Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine最新文献

Introduction and objective: Women comprise the majority of emergency call-takers and dispatchers (ECDs) in Poland. This workplace requires high mental resilience, control and tolerance of unpredictable events. Working during the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic may have been particularly overburdening for female ECDs. The aim of the study was to estimate the level of perceived life stress and its relationship with marital status, number of children, education level, workplace requirements, and number of shifts.

Material and methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 308 women working in 14 emergency call centres during the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey employed The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). A multivariate analysis of the effect of multiple variables on the quantitative variable was conducted using the linear regression method.

Results: The study confirmed the assumption about the high level of perceived stress during the first wave of the pandemic. It was revealed that for one-third of the women, the level of perceived stress was high and related to the number of on-call duties and the number of children at home. Higher education co-occurred with higher levels of women's helplessness, while being married co-occurred with its lower levels. There were differences in the level of stress due to workplace requirements.

Conclusions: Female ECDs face additional life stress because of the gender roles. In the analysis of the effects of the pandemic, the gender dimension should be taken into account in the assessment of public health.

Introduction and objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on health behaviours of students of medical specialities from the aspect of psychological support in Poland.

Material and methods: A study was conducted from 6 June - 16 December, 2022 among students of the Collegium Medicum at the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce (CM UJK), Poland, and the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM). The final analysis covered 517 students of full-time studies - 265 (51.06%) students from CM UJK and 253 (48.94%) from WUM. Health behaviours as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic from the aspect of psychological support were investigated using the standardized questionnaire Health Behaviour Inventory (HBI), and an author-constructed questionnaire. Positive mental attitude, preventive behaviours, and proper eating habits were taken into consideration.

Results: The results indicated greater care for own health among students from CM UJK. It was found that every fifth respondent (178; 34.43%) reported the need for psychological support. A statistically significant relationship was observed between the need for psychological support and low health behaviour in terms of positive mental attitude (p<0.001) and health practices (p<0.001) of the examined students. Those who declared the need for psychological support were characterized by low psychological attitude (p<0.001) and felt lonely during the pandemic, which was the result of isolation and remote classes (p<0.001).

Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic exerted a negative effect on the health behaviours of students of medical specialities in the area of psychological health. The feeling of loneliness and lack of social contacts exposed the health behaviours of the examined students.

Introduction and objective: Water in installations in hospitals and social welfare homes (SWHs) should meet the requirements of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the quality of water intended for human consumption and national regulations issued on its basis. At present, 60 species of bacteria of the genus Legionella sp. are known (of which 30 are considered as pathogenic for humans), and more than 80 serologic groups. The aim of the study was determination of the effect of temperature on contamination of hot water systems with Legionella sp. bacteria in buildings of hospitals and SWHs in the Kielce Province, Poland, based on measurement of the temperature of domestic hot water during the period 2014-2018.

Material and methods: 631 results of temperature measurements and examinations of the quality of hot water were analyzed for the presence of the occurrence of Legionella sp. bacteria, conducted in 30 buildings of hospitals and 32 buildings of social welfare homes.

Results: From among 581 samples, only 8.95% (n=52) had a temperature of ≥55°C. The mean temperature of water in the installations of buildings, calculated based on measurements carried out while collecting samples for the study, was 46°C in 2014, and up to 47°C in 2018. The allowable limit of bacteria was exceeded in 13.04% (n=69) of the samples at the temperature < 55°C, and in 3.85% (n=2) of the samples in which the temperature was higher or equal to 55°C.

Conclusions: Water temperature ≥55°C significantly reduced the occurrence of excessive contamination of samples with Legionella sp. bacteria. Proper temperature of domestic water in water systems in hospitals and SWHs is indispensable for the provision of health safety of the patients.

Introduction and objective: Parasites of the genus Theileria are intracellular protozoa that infect the leukocytes and erythrocytes of animals, causing theileriosis. The aim of the study was to examine the presence of Theileria spp. in adult ticks and their offspring in the Lublin region of eastern Poland.

Material and methods: Ticks were collected from vegetation and from wild and domestic animals in Lublin Province, Poland. Engorged females were left in laboratory conditions to lay eggs. Detection of Theileria spp. was performed by amplifying a fragment of the 18S rRNA gene.

