AIM AND OBJECTIVE: This qualitative study sought to determine how mental health counsellors now address the mental health concerns of their pupils. To achieve this objective, two research questions were developed to direct this study: (1) What are the experiences of counsellors who provide support to students with mental health issues? (2) How might guidance and counselling services and programmes enhance the academic success of students with mental health issues?
METHODOLOGY: Participants were selected from a university in a northern Malaysian neighbourhood. Several semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with two counsellors to collect data.
RESULTS: Overall, the counsellors regarded multitasking to be a hindrance to their job performance. Participants felt that their caseloads prevented them from being proactive with each student, resulting in irritation. According to the participants, the job's requirements have changed, but the number of tasks and caseload have not. This has led to feelings of exhaustion and frustration. The study revealed two important research's findings: first, there has been an increase in the number of mental health concerns, particularly anxiety and depression, among students; second, counsellors would be able to effectively support children intellectually and personally if they had appropriate staffing and professional development.
CONCLUSION: It was concluded that the counselors regarded multitasking was a hindrance to their job performance. Participants reported an increase in the frequency of anxiety and depression exhibited by their students and they felt that additional programming with friends, family, and professors could increase students' social well-being.
METHODS: To assess the current vaccine acceptability in Austria and its influencing factors, an online survey was created and comprised fifteen questions segmented into a sociodemographic part and the acceptance and influencing factors of the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine.
RESULTS: In total, 70% of the 1350 respondents thought that the COVID-19 vaccine is an effective way to prevent and control the virus, while 13% disagreed and 17% were uncertain. Further, 71% approved the rapid development and rollout of the vaccine, while 55% were willing to accept the vaccine as soon as it became available, 18% did not want to get the vaccine, 17% wanted to delay, and 10% were already vaccinated.
CONCLUSIONS: The results show a generally positive attitude towards the new COVID-19 vaccine. The doctor's recommendation greatly influences the decision-making process, and tailored vaccine information can support a higher vaccine coverage.
METHODS: An internet-based, cross-sectional survey was conducted from March to April 2020 in Bangladesh among adults 18 years old and above using structured online questionnaires distributed through emails and other social media throughout Bangladesh with an overall response rate of 34%. Modified version of the Covid19 peritraumatic distress index (CPDI) was used to measure distress. Univariate and Bivariate analysis was used to estimate prevalence of CPDI symptoms and test for the associations between CPDI and the exposure variables. Logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the odds ratios of our outcome variable by exposure variables.
RESULTS: Overall, 44.3% of respondents were suffering from mild to moderate distress and 9.5% were suffering from severe distress. Female respondents were 2.435 times more likely to suffer from CPDI mild to severe distress than males. As compared to Dhaka and Mymensing region of Bangladesh, odds of distress was 1.945 times more in Chittagong/Sylhet region (p-value = 0.035).
CONCLUSION: Large proportion of adult population in Bangladesh are experiencing psychological distress, with level of distress varies by different symptoms and predictors. This study suggest the need to develop comprehensive crisis prevention system including epidemiological monitoring, screening, and referral with targeted intervention to reduce psychological distress.
AIM: The current paper is aimed at discussing the ill effect of digital screens on eyes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
METHODOLOGY: A literature search was done using "PubMed," "Google scholar", and "Scopus" using key terms like "Digital Eye Strain," "Eyestrain," or "Computer Vision Syndrome." Relevant articles were identified and included to support the argument for this narrative review.
RESULTS: Studies conducted in the UK reported that 68% of children extensively use computers, while 54% undertake online activities after the age of 3. Similar studies estimated 4 h and 45 min per day of screen exposure time among adults in the UK. Indian studies reveal that the prevalence of DES is 69% in adults and 50% in children respectively. Indian ophthalmologists found that computer-using and specialized ophthalmologists were more informed of symptoms and diagnostic signs but were misinformed about treatment modalities. The use of social media and multitasking is particularly prominent among younger adults, with 87% of individuals aged 20-29 years reporting the use of two or more digital devices simultaneously. It has been observed that the use of computer glasses corrects refractive errors and helps in the reduction of symptoms, while precision spectral filters help in reducing symptoms of micro-fluctuation of accommodation.
CONCLUSION: We concluded that DES is emerging globally as a "Shadow Pandemic" and it is high time to respond. Community ophthalmologists, public health authorities, and educational sectors especially should be involved to prevent this.
OBJECTIVE: Our study objective was to evolve and test a colour coded client segmentation based public health approach to educate the community to deal with problem of hypertension.
METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional pilot study was done in March 2020 among purposively approached in a primary health centre to 100 people aged above 18 years, among them 41 gave written consent for the study and their demographic information was noted. They were given colour coded cards as per the current blood pressure level and previous history of hypertension. On each colour coded card, specific advice was written for that category. For all the participants, blood pressure and treatment seeking behaviour was noted. For hypertensive patients, adherence to medication and non-pharmacological measures was noted.
