Journal of Public Health Research (PAGEPress Publications)
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Internship preparedness among students in healthcare-related fields in the COVID-19 era: Exploring the attitude and knowledge in Saudi Arabia
Get PDFBackground: In the COVID-19 era, efforts are being made to increase awareness among students and enhance best practices to mitigate the outbreak. To that end, the overarching aims of this study were to understand students’ attitude toward and knowledge of COVID-19 and examine the predictors of their attitude toward hand hygiene.Design and Methods: This cross-sectional survey study, conducted in Saudi Arabia, enrolled interns from diverse healthcare-related fields. The questionnaire was divided into three sections: sociodemographic data, knowledge of COVID-19, and attitude toward hand hygiene. The data was expressed as median and interquartile range (IQR).Results: In all, 371 responses were analyzed. The median knowledge score was 20, which was considered good. There were no statistically significant differences across age, hospital setting, or gender. Of the 254 respondents who had attended an educational session, 167 (65%) had a good knowledge score and 83 (33%) had a moderate score, compared with only four (2%) who had a poor score. The cumulative median score of the respondents’ attitudes was 6 (IQR [2]), which reflects a suboptimal attitude—only 38 (22%) reported a good attitude. The predicted effect of knowledge on attitude (good/suboptimal) was statistically significant (p = 0.02) using univariate logistic regression.Conclusions: The results suggest a strong need to encourage the current training program that targets hand hygiene practices among students in healthcare-related fields, especially prior to the internship year
Inequities as a social determinant of health: Responsibility in paying attention to the poor and vulnerable at risk of COVID-19
Get PDFTo the Editor
In December 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, a disease of viral origin was identified among people working in or around the seafood and animal market. Covid-19 is a causative agent of acute respiratory syndrome. Almost 26-36% of patients need special care and about 4-15% of them die. Due to the lack of vaccines and effective treatment, the best way to prevent its spread is to quarantine patients and track their contact with other people in the community, trying to reduce mortality and protect the elderly, the vulnerable and special patients..
Knowledge, attitude and practice on COVID-19 among students during the early phase of pandemic in a university in Borneo, Malaysia
Get PDFBackground: COVID-19 related knowledge, attitude and practice plays a major role in determining the readiness of the community to adopt the behavioural change towards recommended preventive measures outlined by public health officials. This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding COVID-19 among university students as well as its associated factors. Method: This is a cross sectional study that was conducted among students in a public university during the early phase of COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. An online validated self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis test was used to determine the association between independent variables with knowledge, attitude, and practice score.Results: Overall response rate of this study was 92.9 (n=524). Median score of knowledge domain was 78.0 (IQR= ±12.0), median attitude score of 49.0 (IQR= ±5.0), and median practice score of 80.0 (IQR= ±11.0). The mean knowledge, attitude and practice score were significantly higher among diploma holder (vs degree holder, p<0.05), residing in main Kota Kinabalu campus (vs non-KK campus, p<0.001), studying in medical faculty (vs non-medical faculty, p<0.001), and attended COVID-19 education (vs non-attendance; p<0.05).Conclusion: COVID-19 related knowledge and attitude were below satisfactory level during earlier phase of the pandemic. However, majority of respondents have positive behaviour towards COVID-19 prevention. This highlights the importance of accurate and tailored health education to improve the level of knowledge, attitude and practice of recommended measures to prevent COVID-19 spread
Efficacy and knowledge of conducting CPR through online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: A literature review
