quality

Objective: In primary care, during treatments, nurses may need to wear surgical masks, namely for control of infection contamination, or to minimize unpleasant odors. The goal of this study is to inspect the effect of nurses wearing the mask on patient perception of the nurse-patient relation. Methods: A pre-post-test, control-experimental group design was employed with 60 patients treated in family health units. Patients responded to the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire III (PSQ-III) regarding nurses’ communication, interpersonal manner, technical quality, as well regarding general satisfaction with the encounter. An additional question asked both patients and nurses how long they felt that the visit lasted. Results: Results show that nurses wearing the surgical mask had significantly negative effects in all dimensions of PSQ-III and increased the perceived visit duration among both nurses and patients. Conclusion: When a previous relationship exists, nurses wearing the surgical mask in primary care in Portugal negatively affects patient satisfaction with both the patient-nurse relation and the nurses’ technical quality. Practice implications: Is important the nurse understand this impact to discuss with the colleagues the best strategy to minimize the negative impact to the patient- family nurse relation and manager this situation in the best way to the patient. 

Purpose: In an aspect of qualitative treatment, this research gathered lung cancer patients’ actual experiences to understand deeply, such as their expectation for treatment results, their difficulties during treatment, and their various requests to their family and medical teams. Methods: From May to June 2013, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 lung cancer patients. Data were collected through a tape-recorded in-depth interview. The analysis of the data was made through the qualitative method. Results: 124 themes regarding the experience were found. From these 35 concepts, 24 subcategories were emerged. The core category was enduring hardship of the treatment with the hope for full recovery. Six categories included ‘Wishing to be cured but concern about recurrence’, ‘Receiving radiation treatment with pleasure and difficult at the same time’. ‘Being sorry for their family’s full support and trying to stand alone‘, ‘Having confidence in their medical team’, ‘regretting for their old days’, and ‘Wanting to live a long life without illness and pain’. Conclusion: The results of this study would help oncology nurses to understand the lung cancer patients receiving concurrent chemo-radiotherapy (CCRT) and to develop a quality of life improvement program for physical, psychosocial, and spiritual aspects of nursing.

Objective: The study aimed to investigate neonatal nurses' knowledge and practices related to pain assessment and management that may contribute to improve the quality of pain management by nurses at Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) of governmental hospitals in Gaza Strip. Design: The study design was quantitative, descriptive cross sectional, conducted at the NICUs affiliated to the governmental hospitals "Al Shifa Hospital - Al Nasser Pediatric Hospital - European Gaza Hospital". Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of all nurses working in NICUs. The total number of nurses was 102. The data were collected from study participants by using a self-administered questionnaire. The response rate was 100%. The data collected were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistical tests with level of statistical significance at p < 0.5. Results: The results showed that nurses had very low of knowledge level with mean percentages (59.42%) and very low of practice level with mean percentages (58.33%). Conclusion: Therefore, the study recommended to developing course or educational program related to assessment and management of neonatal pain to promote their integrated pain management care for neonates.

This work aims to evaluate cortical porosity through a high-resolution peripheral quantitative micro-tomography in a group of 47 patients. All patients, in vivo, were subjected to the medical care protocol of the University Hospital Clementino Fraga, 020-213. Patients were women aged from 37 to 82 years old, who did not present fractures in their lower and upper limbs, all of them showing good health. During screening, they were required to have normal BMD (as determined by DXA; T-score ≥ 1.0) and no low-trauma fractures history. The exclusion criteria for all the individuals enrolled in this control study include, for example, alcoholism, chronic drug use, and chronic gastrointestinal disease. Male patients ranging from 42 to 79 years old presented the same health issues as women group. Results showed an increase in the amount of pores on the cortical bone of the evaluated patients over time; however, this increase was also observed in pore diameter, as well as a decrease in the border between the cortical and trabecular bone, indicating a deterioration in cortical bone quality over the years.

