RESULTS: In this study, 774 articles related to 114 issues of 3 specialized environmental health journals were reviewed. A review of 774 articles showed that 80 articles (10.3%) were published in the field of nanotechnologies. Out of 80 articles published in the field of nanotechnology, 66 articles (82.5%) were published on the subject of water, 9 articles (11.3%) on wastewater and 5 articles (6.2%) on air pollution. Subject review of articles showed that articles using carbon nanotubes to remove natural organic pollutants, surfactants, hydroxybenzenes, phenol, dimethyl phthalates, use of titanium dioxide nanoparticles, iron-magnesium nanoparticles for wastewater treatment, Silver nanoparticles were used to remove air pollution. The results showed that published articles on nanotechnology in the field of environmental health were few.
Methods: We developed a patient-centered PrEP DA for women in addiction treatment. In a pilot randomized preference trial, we compared the DA to enhanced standard of care (eSOC) providing standardized information. The primary outcome was opting to receive more information through the DA; we also assessed the impact of the DA on PrEP decisional preference and PrEP uptake over 12 months.
Results: A total of 164 enrolled participants (DA: 83; eSOC: 81) were similar in terms of HIV risk and demographics, which are representative of women in addiction treatment programs nationally, and most (92%) had opioid use disorder. Half of participants were PrEP eligible, though 37% underestimated their personal HIV risk. Independent correlates of selecting the PrEP DA relative to eSOC included higher alcohol use severity (aOR 4.13, 95% CI 1.05-16.28, p=0.04) and perception of high risk for HIV (aOR 2.95, 95% CI 1.19-7.35, p=0.02). For those selecting the DA, interest in PrEP increased significantly from 25% to 89%. DA participants were also significantly more likely than eSOC participants to see a provider for PrEP during follow-up (15.7% vs 6.2%; p=0.05).
Conclusion: Half of the women selected to use the DA, and those who did significantly increased their engagement in the HIV prevention cascade through increased interest in and initiation of PrEP. Future iterations should accelerate the HIV prevention cascade for women with SUDs by integrating PrEP decision aids into existing addiction treatment services and actively linking women to PrEP.
Patients and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at a single rehabilitation outpatient clinic from June to December 2019. Inclusion criteria were stroke duration of over four weeks, aged 18 years and above. Exclusion criteria were presence of concurrent conditions other than stroke that could also lead to spasticity. Recruited patients were divided into "Spasticity" and "No spasticity" groups. Univariate analysis was deployed to identify significant predictive spasticity factors between the two groups followed by a two-step clustering approach for determining group of characteristics that collectively contributes to the risk of developing spasticity in the "Spasticity" group.
Results: A total of 216 post-stroke participants were recruited. The duration after stroke (p < 0.001) and the absence of hemisensory loss (p = 0.042) were two significant factors in the "Spasticity" group revealed by the univariate analysis. From a total of 98 participants with spasticity, the largest cluster of individuals (40 patients, 40.8%) was those within less than 20 months after stroke with moderate stroke and absence of hemisensory loss, while the smallest cluster was those within less than 20 months after severe stroke and absence of hemisensory loss (21 patients, 21.4%).
Conclusion: Analyzing collectively the significant factors of developing spasticity may have the potential to be more clinically relevant in a heterogeneous post-stroke population that may assist in the spasticity management and treatment.
Patients and Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study that included adult men and women aged 20-60 years old. The subjects had no chronic or metabolic disease. This research was conducted from April to November, 2020, in North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. The parameters studied were demographics, daily food intake, anthropometry and a history of obesity in adolescence, and for the participants' fathers and mothers. The statistical test used was the chi-squared test/Fisher test.
Results: This study included 136 research subjects, 60 male and 76 female; based on the results of the study, 47.8% were found to be obese, but food intake showed a low intake (96.2%). There was a significant relationship between a history of obesity in adolescence and incidences of obesity (≥30 kg/m2) in the mother and father, with significance values of p=0.01, p=0.004, and p=0.001, respectively.
Conclusion: This study found that there was a significant relationship between a history of obesity in adolescence and incidences of adult obesity (≥ 30kg/m2) in parents, but not with the level of food intake per day. The risk of obesity will increase further with a history of obesity in parents and obesity in adolescence, and this can be used to understand and prevent obesity.
Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was done among 312 respondents from five palm oil mills in Sabah from January to April 2019. Audiometric tests, validated questionnaires and sound level meters were used. Chi-square test and independent t-test were conducted to determine the associated factors for hearing loss.
Results: 75% (n = 234) of the respondents were diagnosed with hearing loss. Most of them were male (96.2%) with a mean age of 44.4 (SD 9.8) years, mean duration of employment of 16.2 (SD 9.7) years and mean noise exposure of 96.1 (SD 4.8) dB(A). The significant factors associated with hearing loss were older age (p = 0.001), married (p = 0.001), blue-collar jobs (p = 0.003), smoking (p = 0.001), works with noisy machinery (p = 0.005), lower level of noise exposed (p = 0.015), longer duration of employment (p = 0.001), and longer overtime hours per week (p = 0.001).
