the information is going to help in terms of what measures we take the policy decisions and they are all meant at protecting each and every one of us in terms of COVID-19. Okay and again we want to remind Saint Lucians that the survey will commence on June 29th and it will be for two weeks long period and it's also an online survey and if they have any problems they could always reach out to the Ministry of Health and they can ask for me and I would be more than willing to address their concerns. Wonderful well we have actually come to the end of the program for today I want to thank you so much for providing us with this information on the CAHPS survey. Thank you. You have been watching Health Focus, a production of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. I am Final Neptune on behalf of the entire production team. Thanks for watching. Until next time.