Purpose: Sacroiliac joints (SIJ) inflammation and pain is particularly common in patients with Spondyloarthritis. Intraarticular SIJs injections represent a valuable therapeutic option in this condition. In the rheumatological outpatient clinics this procedure is usually done by landmark guidance (LG) or ultrasound guidance (USG). Thus we aimed to compare the short term efficacy of USG vs. LG SIJ injections using five outcome measures: 1. Pain; 2. SIJ status (number of positive provocation tests per symptomatic SIJ on physical examination); 3. Disability; 4. Quality of the night sleep; 5. Patients’ satisfaction. Methods: We enrolled 44 consecutive spondyloarthritis patients with pain in the SIJs that did not respond to NSAIDS and that were otherwise on a stable medical treatment. All patients also had ≥ 3 positive pain provocation tests per SIJ on physical examination. Patients were randomly allocated to receive a single SIJ injection with 7 mg Betamethasone (1 ml) and 1% Lidocaine (1.5 ml) either under USG or with LG. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement in all outcome parameters. However, the USG approach performed significantly better than the LG ones in all parameters. In addition, there was a significant correlation between the improvement in all patient reported outcomes (VAS, RMDQ, JSEQ) and the reduction in the number of positive SIJ pain provocation tests per symptomatic joint. Conclusion: Both USG and LG SIJ injections proved to be an efficient treatment for SIJ pain in SpA patients. However, USG of the intervention led to statistically better results in the present study.

Advances in metagenomics have facilitated population studies of associations between microbial compositions and host properties, but strategies to minimize biases in these population analyses are needed. However, the effects of storage conditions, including freezing and preservation buffer, on microbial populations in fecal samples have not been studied sufficiently. In this study, we investigated metagenomic differences between fecal samples stored in different conditions. We collected 46 fecal samples from patients with lung cancer. DNA quality and microbial composition within different storage Methods were compared throughout 16S rRNA sequencing and post analysis. DNA quality and sequencing results for two storage conditions (freezing and preservation in buffer) did not differ significantly, whereas microbial information was better preserved in buffer than by freezing. In a metagenomic analysis, we observed that the microbial compositional distance was small within the same storage condition. Taxonomic annotation revealed that many microbes differed in abundance between frozen and buffer-preserved feces. In particular, the abundances of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes varied depending on storage conditions. Microbes belonging to these phyla differed, resulting in biases in population metagenomic analysis. We suggest that a unified storage Methods is requisite for accurate population metagenomic studies.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive degenerative motor symptoms (e.g., tremors, impaired balance and gait) and nonmotor symptoms (e.g., fatigue, sleep disturbances, pain) that can negatively influence health and mental wellbeing by decreasing quality of life. It affects nearly 10 million people and more and more cases are diagnosed because of the advancement seen in movement disorder clinics and diagnostic tools worldwide. Individuals with PD also complain about anxiety arising out of these symptoms of postural instability, low back pain etc., which may lead to increased risk of falls and fall related injuries of brain, bone or other organ systems. Stress is one factor which has been shown to directly correlate to neurodegenerative pathology. Ways to reduce stress at a given point of time and across one’s life span is considered to be a prime necessity in today’s world. Various body-mind exercises like yoga, tai chi, qi gong, tango, ballet etc., has been in research for quite some time now, which has shown benefits in PD patients. In this article evidences related to yoga and its role in PD will be reviewed in a detailed fashion.

Many side effects, in addition to those of the pathology itself, have occurred with hemodialysis treatment but existing literature have shown that physical activity is beneficial to hemodialysis patients. Nevertheless, our parameters have not been studied enough with a resistance training program. In our study we have observed the effect of a 12-week intradialytic resistance training program (T0 vs T12) on the quality of life using the KDQOL-SF questionnaire, blood samples biological parameters and sleep using the Epworth scale and the International restless legs syndrome study group scale. The resistance training program consists of 3 sessions per week and involved lower extremities thanks to elastic band and soft ball. After the training program, the quality of life score trend to the increase at T12 compared to T0. Among the biological parameters, the only trend decrease observed was in the C-reactive protein and a trend increase was observed in urea at T12. Dialysis efficiency presented no changes and no significant results were observed for sleep. Some trends were observed as a result of our program. The type of exercise seems to have different effects on measured parameters. Nevertheless, exercise was beneficial to chronic hemodialysis patients and seemed to improve their health.

