Journal of Public Health Research最新文献

Tobacco use and exposure has been known as one of the leading causes of premature mortality worldwide. Tobacco control measures have been considered one of the strategies for reducing the burden of NCDs, improving public health, and strengthening the health system's response to threats and pandemics. The State of Qatar has put tobacco control a national public health priority as it has adopted various tobacco control measures that the WHO classified as high-impact measures. This has resulted in achieving tobacco control milestones which led to constant monitoring of tobacco use and the provision of smoking cessation services at all healthcare levels. However, there is still much work to be done to fill the gaps and respond to the emergence of novel tobacco products and market strategies in an effective way. This review highlights the status of tobacco use and exposure in the State of Qatar, and focus on the progress, and challenges in the implementation of tobacco control policies and smoking cessation services between 2002 and 2022.

Background: Medical students are prone to high levels of perceived stress and anxiety, which can negatively impact their academic performance, as well as their physical and mental health. This study aimed to assess the main stressors, levels of perceived stress and anxiety, and their predictors among medical students.

Design and methods: A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 1696 medical students at Helwan University. A cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate their perceived stress, stressors, and anxiety using the Perceived Stress Scale, Medical Students Stressor Questionnaire, and Beck Anxiety Inventory, respectively.

Results: Approximately 93% of medical students experienced moderate to high levels of stress, while 54.9% of medical students experienced moderate to concerning levels of anxiety. The main stressors were academic, teaching, social, intrapersonal, group activity, and desire-related stressors. Risk factors associated with higher perceived stress included being female, young age, living away from the family, obtaining lower academic percentages, having psychiatric, neurological, or other chronic medical illnesses, and experiencing higher levels of academic, intrapersonal, drive, and group activities-related stressors. Risk factors for higher anxiety included being female, residing in rural areas, having psychiatric, neurological, or other chronic medical illnesses, perceiving a high level of stress, and experiencing higher levels of academic, intrapersonal, and social-related stressors.

Conclusions: The findings indicate that a significant proportion of medical students experience various levels of stress and anxiety. These results underscore the urgent need for a stress management program, to help medical students to cope with different stressors.

Background: The high number of smokers in Indonesia, including adolescents, causes high morbidity due to smoking. Reducing the incidence of smoking-related disease in Indonesia needs to be done by reducing the number of smokers. This can be done by preventing smoking as early as possible, including during adolescence. The study aimed to assess the prevalence of adolescent male smokers and determine the social environment and facility support that influences smoking behavior in adolescent males aged 15-18 years in Surabaya, Indonesia.

Design and method: A cross-sectional study was performed from 1st October 2021 to 31st January 2022 on adolescent males aged 15 to 18 from senior high schools in Surabaya. 369 respondents completed a self-administered questionnaire about social environment and facility support that influence smoking behavior. The questionnaire result of the questionnaire was computed using bivariate analysis to examine the relationship between social environment, facility support, and smoking behavior.

Result: Of the 369 eligible participants, 95 (25.7%) were smokers, while the remaining 274 were not. The factors affecting smoking among adolescents were families influence (p = 0.000; PR = 4.805; CI = 2.923-7.900), friends influence (p = 0.000; RP = 3.987; CI = 2.4906.383), and advertisements influence (p = 0.000; RP = 3.137; CI = 2.275-4.325). Facility support was not found to be too influential (p = 0.399; RP = 0.767; CI = 0.472-1.245). Familia influence was the strongest factor in smoking among adolescent males aged 15 to 18.

Conclusions: Integrated programs and policies are needed to prevent and rehabilitate adolescents from smoking behavior. Improving their understanding of the health impacts of smoking is also needed.

Backgrounds: Effective risk communication depends on the government's ability to deploy the latest communication technologies to promptly educate its citizens of new hazards and assist them in making informed decisions. This study investigates the influence of risk information seeking, social media competency and trust in the government on the intention to adopt e-government apps for communicating public health risks.

Design and methods: To achieve the study's objective, a convenience sample of 149 Malaysian residents residing in Shah Alam was obtained via a structured questionnaire and subsequently analyzed using the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Method. The validity and reliability of the study were evaluated through the outer loadings, Average Variance Extracted (AVE), and Composite Reliability (CR). The influence of underlying factors on the outcome was evaluated by examining path coefficients, standard errors, and t-values.

Results: The measurement model suggested to use three items to measure the risk information seeking and five to measure trust in the government information and social competence. Loadings ranged from 0.681 to 0.972. The three factors explained the 43.2% of the outcome variability, and all had a positive effect on the intention to adopt information from the e-government application with coefficients estimates ranging from 0.133 to 0.541. The model showed an adequate predictive relevance with Q² = 0.381.

Conclusion: Public health risk communication via e-government applications rely on the active and accountable engagement of the citizens. To stimulate higher acceptance and utilization of government digital services for sustainable health risk communication and management, the government must raise the public's level of digital literacy and proficiency. By offering training programs and demonstrations, the government may also need to think about making investments in education about digital and technological skill levels.