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to carry out face-to-face training activities in various higher institutions. This has led to a negative impact on the skills and abilities of nursing students in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the cessation of their clinical practice programs in hospitals. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the efficacy and knowledge of nursing students in performing CPR by implementing a blended learning program, through online learning platforms. The search for full-text articles was carried out in May 2020 and were reviewed to know whether they fit the theme using the ProQuest, ScienceDirect and PubMed databases with the keywords “BLS”, “CPR”, “Blended learning”, “Knowledge” and “Self-efficacy”. In addition, there were 15 articles that matched the criteria. The application of a blended learning program that integrates video and face-to-face lectures through online learning platforms in conducting effective CPR, increases the efficacy and knowledge of nursing students. The effectiveness of online learning greatly affects the efficacy and knowledge of nursing students in conducting CPR. Therefore, it was highly recommended during the COVID-19 pandemic
Family knowledge of population issues
Get PDFBackground: The population growth rate of Central Java Province is considerably above the ideal. Therefore, the Provincial and Regional Governments need to carefully plan the development programs by analyzing the family knowledge of population issues. This study aims to determine the family knowledge of population issues.Design and Methods: This research used the secondary data analysis (SDA) method. The data were taken from the 2019 Performance and Program Accountability Survey (SKAP) of the Population of KKBPK (Population of Family Planning and Family Development), Central Java Province. The data included in the 2019 SKAP Keluarga on population issues will be analyzed using descriptive quantitative analysis.Results: According to the research data, 51.5% of respondents understood population issues. The commonly recognized issues are unemployment (95.5%), employment (97.1%), and poverty (97.1%). The source of information widely used by respondents is the television (91.9%). Additionally, officers or communities that provide abundant information about population issues are friends, neighbors, and relatives (72.8%). Furthermore, formal educational institutions, including schools (47.8%), and community organizations (youth organizations, PKK/Family Welfare Program, Integrated Health Service Post, and religious organizations) (49.6%) provided information.Conclusions: In conclusion, efforts to increase the knowledge about population issues can be done by optimizing the function of television, close circles, the role of formal educational institutions and social organizations
Factors affecting the ability to speak in children with autism spectrum disorders
Get PDFBackground: Communication deficit is one of the characteristics of autism spectrum disorder. Some children with this condition cannot communicate verbally and some have very limited speech skills. This study aims to analyze the factors that affect speaking ability in children with autism, namely age, sex, emotions, attention, and memory.Design and Methods: This study used a correlational analytical design with a retrospective cohort design. Data were obtained using questionnaires and scales. Furthermore, emotional factors, attention, memory, and age were analyzed for their effects on speaking ability using the Pearson test, while sex was analyzed for their effects on speaking ability using the Eta test.Results: The results showed that there was a significant effect of attention and age on the speaking ability of children with autism spectrum disorders. Furthermore, it showed that there was a significant effect of emotion on attention.Conclusions: It was concluded that attention and age affect the speaking ability of children with autism spectrum disorder. Meanwhile, attention in affecting speaking ability is influenced by emotions. Therefore, to improve speaking ability, good emotional management and increased attention is required
The association between Major Depressive Disorder and premature death risk in hematologic and solid cancer: a longitudinal cohort study
Get PDFBackground: the aim was to verify the association between Major Depressive Disorders (MDD) and the risk of premature death in people with oncological diseases, and to collect evidence about the causality of a possible association from a longitudinal perspective.Design and Methods: it is a cohort study lasting 9 months, involving people with solid or hematologic cancers. The assessment was conducted by an ad hoc form to collect socio-demographic and clinical-oncological data, the PHQ-9 to screen MDD (cut-off ≥10) and the SF-12 to evaluate HRQoL. Relative Risk (RR) of early death between MDD exposed and not-exposed and Kaplan-Meier survival were carried out.Results: people exposed to MDD during the follow-up were 107/263 (40.7%). Among them, 36 deceased during the observation period. Overtime, having MDD and death’ occurrence showed a strong association (RR=2.15; 95% CI (1.10-4.20); χ²=5.224, p=0.0022), confirmed by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis (χ²=4.357, p=0.037). Among people who died, there was not any association between MDD, age, gender, HRQoL, cancer stage and site.Conclusions: the study confirms the association between MDD and early death in people with cancer. The absence of any association between the onset of MDD and advanced stage of cancer may suggest that it could be due to the consequences of MDD in worsening the clinical conditions related to cancer. The findings point out the relevance of MDD’ early detention among people with cancer