Conclusion: The prevalence of hearing loss among workers in the noise-exposed palm oil industries was high. Annual audiometry testing and job rotation from noise-exposed workstations were recommended. A smoking cessation program may help but reduction of noise from the source by engineering control is still the best method.
METHODS: Broth microdilution and semi-quantitative adherence assays were conducted to determine the anti-biofilm activity of the fungal extract. Light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses were performed to observe the effect of the fungal extract on biofilm formation by MRSA.
RESULTS: The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) microphotographs showed that the bacterial cells were severely damaged upon 24 h exposure to the extract and displayed several symptoms such as cell shrinkage and breakage. Meanwhile, results from the antibiofilm study indicated the extract attenuated the initial and preformed biofilms of MRSA by 80.82% and 61.39%, respectively. The initial biofilm was more sensitive to the extract compared to the pre-formed biofilm, as evidenced by the light microscopy and SEM observations that demonstrated more severe bacterial cell damage on the initial biofilms compared to pre-formed biofilms.
CONCLUSION: The ethyl acetate extract of L. pseudotheobromae IBRL OS-64 significantly inhibited bacterial cells growth and eliminated biofilm formation by MRSA.
Methods: In total, 284 sterile surgical wound swabs (142 each) were collected from two government hospitals: Central Hospital Benin (CHB) and University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) in Benin City, Nigeria. Pseudomonas spp. isolated from both hospitals were screened with eight different antibiotics by way of disk diffusion method. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of 34 multiple drug-resistant isolates was carried out using genus-specific primer set on extracted genomic DNA for the identification of Pseudomonas spp. and substituent 16S rRNA sequencing to determine the prevailing strains in the two locations.
Results: Sixty-two Pseudomonas spp. were isolated from the two locations (27 isolates from CHB and 35 isolates from the UBTH). Surgical wound infections screened with regularly used antibiotics revealed that 17 (62.9%) isolates from CHB and 20 (57.1%) isolates from UBTH were multiple drug resistant Pseudomonas spp. PCR identification using Pseudomonas spp. specific primer showed that 16 (94.1%) isolates from CHB and 18 (90%) isolates from UBTH were confirmed. The 16S DNA sequencing revealed that P. aeruginosa strain H25883 was dominant in both locations.
Conclusion: High antibiotic resistance among P. aeruginosa isolates was established in our study. PCR technique revealed a more reliable method of bacterial identification. H25883 strain of P. aeruginosa is the prevalent strain in both locations and it should be given attention in nosocomial surgical wound infections.
Methods: Fifty-six rats were allocated into seven groups of control, sham, continuous depression, recovery period, daily injections of escitalopram, crocin and escitalopram-crocin during 14 days after inducing depression by stress. Passive avoidance (PA) test was used to assess brain functions.
Results: Latency has significant differences in depression group. Also, it significantly increased in depression-crocin, depression-escitalopram and depression-escitalopram-crocin groups compared to the depression group. The dark stay (DS) time was significantly higher in the depression and depression-recovery groups. However, the DS time significantly decreased in the depression-crocin, depression-escitalopram and depression-escitalopram-crocin groups. Furthermore, the number of entrances to the dark room was significantly lower in depression-crocin and depression-escitalopram-crocin groups compared to the depression one.
Conclusion: Different depression treatments (i.e. crocin, escitalopram and crocin-escitalopram) reduced depression-induced memory deficits. Crocin and escitalopram-crocin, respectively, improved brain functions and locomotor activity more than escitalopram. Comparatively, in subjects with depression, crocin, which is an effective saffron constituent, partially affected the memory deficits better than escitalopram (as a chemical component).
Methods: This study was conducted to compare the outcomes of early and late tracheostomies in severe TBI. Only severe TBI patients who were admitted to the Neurosurgery High Dependency Unit (NHDU), Hospital Sultanah Aminah (HSA), Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia and who had underwent a tracheostomy were recruited. Three main outcomes noted: duration on ventilation, length of NHDU stay and rate of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP).
Results: Out of 155 patients, 72 (46.5%) were in early tracheostomy group (ETG) and 83 (53.5%) were in late tracheostomy group (LTG). The majority of the participants, 95 (61.3%) were ethnic Malays. The mean duration on ventilator use was 2.65 days (1.57) for ETG and 5.63 days (2.35) for LTG. While, mean NHDU stay was 4.75 days (1.98) for ETG and 9.77 days (2.70) for LTG. Upon independent t-test, early duration of tracheostomies had shown significant outcome in reducing length of NHDU stay, (P < 0.001) and had shortening participants' time on mechanical ventilator (P < 0.001). Then, based on forward multiple logistic regression test, there were significant association between comorbid (P = 0.003) and tracheostomy (P = 0.020) towards presence of VAP when adjusted for other variables.
Conclusion: In this study it was found that early tracheostomy was significant in shortening the duration on ventilator, reducing the length of NHDU stay and reducing the rate of VAP.