Sleep related breathing disorders (SRBD) are among seven well-established major categories of sleep disorders defined in the third edition of The International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-3), and Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is the most common SRBD [1,2]. Several studies have demonstrated that obstructive sleep apnea treatment increases the quality of life in OSA patients [3-8]. Indeed, excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), cognitive impairment (e.g., deficits in attention-concentration, memory, dexterity, and creativity), traffic accidents, and deterioration of social activities are frequently reported in untreated patients [9-11]. Furthermore, an increase in cardiovascular morbidities and mortality (systemic hypertension, stroke, cardiac arrhythmias, pulmonary arterial hypertension, heart failure) [12], metabolic dysfunction, cerebrovascular ischemic events and chemical/structural central nervous system cellular injuries (gray/white matter) has been reported in OSA patients [13-17].  Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy is considered the gold standard for treatment of moderate-severe OSA, nevertheless there is an increasing body of evidence supporting the usefulness of mandibular advancement devices (MADs) for improving quality of life and respiratory parameters even among patients with a high severity of OSA burden [5,10,18,19]. According to the standard of care of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), MADs are indicated for mild to moderate OSA particularly in the context of CPAP intolerance or refusal, surgical contraindication, or the need for a short-term substitute therapy [9,15,20-22]. In Cuba, CPAP machines are not readily available; they are expensive and the majority of OSA patients cannot obtain this mode of therapy. Taking into account this problem, our hypothesis was based in the scientific evidences of MAD effectiveness, considering that low cost MADs could offer a reasonable alternative treatment for patients with OSA where CPAP technology are not handy. In this way our purpose was to assess the efficacy of one of the most simple, low cost, manufactured monoblock MAD models (SAS de Zúrich) in terms of improvements in cerebral function, sleep quality and drowsiness reports in a group of Cuban OSA patients with mild to severe disease. Outcome measures included changes in the brain electrical activity, sleep quality, and respiratory parameters, measured by EEG recording with qEEG analysis and polysomnographic studies correspondingly, which were recorded before and during treatment with an MAD, as well as subjective/objective improvements in daytime alertness. 

Acute kidney injury is a common condition associated with high morbidity and short-term mortality. Its pathophysiology varies according to the numerous conditions associated with its genesis. Biomarkers allow detecting changes at the level of kidney function; therefore, they play an important role in the prevention, early diagnosis, therapeutic response and prognosis of acute kidney injury. The search for biomarkers for acute kidney injury began over 15 years ago; initially, only serum creatinine was available for diagnosis. However, throughout history, great advances have been made in research, which have allowed the finding of new biomarkers in order to improve the health and quality of life of patients. A narrative review of the literature is carried out on the basis of available scientific evidence to clarify the role and importance of biomarkers in the context of acute renal injury.

In Portugal, around 2500 patients with end-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD stage 5) start a renal replacement therapy (RRT) for the first time each year [1]. They have four main treatment options: kidney transplantation (TX); haemodialysis (HD); peritoneal dialysis (PD) and conservative treatment (CT). RRT selection is quite complex due to the specificities of each option and to their profound effect on patient’s quality of life. Patients must play a decisive role in the choice of treatment modality and select the option that best suits to their values and needs.

