Nevin Manimala

BMC Womens Health. 2024 Mar 5;24(1):159. doi: 10.1186/s12905-024-03004-3.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Our study aims to investigate post-abortion needs-based education via the WeChat platform for women who had intended abortion in the first trimester, whether they are using effective contraception or becoming pregnant again.

DESIGN: This single hospital intervention-controlled trial used a nearly 1:1 allocation ratio. Women who had intended abortions were randomly assigned to a Wechat group (needs-based education) and a control group (Traditional education). The women’s ability to use effective contraception was the main result. Whether they unknowingly became pregnant again was the second result. Another result was patient anxiousness. Before and after education, women filled out questionnaires to assess their contraception methods and anxiety.

METHODS: Based on the theoretical framework of contraceptions of IBL (inquiry-based learning), post-abortion women were included in WeChat groups. We use WeChat Group Announcement, regularly sending health education information, one-on-one answers to questions, and consultation methods to explore the possibilities and advantages of WeChat health education for women after abortion. A knowledge paradigm for post-abortion health education was established: From November 2021 until December 2021, 180 women who had an unintended pregnancy and undergone an induced or medical abortion were recruited, their progress was tracked for four months, and the PAC service team monitored the women’s speech, discussed and classified the speech entries and summarized the common post-abortion needs in 8 aspects. At least 2 research group members routinely extracted records and categorized the outcomes.

RESULTS: Before education, there were no appreciable variations between the two groups regarding sociodemographic characteristics, obstetrical conditions, abortion rates, or methods of contraception (P > 0.05). Following education, the WeChat group had a greater rate of effective contraception (63.0%) than the control group (28.6%), and their SAS score dropped statistically more than that of the control group (P < 0.05). Following the education, there were no unwanted pregnancies in the WeChat group, whereas there were 2 in the traditional PAC group. Only 5 participants in the WeChat group and 32 in the conventional PAC group reported mild anxiety after the education.

PMID:38443889 | DOI:10.1186/s12905-024-03004-3

BMC Public Health. 2024 Mar 5;24(1):701. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-17298-9.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Population mortality is an important metric that sums information from different public health risk factors into a single indicator of health. However, the impact of COVID-19 on population mortality in low-income and crisis-affected countries like Sudan remains difficult to measure. Using a community-led approach, we estimated excess mortality during the COVID-19 epidemic in two Sudanese communities.

METHODS: Three sets of key informants in two study locations, identified by community-based research teams, were administered a standardised questionnaire to list all known decedents from January 2017 to February 2021. Based on key variables, we linked the records before analysing the data using a capture-recapture statistical technique that models the overlap among lists to estimate the true number of deaths.

RESULTS: We estimated that deaths per day were 5.5 times higher between March 2020 and February 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic period in East Gezira, while in El Obeid City, the rate was 1.6 times higher.

CONCLUSION: This study suggests that using a community-led capture-recapture methodology to measure excess mortality is a feasible approach in Sudan and similar settings. Deploying similar community-led estimation methodologies should be considered wherever crises and weak health infrastructure prevent an accurate and timely real-time understanding of epidemics’ mortality impact in real-time.

PMID:38443885 | DOI:10.1186/s12889-023-17298-9

BMC Public Health. 2024 Mar 5;24(1):713. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-18152-2.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Preterm births increase mortality and morbidity during childhood and later life, which is closely associated with poverty and the quality of prenatal care. Therefore, income redistribution and poverty reduction initiatives may be valuable in preventing this outcome. We assessed whether receipt of the Brazilian conditional cash transfer programme – Bolsa Familia Programme, the largest in the world – reduces the occurrence of preterm births, including their severity categories, and explored how this association differs according to prenatal care and the quality of Bolsa Familia Programme management.

METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed involving the first live singleton births to mothersenrolled in the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort from 2004 to 2015, who had at least one child before cohort enrollment. Only the first birth during the cohort period was included, but born from 2012 onward. A deterministic linkage with the Bolsa Familia Programme payroll dataset and a similarity linkage with the Brazilian Live Birth Information System were performed. The exposed group consisted of newborns to mothers who received Bolsa Familia from conception to delivery. Our outcomes were infants born with a gestational age < 37 weeks: (i) all preterm births, (ii) moderate-to-late (32-36), (iii) severe (28-31), and (iv) extreme (< 28) preterm births compared to at-term newborns. We combined propensity score-based methods and weighted logistic regressions to compare newborns to mothers who did and did not receive Bolsa Familia, controlling for socioeconomic conditions. We also estimated these effects separately, according to the adequacy of prenatal care and the index of quality of Bolsa Familia Programme management.

RESULTS: 1,031,053 infants were analyzed; 65.9% of the mothers were beneficiaries. Bolsa Familia Programme was not associated with all sets of preterm births, moderate-to-late, and severe preterm births, but was associated with a reduction in extreme preterm births (weighted OR: 0.69; 95%CI: 0.63-0.76). This reduction can also be observed among mothers receiving adequate prenatal care (weighted OR: 0.66; 95%CI: 0.59-0.74) and living in better Bolsa Familia management municipalities (weighted OR: 0.56; 95%CI: 0.43-0.74).