Results: Overall, 1,000 ticks collected from vegetation, 50 engorged female ticks from animals, and eggs and larvae from 5 females were tested for Theileria spp. The parasite was not detected in adult ticks or samples isolated from eggs and larvae.

Conclusions: The results did not confirm the prevalence of Theileria in ticks in eastern Poland. The distribution of Theileria in ticks and animals in the Lublin macroregion requires further monitoring.

Objective: The aim of the study is to verify whether the electronic nose system - an array of 17 gas sensors with a signal analysis system - is a useful tool for the classification and preliminary assessment of the quality of drainage water.

Material and methods: Water samples for analysis were collected in the Park Ludowy (People's Park), located next to the Bystrzyca River, near the city center of Lublin in eastern Poland. Drainage water was sampled at 4 different points. Samples of synthetic air and river water taken from the Bystrzyca River were used for reference. All water samples were tested using an MOS gas sensor array. In order to assess how the e-nose performed in screening and discriminating/preliminarily classifying and grouping samples, their properties were tested using reference methods and assessing surface water quality. The PCA method, Kohonen's SOM with superimposed cluster boundaries by McQuitty's method, random forest and MLP neural network were used to visualize and classify the multivariate data.

Results: The visualization and multidimensionality reduction methods (PCA and SOM) did not enable to clearly distinguish the observations from different drainage water samples. The supervised random forest and MLP methods coped with the classification of samples much better, achieving 84.3% and 87.6% correct classifications on the test set, respectively.

Conclusions: Statistical analysis of the chemical properties of the samples showed that even reference tests are unable to clearly distinguish the samples in terms of a single parameter. However, the e-nose method makes it possible to distinguish these samples from a reference sample derived from river water and a clean air sample.

Introduction and objective: The subject of the article are the strategies used by nurses working in COVID-19 hospital units for coping with stress. The aim of the study was to make a comparative analysis between the styles, strategies and behaviours practiced by nurses working in COVID units and the nurses working in conservative treatment and surgical units.

Material and methods: For the study we used the Polish adaptation of Ch. S. Carver's standardized "Inventory for Measuring Coping with Stress Mini-COPE" (Brief-COPE), created by Z. Juczyński and N. Ogińska-Bulik. The research was carried out in 2021 on a group of 225 nurses working in different hospital units.

Results: The results showed that in the COVID-19 units, avoidance and humor were used as coping strat-egies significantly more often than in the surgical and conservative treatments units. The observed strategies included planning, positive revaluation, use of psychoactive substances, preoccupation with other activities, denial, emotional discharge, and humor. Factors such as age, sex, marital status, education or place of residence turned out to have an influence on the ways of coping practiced by particular nurses.

Conclusions: There is a clear distinction between the strategies, styles and behaviours observed among nurses working in COVID-19 units, and the ways of coping practiced by nurses working in non-COVID-19 units (conservative treatment and surgical). Nurses working in COVID-19 units were more likely to deny facts, distract themselves with different activities, or downplay the seriousness of the situation by joking and treating the situation with fun and humor, but also to use planning and positive reevaluation to cope with stress.

Introduction and objective: Dietary habits may be an essential modulator affecting diet-related cognitive decline. One hopes that their identification will allow opening the use of new approaches for the management of the prevention and treatment of patients with mild cognitive disorders and maintaining a good quality of life. The aim of the research was to characterize dietary habits in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Material and methods: The survey was conducted among 146 people. 101 patients in the MCI group and 45 people without cognitive impairment (n-MCI group) as control. The research tools were the Questionnaires Eating Behaviour (QEB) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) screening test. Patients were qualified into MCI group based on the MoCA screening test (25 or fewer points in the MoCA test).

Results: Differences were found in the hierarchical list of foods typically consumed at breakfast and lunch between participants in the MCI and n-MCI groups. It was also shown that among patients with MCI. a significantly smaller percentage of respondents consumed low-fat dairy products; (p=0.001) and total vegetables (p=0.034). as well as cereal products (p=0.001) and fish (p=0.007). At the same time. this group was characterized by a higher consumption of high-fat and sugar products (p=0.010).

Conclusions: According to the findings. dietary behaviours based on diets low in saturated fats but rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. as well as vitamins and bioactive substances. may be useful in preventing MCI. These health behaviors are known among people following the Nordic Diet from a northern cultural environment or the MD diet from Southern Europe.