Background: Pathological and nighttime sleep deprivations have substantial adverse effects on regulation of weight, sugar and blood pressure because of endothelial dysfunction, sympathetic nervous system stimulation, regulation and activation of systemic inflammation. Thus, this study was aimed to assess quality of sleep among patients with chronic illness and its associated factors at South Wollo Zone Public Hospitals, Northeast Ethiopia. Methods and Materials: The study was conducted at South Wollo Zone Public Hospitals, Northeast Ethiopia from February 15 2019 till April 15 2019. Institutional based cross sectional study design was employed. All patients with chronic illness who are on follow up in South Wollo Zone Public Hospitals were sources of population. Sample size was calculated by using EPI info version 7 and the total sample size was 344. The study employed stratified random sampling technique and study participants were selected by systematic sampling. After taking ethical approval from College of Medicine and Health Sciences Ethical Approval Committee, permission from selected Hospitals and informed verbal consent from patients, the data were collected by a tool which has 3 parts: Sociodemographic data, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and factors affecting sleep quality. Data were entered in to Epi data version 4.1 and exported to Statistical Package for Service Product 25 for analysis. Different data presentation tools and binary logistic regression were enrolled by considering 95% confidence level and p value of 0.05. Result: Among the total study participants, near to one third (31.7%) of them got sleep after 30 minutes. More than one fourth of them slept for less than 7 hours. Less than half of the study participants had habitual sleep efficiency of more than 85% however 296(86%) of them did not face day time dysfunction Conclusion and recommendations: more than one third of patients with chronic illness had poor sleep quality. One third of study participants had sleep duration of less than the recommendations(less than 7 hours). Age, educational status, residence, and perception of prognosis of disease were factors that have associations with poor sleep quality among patients with chronic illness. Health care providers who are doing in chronic illness follow up clinic should be initiated to assess and screen those patients with poor sleep quality.

Background: End-Stage Kidney Disease and its maintenance hemodialysis treatment force patients to make several lifestyle changes to cope with this debilitating illness. These changes often trigger the onset of notable psychological distress and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, these negative psychological experiences can undermine the effectiveness of the treatment and consequently worsening the health and quality of life of patients. Objective: The study assessed the psychological well-being among hemodialysis patients in Kumasi Metropolis. Further, it explored the relationship between these psychosocial factors and demographic characteristics.Materials and Methods: 30 hemodialysis patients were recruited from two dialysis units in Kumasi, Ghana. Participants were aged 18 and above and had been on hemodialysis treatment for more than three months. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) was used to assess depression and anxiety whiles the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support was used to assess perceived social support of participants. Results: The majority of respondents were males (60%), relative to females. The study revealed that 80% were severely depressed, 20% met the criteria for severe anxiety.  Some participants reported moderate social support 53.3%; perceived social support being inversely correlated with both depression (r = 0.41; n = 30; p < 0.05) and anxiety (r = -0.59; n = 30; p < 0.05). Income levels were inversely correlated with depression (r = -0.41, n = 30; p < 0.05). Conclusion: Findings of the study suggest that the psychological wellbeing of hemodialysis patients is compromised. Social support appears to alleviate depression and anxiety. Implications for patient treatment are discussed.

This study aims to assess parents’ perceptions of their responses to the perceived awareness programme competency abilities and expectations for enhancing parents on weight control of their pre-school children in preventing with Obesity. It has defined self-efficacy as one’s belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations and accomplish a task with the theoretical framework of Bandura’s Model by quasi-experimental research in 16 weeks. To promote the self-efficacy and expectations, the 10-item Questionnaire on Self-Efficacy Program, the 22-item Questionnaire on Parents’ Efficacy Interaction, and the 46-item Questionnaire on Parental Expectations assessed parents’ perceptions. A sample size consisted of 14-pre-school children whose age ranged 2-5 years old at the Child Development Demonstration Centre, Khon Kaen University was selected. Providing knowledge, teaching, demonstration, experimentation, and organized activities were organized. Parents’ perceptions of their abilities for controlling children’s weight and height with pre- and post-experimental programmes differentiated, significantly. Parents’ responses to the post performances are over than pre-experiment for the QSEP, the QPEA, and the QPE, differently. They answered and followed up on child management with parents online for 16 weeks, continuously. The obese early childhood at the CDC Demonstration Centre, Faculty of Nursing used the food programme to self-efficacy with their parents taking part and cooperating well in specifying research objectives. There are 2,958,441 children in rural areas are lacking attention, because of food and health problems in the 19,171-Child Development Centres none yet have food programmes to prevent health and hygiene problems. Although Thailand took the next leap forward for its investment in Early Childhood Development through legislation, improved quality services, and social transfer grants for families with young children since 2018.