Food safety knowledge and practice among pregnant women: a cross sectional study in Ghana
Get PDFBackground: Foodborne disease is a growing public health concern worldwide, especially among vulnerable populations. Improved understanding of food safety practices is fundamental to addressing the phenomenon. This study aimed to assess the socio-demographic factors influencing knowledge and practice of food safety among pregnant women in Ghana.Design and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed in person to participants during data collection. Data was entered and analysed in Epi Data version 3.1 and Stata 12, respectively. Chi square test and Fischer’s exact test were used to determine association between independent variables and outcome variables (knowledge and practice). Binary logistic regression was used to test the strength of the association between independent and outcome variables at 95% confident interval. A p-value of 0.05 or less was considered significant.Results: Findings were: about 87.06% of the respondents had satisfactory knowledge on food safety; approximately 58.2% of respondents knew how to prevent foodborne disease but about 51.18% had unsatisfactory practice about food safety; about 28.2% of participants had experienced foodborne disease before in the past 6 months. Also, employment status and period of pregnancy were found to have significant influence on food safety knowledge whereas educational level and employment status also had significant influence on food safety practice.Conclusion: Improved understanding about food safety will not necessarily lead to high food safety practices. In the quest to effectively prevent foodborne disease, we recommend an increase in awareness creation regarding foodborne disease and its associated socio-demographic risk factors like employment status, period of pregnancy and educational level
The correlation between sleep quality and the prevalence of obesity in school-age children
Get PDFBackground: The prevalence of obesity increases year by year. Sleep quality is considered to be one of the obesity causes. The current average sleep range of children in Indonesia was 6-7 hours. This study aims to analyze whether sleep quality affects the prevalence of obesity in children.Design and methods: This study used a prospective cohort as the research method. The samples consisted of 37 primary school-age children (4th-6th grade) from West Java and Sumatra, which were selected using the snowball sampling technique. The data were collected by using PSQI and sleep logs (within a month).Result: The statistical results showed that most of the obese children, 12 out of 19, had poor sleep quality (63.2%), while most of the non-obese children (normal),15 out of 18, had good sleep quality (83.3%). Based on the chi-square statistic, the p-value =0.011 <a (0.05) indicating that H0 was rejected, which means there was a correlation between sleep quality and obesity, with OR=8.571 (95% CI: 1.818-40.423), which means the children with poor sleep quality were likely to experience obesity 8.6 times greater than those who had good sleep quality.Conclusions: This study found there were correlations between dietary intake, physical activity, sleep quality, and obesity in school-age children. The most dominant factor related to obesity in school-age children is the habitual sleep efficiency (OR=12.354)
Spousal intimacy, type of antiretroviral drug and antiretroviral therapy adherence among HIV patients in Bandung, Indonesia
Get PDFBackground: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been proven effective in reducing the mortality rates among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH). However, poor adherence to ART may result in treatment failure. Few studies examine the relationship between spousal intimacy, type of ART and ART adherence. This study aimed to investigate the association between spousal intimacy, type of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and antiretroviral therapy adherence among PLWH in Bandung, Indonesia.Design and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 115 adult PLWH who were receiving ART at least for 6 months in RSUD Kota Bandung, they were selected with consecutive sampling. The data were analyzed using chi-square test.Results: The majority of PLWH (61.74%) reported had high level of spousal intimacy, about 93.91% PLWH used first line of ART, and 88.69% had high adherence in consuming ART. Spousal intimacy had a significant relationship to antiretroviral adherence (p<0.001) and type of ART (p=0.031, OR: 7.35) significantly associated with antiretroviral adherence.Conclusions: PLWH who have high levels of spousal intimacy also have high levels of antiretroviral adherence. PLWH on first-line ART were 7.3 times more adherent on ART