Background: Deficiency of Vitamin B12 and folate may determine hematological, neurological, and metabolic alterations; therefore, an accurate quantification of their serum levels is required, especially in the presence of symptoms that might suggest a deficiency. CHORUS VIT B12 and CHORUS FOLATE are two automated immunoassays, developed to quantify vitamin B12 and folate, respectively, in human serum.

Design and methods: This single-center, non-pharmacological, diagnostic study described the validation and characterization of CHORUS VIT B12 and CHORUS FOLATE, with a specific focus on performance, precision, and reliability. For each assay, 500 serum samples were analyzed. A comparison between CHORUS assays and commercially available kit was also performed.

Results: For CHORUS VIT B12 the lower limit of quantification (LLoQ) was 165.0 pg/mL and the upper LoQ (ULoQ) was 1846.8 pg/mL. The assay was linear within the calibration range (150-2000 pg/mL) and the accuracy was described with the International Standard Vitamin B12, Serum Folate, HOLO TC (NIBSC code: 03/178), with a mean recovery on two lots of 111%. For CHORUS FOLATE (calibration range of 2.0-20.0 ng/mL), LLoQ was 2.0 ng/mL and ULoQ 19.6 ng/mL. The linearity was demonstrated from 2.4 to 20.0 ng/mL; the accuracy was described with the International Standard mentioned above, achieving a mean recovery on three lots of 92%. The lowest and highest values of both CHORUS and COBAS kits were similar and the median values did not significantly vary.

Conclusion: CHORUS VIT B12 and CHORUS FOLATE performed well, accurately, and reliably in quantifying vitamin B12 and folate in human serum.

Background: Electronic medical records (EMR) are considered an important aspect to improve medical services provided to patients. The purpose of this study was to assess the development of an Electronic Medical Records Project for Al-Razi hospital in Palestine.

Design and methods: The study was mixed method, qualitative and quantitative. The use of a questionnaire for the staff in the Al-Razi hospital and seven administrators' participants were meat as focus group.

Results: Approximately 136 participants in the study. The study findings reported that employees perceived the use of EMRs to have several benefits. The most common benefits include promoting patient safety culture and drug error reduction. In addition, the study findings reported that employees perceived the use of EMRs to have several challenges. The most common challenges include lack of knowledge and skill, insufficient time to use EMR, and limited of computers.

Conclusions: Health informatics brings various benefits to the healthcare system. Some participants believed that the EMR system would improve patient care and it will improve patient satisfaction.

Background: According to the studies conducted, teen pregnancy and its related health issues are among the most significant issues. The purpose of the study was to develop a musculoskeletal health intervention training programme using an intervention mapping approach (IMA) for teenagers aged 12-14 years old.

Methods: The present study is a study protocol where IMA has been used as a planning framework for developing a musculoskeletal health intervention training programme. Six steps of the intervention mapping process have been completed in the study. As the first step, needs assessment has been performed through systematic review and qualitative evaluation. In the second step, a matrix of change objectives was designed. Later on, after designing the programme and planning its implementation, the programme evaluation plan was developed.

Results: IMA guided us in designing and implementing a control-oriented training programme with the participation of the participants, along with the definition of outcomes, performance goals, and determinants, theoretical methods, practical applications, an intervention programme, implementation, and step-by-step assessment.

Conclusion: Intervention mapping is a participation-based approach to designing and implementing promotion programmes.

Background: The cost of maternal complications is considered as an important factor hindering the utilization of maternal health care services. However, information of estimate of spending on maternal complication was lacking. This study was aimed to estimate the cost of maternal complications and associated factors among mother's attending Hawassa public hospitals, Sidama Regional state, Ethiopia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted among 348 randomly selected mothers attending public hospitals in Hawassa from November 15 to December 15, 2021. Data was coded and entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and exported to STATA version 16.0 for analysis. Simple and multiple linear regression analysis was done. Correlation coefficient along with 95% CI was used to present the finding and p < 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.

Results: This study found that total median cost of maternal complications was 4895.5 (IQR = 3779) ETB. The total median direct medical cost was 1765.5 (IQR = 1649.5) ETB. Number of days absent [(R = 0.028; 95% CI: (0.023, 0.033)], distance from facility [(R = 0.001; 95% CI: (0.000, 0.002)], site of laboratory diagnosis [(R = 0.230; 95% CI: (0.140, 0.320)], number of laboratory test conducted [(R = 0.045; 95% CI: (0.021, 0.069)] were found to be significance predictors of maternal complications costs.

Conclusions: Total median cost of maternal complications in current study was high. Respondents' site of diagnosis, number of days missed from work, number of laboratory tests, and distance from hospitals were independent predictors of maternal complications cost. Thus, we will recommend governments to introduce strategies that specifically help mothers with maternal complications.