A new collaborative scientific publication from the ARISE project highlights critical priorities in the care of healthcare professionals dealing with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), particularly in high-burden settings such as Nigeria.
The study, titled “Healthcare Professionals’ Perspectives on Sickle Cell Disease Care in Nigeria: A Grounded Theory Study”, has been published in the International Journal of Scientific Trends. It presents one of the key research outputs developed within ARISE by Dr. Abubakar Abdulkareem from Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital (BDTH, Nigeria), who was hosted at Fondazione Gianni Benzi during the project. Our researchers Annalisa Landi and Lucia Ruggieri, also contributed to the work, which was jointly supervised by Fedele Bonifazi (ARISE Coordinator and Fondazione Gianni Benzi President), Baba Inusa (ARISE Principal Investigator), and Livingstone Dogara (BDTH clinician and ARISE site lead).
The publication addresses a crucial and often overlooked aspect of SCD management: the needs of healthcare professionals working daily with patients in resource-constrained settings where the disease represents a significant burden. The study was conducted across four clinical centres in Zaria (Nigeria) using a rigorous qualitative grounded theory methodology, combining focus group discussions and individual interviews.
Five main priority areas emerged: adequate facilities and equipment, sufficient clinical and laboratory space, structured training and retraining, standardised operational policies, and electronic patient registries.
The study provides in-depth, multi-professional perspectives, offering a strong context-specific understanding of SCD care needs. Its analytical approach enables a structured yet comprehensive representation of complex challenges. The findings underline that improving SCD care requires coordinated investments in diagnostic and information infrastructure, redesign of clinical and laboratory spaces, continuous and context-sensitive professional development, and the co-creation of operational policies that make evidence-based care feasible in practice.
The study is freely available here.