RESULTS: Mean age of the participants was 46.5 ± 13.06 years. Mean systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of the participants were 135 ± 16.85 mm Hg and 86 ± 11.42 mm Hg, respectively. Among the participants, 10 (24.39%) had a known history of hypertension. Among them, as per the blood pressure levels measured on the day of the study 50% (5) had their blood pressure levels under control. Interestingly 16 (39%) participants were found hypertensive incidentally.
DISCUSSION: It is evident from the studies that colour coded approach is used in multiple ways, in multiple settings, for multiple diseases. To our knowledge, little focus has been given for hypertensive disorders in the community level. We merely bother about making their risk profiling, even in the digital age. Sometimes physicians in emergency become puzzled whenever patients collapsed in front of them and we missed the "Golden Hour" for the treatment by searching patients' medical details.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The above problem can be solved by risk profiling of chronic patients by colour coded OPD/Health cards.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional selective study was conducted from 140 clinical specialists (Surgery = 24, Pathology = 31, Radiology = 35, Gynecology = 35, Pediatric = 17) from the neglected southern Punjab region of Pakistan. The study was analyzed using χ2 - the test of association and the nexus between different factors was examined by multinomial logistic regression.
RESULTS: Out of 140 respondents, 34 (24.3%) believed hospitals were ready for AI, while 81 (57.9%) disagreed. Additionally, 42(30.0%) were concerned about privacy violations, and 70(50%) feared AI could lead to unemployment. Specialists with less than 6 years of experience are more likely to embrace AI (p = 0.0327, OR = 3.184, 95% C.I; 0.262, 3.556) and those who firmly believe that AI knowledge will not replace their future tasks exhibit a lower likelihood of accepting AI (p = 0.015, OR = 0.235, 95% C.I: (0.073, 0.758). Clinical specialists who perceive AI as a technology that encompasses both drawbacks and benefits demonstrated a higher likelihood of accepting its adoption (p = 0.084, OR = 2.969, 95% C.I; 0.865, 5.187).
CONCLUSION: Clinical specialists have embraced AI as the future of the medical field while acknowledging concerns about privacy and unemployment.
METHODOLOGY: For this research, descriptive cross-sectional study using simple random sampling method was used. Population sampling was targeted toward three government schools. The total number of respondents is 383, with all of them aged between 13 and- 16 years of age. Legal considerations were taken to maintain the confidentiality of respondents. The specific objectives are: 1. To determine the level of change of intention on smoking, 2. To know the perceived reactions of the peer groups on the appearances of students as nonsmokers, 3. To determine whether the students learned new benefits of nonsmokingand, 4. To measure the impact of a facial-aging app among students.
RESULTS: The number of respondents who smoke was 40 (10.4%), while the number of respondents who do not smoke was 343 (89.6%). About 89% of the respondents agree that their three-dimensional selfie image motivates them not to smoke. In addition, 87.8% of respondents admit that the perceived reactions of their classmates make them think that they look better as nonsmokers. After learning the effects of smoking, about 86.4% of the respondents acknowledged that they would educate their peer groups. Furthermore, 85.9% of the respondents found this "Smokerface" app enjoyable.
CONCLUSION: The facial-aging intervention was effective in motivating Malaysian pupils to stay away from tobacco use. Thus, the analysis on the study of facial app usage in smoking prevention among youngsters concludes that most of the adolescents concur that the "Smokerface" app helps in the prevention of smoking among youths.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A pre-post study (interventional study design) was conducted on paramedic students. Our study period was 6 months which was divided into Phases I, II, and III. For administrative purpose, we included all paramedical students, and our sample size was 119. The baseline assessment of knowledge and attitude of paramedic students was done by a pretested questionnaire (Observation 1) with having a baseline scoring. After that, intervention Phase 1 was implemented, and later, end line observation (Observation 2) was made. Changes in knowledge and attitude were observed by the score difference (Observation 2-Observation 1). Descriptive statistics were calculated, and the mean of cumulative score was compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. We applied Mann-Whitney U-test for finding associations between dependent variables with an independent variable using SPSS version 22 (IBM, Chicago, USA) software.
RESULTS: Our baseline results showed that most of our participants had average knowledge (54.6%), followed by poor knowledge (24.4%). Approximately one-fifth (21.0%) of the participants had good knowledge regarding disaster preparedness. A significant improvement was observed in cumulative score (P < 0.005). A significant difference was observed in knowledge and attitude with respect to age and courses (P < 0.05). Forty percent of the students responded that they would like to get trained by that mock drill, and 26.1% were interested in disaster preparedness workshops in the future.
CONCLUSION: Our present study results indicate that the overall knowledge and attitude level of the students was average and required improvement. A similar result was reported in some studies conducted globally for the same purpose. All of our students perceived that training for disaster preparedness is necessary for all health facilities, and it is important to have an emergency plan and disaster management committee. Regarding training methods, most of our students liked our interactive audiovisual method. However, their preferred methods were mock drill and workshops. It can be arranged in the future for them.
