Journal of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene最新文献

Introduction: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is an important condition during pregnancy. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effects of self-management education based on 5A model on the quality of life and blood glucose level of women with GDM.

Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 54 pregnant women referred to the urban health care centers affiliated to the Gonabad University of Medical Sciences from March 2019 to March 2020 based on purposive sampling method. Participants were randomly allocated into intervention and control groups based on stratified random sampling using permuted block randomization method. The intervention group received self-management education program based on 5A model in five sessions during two months. Demographic data, blood glucose level, and diabetes quality of life (DQOL) questionnaire were collected for each participant. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS software version 16 and the level of statistical significance was set at 0.05.

Results: Mean age of the participants was 33.11 ± 5.35 years old. At the end of the intervention, the mean blood glucose level of the participants in the intervention group was significantly lower compared to the control group (p < 0.001). The quality of life in the intervention group was significantly improved at the end of the intervention compared to the control group (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Self-management education based on 5A model can effectively improve quality of life and blood glucose levels in women with GDM.

[This corrects the article on p. E1-E443 in vol. 63.].

Introduction: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are one of the highest priority groups recommended for seasonal influenza vaccination (SIV). Greater awareness of the importance of influenza vaccination was observed among HCWs after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to analyze SIV coverage rates in the 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons among HCWs employed at the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino in Genoa, in order to observe how coverage has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Methods: A retrospective, single-center study was conducted among HCWs working at the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino in Genoa. The vaccinated population was stratified by gender, age, qualification and area of activity, and the characteristics of vaccinated HCWs were analyzed.

Results: While SIV coverage was below the recommended target in all seasons, a sharp increase was observed in 2020/2021 (12.8%; 40.9% and 23% in 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, respectively). The mean and median age of vaccinees also increased during the 2020/2021 vaccination campaign (46.7 and 49 years, respectively) in comparison with the 2019/2020 season (43.5 and 45, respectively). In the 2019/2020 and 2021/2022 seasons, a higher proportion of vaccinees were physicians. Vaccinated females outnumbered males, but the coverage rate resulted greater in males than females in all three seasons. While a higher proportion of vaccinated subjects worked in medical areas, the most evident increase over the three years was seen among subjects working in the services area.

Conclusions: This survey highlights the importance of studying the determinants that influence vaccination adherence and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected SIV coverage.

Counteracting vaccine hesitancy should be considered an absolute priority for Public Health Authorities. A correct health communication represents one of the best ways to increase adhesion to vaccination among hesitant population. In order to increase vaccination coverage rates against COVID-19, the Italian government has issued a legislative decree with a mandatory "Digital Green Certificate" (DGC) to access workplaces for some categories considered at risk.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with the aim to highlight the factors associated with the anti-COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and to estimate the influence of the introduction by law of the Digital Green Certificate (DGC) on the adhesion to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in a sample of individual accessing one of the main vaccination centres of the metropolitan area of Palermo, Italy. An anonymous and validated questionnaire was self-administered through the Google Documents® platform, between October 2021 and March 2022.

Results: Among the 467 subjects enrolled, 43.3% were influenced on their vaccination choice by the introduction of the DGC. The multivariate analysis showed that among the respondents emerged contrasting feelings with a self-reported significantly higher sense of freedom (Adj-OR = 2.45, 95%CIs = 1.51-3.97, p-value: < 0.001) but a lower sense of safety (Adj-OR = 0.19, 95%CIs = 0.12-0.29, p-value: < 0.001) after vaccine administration.

Conclusions: Our findings, in line with the available literature, suggest that the introduction of DGC has led to a significant increase in the immunization rate and, together with an appropriate communicative approach, it could represent an effective strategy to counteract vaccine hesitancy.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) worldwide. In women with genital infection, the virus can be transmitted by sex to the oral cavity of their partners and then to their own oral cavity. The aim of the present study was to establish the prevalence of cervical/anal/oral HPV infection in women attending the Dermatology Unit of the Policlinico San Martino of Genoa, the regional reference hospital in Liguria, Italy.

Methods: Between January 2016 and December 2018, the female patients attending the STI center (cases) and those requiring a full body skin examination for skin cancer screening ("supposed" healthy population: controls) were recruited. Cervical/anal/oral samples were collected with ThinPrep liquid based cytology preparation system: polymerase chain reaction for HPV and cytological evaluation were performed. Overall, 85 cases and 31 controls were recruited.

Results: Cervical HPV infection was detected in 60% of the cases and 48% of the controls; anal HPV infection in 44% of the cases and 26% of the controls. Cervical and anal HPV infection resulted associated, especially in the control group. Moreover, 32% of the cases and 29% of the controls proved HPV positive in the oral cavity. In the cases of our series, prevalence of cervical, anal and oral HPV infection was higher compared with the controls.

Conclusions: The high prevalence of anal-oral infections and the frequent association between anal and cervical infections, provide reason to suggest HPV screening also in the anal and oral regions, which may represent HPV reservoirs and grounds for cancer development.