Solid tumor oncology treatments are primarily performed in the outpatient setting. However, hospitalizations are inevitable due to complications of cancer and treatment-related toxicities. With rising health care spending, the length of hospital stay (LOS) is increasingly considered a proxy for healthcare costs. There are several ongoing efforts to abbreviate the inpatient LOS and ensure a safe and timely discharge to the outpatient setting. In addition to the acute illness and the associated comorbidities, various factors affect the LOS: social determinants of health (SDOH), nutritional status in cancer patients, and end-of-life issues. Furthermore, it is unclear how the institutional policies on social distancing and visitation during the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic may impact the LOS. The purpose of this article is to review various factors and barriers that lead to longer LOS for solid tumor patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, and identify the critical areas of quality improvement.

The main purpose of a High-intensity cultivation system is to maximize the yield crop per area unit through planting more trees, exploiting efficient use of different resources. There are different factors that affect high-intensity cultivation that include Land-cost, planting spaces, tree size, Rootstock, and Practice management. Meanwhile, the adoption of High-intensity cultivation to control canopy size, by using modern management practices is very crucial to get more yields in the early stages of the orchard besides simplicity in its management and increase the farmers’ net profit. In addition, High-density cultivation use in different fruit crops like olive, mango, orange, mandarin, Apple, and cherry. Numerous benefits of intensive fruit cultivation include increase fruit yield per unit area, improving use efficiency of natural resources e.g. soil, light, water, and nutrients, enhancing fruit quality, improving soil properties and rising levels of organic carbon and nutrients in plant tissues …etc. In addition, it is very effective in acid lime soil and achieves high income for the farmers.

The lockdown, implemented in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, restricted the operation of various sectors in the country and its highlights a good environmental outcome. Thus, a comparison of air pollutants in India before and after the imposed lockdown indicated an overall improvement air quality across major Indian cities. This was established by utilizing the Central Pollution Control Board’s database of air quality monitoring station statistics, such as air quality patterns. During the COVID-19 epidemic, India’s pre-to-post nationwide lockdown was examined. The air quality data was collected from 30-12-2019 to 28-04-2020 and synthesized using 231 Automatic air quality monitoring stations in a major Indian metropolis. Specifically, air pollutant concentrations, temperature, and relative humidity variation during COVID-19 pandemic pre-to-post lockdown variation in India were monitored. As an outcome, several cities around the country have reported improved air quality. Generally, the air quality, on a categorical scale was found to be ‘Good’. However, a few cities from the North-eastern part of India were categorized as ‘Moderate/Satisfactory’. Overall, the particulate matters reduction was in around 60% and other gaseous pollutants was in 40% reduction was observed during the lockdown period. The results of this study include an analysis of air quality data derived from continuous air quality monitoring stations from the pre-lockdown to post-lockdown period. Air quality in India improved following the national lockdown, the interpretation of trends for PM 2.5, PM 10, SO2, NO2, and the Air Quality Index has been provided in studies for major cities across India, including Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Patna, and others.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction has considerably evolved since it was initially performed back in 1869. It is the first step required for many of the available downstream applications used in the field of molecular biology and forensic science. Blood samples is one of the main body fluid used to obtain DNA. This experiment used other body fluids such as saliva, sweat tears and mucus. There are many different protocols available to perform nucleic acid extraction on such samples. These methods vary from very basic manual protocols to more sophisticated methods included in automated DNA extraction protocols. This experiment used extraction kit (Zymo research). The DNA result from isolated saliva samples on the facemask range from 133.7, 213.6, 599.1 and 209.1 mg/ml. theoretically; such DNA is of much quantity and quality and can be used for forensic investigation when recovered from a crime scene. The DNA from isolated tears samples on the face mask ranges from 707.7, 202.5, 99.2, and 62.6 mg/ml. Theoretically, such DNA is of much quantity and quality and can be used for forensic investigation when recovered from a crime scene. The DNA from isolated tears samples on the face mask ranges from 615.3, 66.2, 78.5, and 68.2 mg/ml. theoretically, such DNA is of much quantity and quality and can be used for forensic investigation when recovered from a crime scene. Extracted DNA from saliva and sweat produced visible bands on agarose gel, mucous stain produce obscure band on agarose gel and the tears stain produce invisible bands. DNA from sweat satin, saliva stain, mucus stain and tears stain in face mask can be used as alternative for forensic investigation.