Fungal contamination in the air of hospital wards can affect the health of medical staff, patients, and caregivers. Through systematic analysis of the concentration, types, and particle size distribution characteristics of fungi in the air of wards in Wuhan, China, in 2023, it was found that there was no significant correlation between the concentration of fungi in the air of wards and the disease type and personnel density. The main influencing factors were temperature, humidity, and seasonal changes. The distribution characteristics of fungal particle size in the wards of various departments in winter and summer showed a roughly normal distribution, with the percentage of particle size gradually increasing from stage I to stage III. The proportion from stage III to stage V was generally the highest, while the proportion from stage V to stage VI gradually decreased. There was no significant difference in the median diameter of airborne fungal conidia between different departments in winter and summer, and the median diameter of fungal conidia was less than 3.19 μm. The dominant fungal genus in the wards during winter and summer were basically the same, and there was no significant difference compared to wards in other inpatient buildings. The current study indicates that more attentions should be paid to the increasing of filtration efficiency of fungal conidia particle sized from 1.1~4.7 μm, and appropriate antifungal and sterilization drugs, equipments and methods should be selected in the maintenance of daily hygiene, including the operation and management of the air conditioning systems in the inpatient wards.

Introduction and objective: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of bee venom on the activity of two analgesics: ketoprofen (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and tramadol (an opioid drug) in the acute thermal pain model (hot-plate test) in mice.

Material and methods: Linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the dose-response relationship between logarithms of drug doses and their resultant maximum possible anti-nociceptive effects in the mouse hot-plate test. Doses that increased the anti-nociceptive effect by 20% (ED₂₀ values) for bee venom, ketoprofen and tramadol, and their combination were calculated from linear equations. The interaction between bee venom and the selected anaglesics was evaluated using isobolographic analysis.

Results: The study showed that all compounds produced a definite anti-nociceptive effect, and the experimentally-derived ED₂₀ values for bee venom, ketoprofen and tramadol, when applied indivisually, was 3.64 mg/kg, 79.88 mg/kg and 13.26 mg/kg, respectively. Isobolographic analysis revealed that the combination of bee venom and ketoprofen at a fixed ratio of 1:1 was supra-additive (synergistic). The experimentally-derived ED_{20 mix} was 26.33 mg/kg, which significantly differed from the ED_{20 add} of 41.76 mg/kg (p < 0.5). The experimentally-derived ED_{20 mix} of bee venom and tramadol was 2.90 mg/kg, and differed significantly from the theoretically estimated ED_{20 add} of 8.45 mg/kg (p < 0.5), also indicating a synergistic interaction in the hot-plate test in mice. Moreover, none of the tested combinations indicated any adverse effects in the chimney test and the grip-strength test in mice.

Conclusions: Overall, the obtained results demonstrated that bee venom significantly increased the anti-nociceptive activity of ketoprofen and tramadol in the hot-plate model of nociceptive pain in mice.

Introduction and objective: Elimination irrigation therapy has been proposed as a potential treatment for upper respiratory tract infections, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, due to its antiviral properties and mechanical cleansing effects. Additionally, a combination of mineral water with antibiotic therapy has shownto be effective in improving the course clinical infection and positively impact the immune system, potentially enhancing the normal state of microbiota state. The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of elimination-irrigation therapy using a combination of mineral water and ciprofloxacin on the interaction form of individual microbiota species of the upper respiratory tract mucous membrane.

Material and methods: During the study, microbiological methods were used, such as microscopic, bacteriological and biofilm cultivation methods. rovoking antagonistic interactions within these associations, and a general decrease in microbial colonization activity. During the multispecies biofilm formation by L. sporogenes and S. aureus ATCC 25923, as well as L. sporogenes and E. coli ATCC 25922, a mutual antagonistic effect was determined. The forms of microbial interaction in multispecies biofilm was changed in the presence of 0.0313 mg/ml Ciprofloxacin.

Conclusions: The 10-minute mineral water treatment and addition of 0.0313 mg/ml Ciprofloxacin enhanced the antagonistic interaction between L. sporogenes and E. coli ATCC 25922, as well as with S. aureus ATCC 25923.