Introduction: Lean is largely applied to the health sector and on the healthcare-associated infections (HAI). However, a few results on the improvement of the outcome have been reported in literature. The purpose of this study is to analyze if the lean application can reduce the HAI rate.

Methods: A comprehensive search was performed on PubMed/Medline, Scopus, CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, and Google Scholar databases using various combinations of the following keywords: "lean" and "infection". Inclusion criteria were: 1) research articles with quantitative data and relevant information on lean methodology and its impact on healthcare infections; 2) prospective studies. The risk of bias and the study quality was independently assessed by two researchers using the "The National Institutes of Health (NIH) quality assessment tool for before-after (Pre-Post) study with no control group". The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines has been used. 22 studies were included in the present meta-analysis.

Results: Lean application demonstrated a significant protective role on healthcare-associated infections rate (RR 0.50; 95% C.I.: 0.38-0.66) with significant impact on central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) (RR 0.47; 95% C.I.: 0.28-0.82).

Conclusions: Lean has a positive impact on the decreasing of HAIs and on the improvement of compliance and satisfaction of the staff.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic represented an unprecedented challenge for the healthcare world and the introduction of a new stronger and believable project plays a fundamental role for the quality of work and the provision of qualitative care.

Aim: The survey provided by Italian Association for the Quality of Health and Social Care (ASIQUAS) aims to examines the impact of "Health" chapter included in the Recovery Plan, through the assessment of management quality of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Starting from a literature review, in September 2021, a web-based survey has been conducted and administered by e-mail. It has been taken into account measures widely used by different healthcare structures in order to analyze the projects implemented in the face of pandemic and to evaluate the new real possibility to invest funds in new healthcare structures and projects.

Results: The survey consists of 19 multiple choices and respondents were from different types of structures, including regional departments and regional health agencies (1.4%), universities, research centers and scientific hospitalization and treatment institutes (IRCCS) (11%), hospitals and university polyclinics (34.2%), Local Health Authorities (39.7%), socio-health organizations and Others (13.7%). The pandemic has highlighted many vulnerabilities at both hospitals and territorial level. The major weaknesses revealed by the survey are mainly due to the lack of support from new staff units and poor availability of specific training tools for COVID-19 procedures. The Recovery Plan is still unclear with a lot of concern about the implementation and many limits of diffusion.

Conclusions: It becomes essential to guarantee a new effective and interoperative model of integration. Today we can start more aware for the implementation of a system closer to everyone's needs, making shortcomings the new strength and starting point.

Objective: Hepatitis is one of the chronic diseases that can lead to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, which cause deaths around the world. Hence, early diagnosis is needed to control, treat, and reduce the effects of this disease. This study's main goal was to compare the performance of traditional and ensemble learning methods for predicting hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV). Also, important variables related to HBV and HCV were identified.

Methods: This case-control study was conducted in Hamadan Province, in the west of Iran, between 2014 to 2019. It included 534 subjects (267 cases and 267 controls). The bagging, random forest, AdaBoost, and logistic regression were used for predicting HBV and HCV. These methods' performance was evaluated using accuracy.

Results: According to the results, the accuracy of bagging, random forest, Adaboost, and logistic regression were 0.65 ± 0.03, 0.66 ± 0.03, 0.62 ± 0.04, and 0.64 ± 0.03, respectively, with random forest showing the best performance for predicting HBV. This method showed that ALT was the most important variable for predicting HBV. The the accuracy of random forest was 0.77±0.03 for predicting HCV. Also, the random forest showed that the order of variable importance has belonged to AST, ALT, and age for predicting HCV.

Conclusion: This study showed that random forest performed better than other methods for predicting HBV and HCV.

Introduction: Behavioural and metabolic risk factors are responsible for the greatest burden of disease; an unhealthy diet, along with abdominal obesity, are risk factors related to Non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Methods: Data concerning food patterns were determined by the application of an interview-type instrument, used to assess the daily and weekly frequency of consumption; cardiovascular risk was assessed using waist circumference, and nutritional status via Body Mass Index. Student's t test was applied to evaluate the differences between variables and the Pearson's chi-square test for the association of variables.

Results: Dietary energy intake (kcal/capita/day) was 3000 kcal, with an average distribution of 12.2% (proteins), 46.9% (carbohydrates), and 40.9% (total fats). The 78% of the sample suffered from malnutrition by excess. About 37.5% had Non-Communicable Diseases, with high blood pressure being the most frequent disease among both genders, with the highest prevalence among women, along with diabetes mellitus and dyslipidaemia. Depending on the nutritional status, the presence of obesity is associated with high cardiovascular risk (p = 0.000), greater energy availability (p = 0.012), and an increased occurrence of non-communicable diseases (p = 0.004).

Conclusions: Malnutrition by excess figures support the global alert for obesity and overweight, which are considered to be a pandemic; in addition, Chiloé is not immune to the increasing trend of processed and ultra-processed food consumption.