DNA identification is very important in cases of high decomposition of dead bodies, in which the bodies cannot be identified by physical means.To compare the results of DNA typing, it is necessary to have related subjects with which to perform comparative analyses. Such tests are normally performed by comparing DNA profiles from people known to be immediate family members of the presumptive victim, such as parents or children because they share half of their genetic material with the unidentified.We report on how DNA analysis was used to solve a case of mixed-up bodies at a local mortuary in Ghana, West Africa. Two families and three buried human remains were in contention in this case. The first body (E9) was buried three months before exhumation. The second body (E11) was buried two and a half months before exhumation whiles the third body (E10) was buried a month before exhumation. Exhibit E5 was taken from an alleged child of the deceased, E11. Toenails of the exhumed bodies were sampled by a pathologist and used for DNA extractions using the QIAamp DNA Investigator Kit. Profiles from relatives were generated for comparison purposes. All samples gave a quality amount of genomic DNA after quantification. DNA was amplified with a GlobalFiler PCR amplification kit. Profiles from relatives were generated for comparison purposes.The human remains (exhibit E11) cannot be excluded as the biological father of the child (exhibit E5) because they share common alleles at all 23 genetic loci. The applicable combined paternity index was 17218125604.492 assuming a prior probability of 0.5. The probability of paternity is 99.99999999%. Based on this relationship testing, one of the bodies was successfully identified and handed over to the family for re-burial.

Introduction: Preeclampsia constitutes a public health problem in our region. According to the WHO, it is the third cause of maternal mortality after severe hemorrhages, infections and is responsible for morbidity and high fetal mortality. The aim of this study was to improve on the management of severe preeclampsia at the University Hospital Center of Mother and Child (UHCMC) in N’Djamena.Patients and method: It was a prospective and descriptive survey of 3 years duration, from January 01st, 2017 to December 31st, 2019. Included in our study were, all patients admitted for severe preeclampsia and agreed to participate in the study. Epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic and prognostic studies were conducted. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS 18.0 software.Results: During the study period, 13599 pregnant and parturients were admitted to the Gynecology-Obstetrics department of the UHCMC, among whom 406 cases of severe preeclampsia, with a frequency of 2.9%. The patients were young (23.2 years), married (96.3%), primipara (61.3%), referred (64.3%) without antenatal care in 47.9% of cases. Functional signs were dominated by headaches with 34.0% of cases. The proteinuria was ≥ 3 crosses in 83.7% of cases. Patients had received magnesium sulfate in 98.3%, the delivery mode was cesarean in 64.0% of cases. Principal morbidity was eclampsia (40.8%) and fetal was prematurity (36.4%). Maternal lethality was 11.1% and fetal mortality was 19.9% cases.Conclusion: Severe preeclampsia is frequent in the UHCMC in N’Djamena. It is responsible for high maternal and fetal mortality. The practice of quality antenatal care, could prevent the occurrence of complications and improve the maternal-fetal prognosis.