DESIGN AND METHODS: A descriptive study has been carried out to investigate the obstacles to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic for this country. The intensity of the outbreaks of the pandemic in this country is stated from March 8, 2020, to February 12, 2021. Secondary data have been employed from different sources to serve the goals of the study.
RESULTS: The poor management in the health sector of Bangladesh has been an issue of major concern during the early stage of COVID-19 which incorporates deficiency of medical equipment, lack of facilities for testing COVID-19, poor patient management, and uncertainty in the medication system. Finally, some recommendations have been proposed for the concerned organizations to tackle the current pandemic and as well in the future.
CONCLUSIONS: To control this COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to find the difficulties and discover the remedies which have been done in this paper for the Bangladesh perspective.
METHODS: We conduct a side-by-side comparison of the machine learning approach with the traditional time series model. The multilayer perceptron model (MLP), a machine learning technique, and the Box-Jenkins methodology, also known as the ARIMA model, are used for classical modeling. Both methods are applied to the Monkeypox cumulative data set and compared using different model selection criteria such as root mean square error, mean square error, mean absolute error, and mean absolute percentage error.
RESULTS: With a root mean square error of 150.78, the monkeypox series follows the ARIMA (7,1,7) model among the other potential models. Comparatively, we use the multilayer perceptron (MLP) model, which employs the sigmoid activation function and has a different number of hidden neurons in a single hidden layer. The root mean square error of the MLP model, which uses a single input and ten hidden neurons, is 54.40, significantly lower than that of the ARIMA model. The actual confirmed cases versus estimated or fitted plots also demonstrate that the multilayer perceptron model has a better fit for the monkeypox data than the ARIMA model.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION: When it comes to predicting monkeypox, the machine learning method outperforms the traditional time series. A better match can be achieved in future studies by applying the extreme learning machine model (ELM), support vector machine (SVM), and some other methods with various activation functions. It is thus concluded that the selected data provide a real picture of the virus. If the situations remain the same, governments and other stockholders should ensure the follow-up of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) among the masses, as the trends will continue rising in the upcoming 10 days. However, governments should take some serious interventions to cope with the virus.
LIMITATION: In the ARIMA models selected for forecasting, we did not incorporate the effect of covariates such as the effect of net migration of monkeypox virus patients, government interventions, etc.
METHODS: A self-administrated online Google form survey was carried out between February 2021 and April 2021. Five thousand eight hundred forty-five participants who regularly exercise and aged ≥18 years responded to the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed through social media platforms and included five sections: demographic, training characters, knowledge, practice, and attitude.
RESULTS: The participants mean age was 27.4 ± 8.6 years. Males represented 58.2 % of participants. 75.3% of the study participants had not used either hormones or supplements, and about 19% used supplements only. The mean percent score for knowledge, practice, and attitude were 39.3 ± 30.5, 1.1 ± 9.5, and 21.3 ± 23.8, respectively. Level of knowledge was higher among participants who worked in the medical field or as sports coaches. The practice was higher among male participants. The most commonly used anabolic hormones and nutritional supplements were steroids and proteins with bodybuilding being the most common purpose. Internet was the main source of information and pharmacy was the main source for procuring these substances. There was a significant decrease in proteins, carbohydrates, and sports drinks used during the COVID-19 lockdown compared to before the COVID-19 lockdown, while a statistically significant increase in vitamins used during the COVID-19 lockdown compared to before COVID-19 lockdown.
DISCUSSION: In the MENA region, there has been an increase in the use of anabolic hormones and nutritional supplements. Most of the population has low knowledge of the harmful effect of uncontrolled, uninformed and unmonitored use of these substances Therefore, increasing the awareness level of participants and sports coaches should be a priority to limit the unsupervised use of hormones and supplements.
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to review evidence regarding the association between active aging and quality of life (QoL) among older adults and to determine the most widely used study designs and measurement instruments in studies conducted between 2000 and 2020.
METHODS: Relevant studies were identified by a systematic search of four electronic databases and cross-reference lists. Original studies examining the association between active aging and QoL in individuals aged 60 years or older were considered. The quality of the included studies and the direction and consistency of the association between active aging and QoL were assessed.
RESULTS: A total of 26 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic review. Most studies reported a positive association between active aging and QoL among older adults. Active aging had a consistent association with various QoL domains including physical environment, health and social services, social environment, economic, personal, and behavioral determinants.
CONCLUSION: Active aging had a positive and consistent association with several QoL domains among older adults, backing the notion that the better the active aging determinants, the better the QoL among older adults. Considering the broader literature, it is necessary to facilitate and encourage the active participation of older adults in physical, social, and economic activities for the maintenance and/or improvement of QoL. Identifying other possible determinants and enhancing the methods to improve those determinants may help improve the QoL among older adults.