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Table 1 Socio-demographic characteristics of the study participants by study district

From: Management of diseases in a ruminant livestock production system: a participatory appraisal of the performance of veterinary services delivery, and utilization in Ghana

Characteristic

KAPS

MION

PRU EAST

Percent (%)

Statistical significance

Farmer survey (N = 350)

n = 149

n = 98

n = 103

 

p-value

Age (years)

46.0 (36.0, 56.0)

41.0 (34.0, 51.0)

46.0 (34.0, 57.0)

 

0.247

Household size (persons)

7 (5, 10)

10 (7, 15)

8 (6, 13)

 

0.021

Livestock farming experience (years)

9.0 (5.0, 16.0)

10.0 (6.0, 17.0)

9.0 (5.0, 15.0)

 

0.415

Distance to veterinary service (km)

12.0 (8.0, 14.4)

6.9 (1.6, 12.7)

1.9 (0.6, 5.6)

 

 < 0.001

Resilience level

78.0 (73.0, 84.0)

82.5 (78.0, 87.0)

81.0 (75.0, 86.0)

 

0.431

Sex

    

0.001

 Female

57

16

29

29.1

 

 Male

92

82

74

70.9

 

Educational attainment

    

 < 0.001

 No formal education

41

85

52

50.9

 

 Up to 12 years education

72

6

29

30.5

 

 Higher education

36

7

22

18.6

 

Wealth status

    

 < 0.001

 Poorest

21

41

8

20.0

 

 Below average

41

25

8

21.1

 

 Average

36

14

16

18.9

 

 Above average

37

10

23

20.0

 

 Least poor

14

8

48

20.0

 

Social support availability

    

0.012

 Low

77

44

59

51.4

 

 Medium

43

30

13

24.6

 

 High

29

24

31

24.0

 

Herd size (TLU)

    

0.011

 Small (1st tertile: 0.3 – 1.8 TLUs)

55

41

21

33.4

 

 Medium (2nd tertile: 1.9 – 5.48 TLUs)

51

28

38

33.4

 

 Large (3rd tertile: 5.5 – 182.3 TLUs)

43

29

44

33.2

 

Farmer FGD (N = 65)

n = 30

n = 15

n = 20

  

Age (years)

46.0 (37.0, 54.0)

41.0 (36.0, 52.0)

49.0 (35.5, 56.0)

 

0.763

Herd size (TLU)

    

0.297

 Small (1st tertile: 0.9 – 2.1 TLUs)

9

7

6

33.8

 

 Medium (2nd tertile: 2.2 – 11.6 TLUs)

10

5

7

33.8

 

 Large (3rd tertile: 11.7 – 157.2 TLUs)

11

3

7

32.4

 

Sex

    

0.300¥

 Female

7

1

2

15.4

 

 Male

23

14

18

84.6

 

Educational attainment

    

0.025¥

 No formal education

16

3

7

40.0

 

 Up to 12 years education

5

10

7

33.8

 

 Higher education

9

2

6

26.2

 

Veterinary officer survey (N = 13)

n = 3

n = 5

n = 5

  

Age (years)

32.0 (32.0, 43.0)

33.0 (32.0, 41.0)

30.0 (29.0, 38.0)

 

0.454

Veterinary training (years)

3.0 (3.0, 5.0)

3.0 (3.0, 4.0)

3.0 (3.0, 4.0)

 

0.467

Work experience (years)

2.0 (2.0, 15.0)

2.0 (2.0, 9.0)

2.0 (2.0, 7.0)

 

0.440

Sex

    

1.000¥

 Female

0

1

1

15.4

 

 Male

3

4

4

84.6

 
  1. Numbers (n) of participants, including farmers and veterinary personnel by data collection approach, falling into each study district; KAPS denotes participants from the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, MION denotes participants from the Mion District and PRU EAST denotes participants from the Pru East District in the Southern, Northern and Middle farming Belts of Ghana respectively. Percent (%) denotes the proportion of study participants within each characteristic explored. TLUs denotes farmers’ herd sizes standardized in tropical livestock units (1 TLU = 1 cattle, or 3 pigs, or 5 small ruminants, or 25 poultry, or 50 doves). For continuous variables, the median value with corresponding lower and upper quartile values reported in parentheses are presented. P-values from Kruskal–Wallis equality-of-populations rank test for continuous variables, and p-values from Chi-square tests for categorical variables are presented. ¥ denotes Fisher’s exact test probabilities for expected observations less than 5 persons in at least one of the cells
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BMC Veterinary Research

ISSN: 1746-6148

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