CONCLUSIONS: An income transfer programme for pregnant women of low-socioeconomic status, conditional to attending prenatal care appointments, has been associated with a reduction in extremely preterm births. These programmes could be essential in achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

PMID:38443875 | DOI:10.1186/s12889-024-18152-2

BMC Nephrol. 2024 Mar 5;25(1):83. doi: 10.1186/s12882-024-03520-2.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Primary caregivers of hemodialysis patients suffer from varying degrees of stress from their patients. Caring for hemodialysis patients can expose caregivers to many problems, leading to an increased burden of care and even impacting the quality of care. The purpose of our study was to examine whether family resilience could be a mediating variable moderating the relationship between patient coping styles and caregiver burden.

METHODS: The study was a cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study that interviewed 173 pairs of hemodialysis patients and their caregivers at a blood purification center in a public hospital in China. The Brief Coping Styles Scale (Chinese version) was used to assess individuals’ coping styles for disease and treatment. From the caregiver’s perspective, the Family Resilience Assessment Scale (Chinese version) was used to understand the resilience of families, and the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale was used to capture the caregiver’s subjective experience of burden. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 23 and Amos version 26 to analyze the relationships between variables to examine for correlation and construct mediated effects models.

RESULTS: Coping styles showed a significant positive correlation with family resilience (r = 0.347, P < 0.01) and a negative correlation with caregiver burden (r = -0.379, P < 0.01). A significant negative correlation was found between family resilience and caregiver burden (r = -0.503, P < 0.01). In the mediation model, patient coping styles directly impacted caregiver burden significantly (95% CI [-0.372, -0.058]), and coping styles indirectly impacted caregiver burden by family resilience in a significant way (95% CI [-0.275, -0.098]).

CONCLUSIONS: Patient coping styles directly affect caregiver burden. Family resilience is a mediating variable between patients’ coping styles and the burden on caregivers.

PMID:38443869 | DOI:10.1186/s12882-024-03520-2

Patient Educ Couns. 2024 Feb 24;123:108226. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2024.108226. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to field-test a recently developed AR-based serious game designed to promote SSE self-efficacy, called Spot.

METHODS: Thirty participants played the game and answered 3 questionnaires: a baseline questionnaire, a second questionnaire immediately after playing the game, and a third questionnaire 1 week later (follow-up).

RESULTS: The majority of participants considered that the objective quality of the game was high, and considered that the game could have a real impact in SSE promotion. Participants showed statistically significant increases in SSE self-efficacy and intention at follow-up. Of the 24 participants that had never performed a SSE or had done one more than 3 months ago, 12 (50.0%) reported doing a SSE at follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides supporting evidence to the use of serious games in combination with AR to educate and motivate users to perform SSE. Spot seems to be an inconspicuous but effective strategy to promote SSE, a cancer prevention behavior, among healthy individuals.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Patient education is essential to tackle skin cancer, particularly melanoma. Serious games, such as Spot, have the ability to effectively educate and motivate patients to perform a cancer prevention behavior.

PMID:38442436 | DOI:10.1016/j.pec.2024.108226

Clin Linguist Phon. 2024 Mar 5:1-21. doi: 10.1080/02699206.2024.2315409. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this project was to examine age-related use of action, metacognitive, and metalinguistic verbs because factors related to verb transparency are thought to impact word learning. Performance on fictional, oral narratives elicited using a single-episode picture was evaluated for 84 children with typical language (TL) and 38 age-matched children with a Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) ranging in age from 5;1 to 14;4 years of age. Narrative samples were transcribed and coded for occurrences of action verbs (AV), metacognitive verbs (MCV), and metalinguistic verbs (MLV). The total number of verbs used and the number of different verbs produced in each category were examined across ages, as was the difference in verb usage patterns across language ability groups. A statistically significant increase in the overall use of action, MCV, and MLV with age was observed. TL children used a wider variety of each verb type as compared to those with DLD. Age-related progression for verb use was observed in the fictional narrative generation task by both groups of children. However, despite similar rates of total verb use, children with DLD produced fewer different verbs in the three categories. These findings indicate the total number of verbs used is similar in children with TL and DLD, but there is a difference in the number of different verbs used in functional tasks such as narratives for children with DLD. These results also indicate a need for ongoing examination of the factors not only impacting verb acquisition but also use in communication tasks.

PMID:38442418 | DOI:10.1080/02699206.2024.2315409

Pain. 2024 Mar 5. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003209. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Knowledge is needed regarding mechanisms acting between physical activity (PA) and chronic pain. We investigated whether cold pain tolerance mediates an effect of leisure-time physical activity on the risk of chronic pain 7 to 8 years later using consecutive surveys of the population-based Tromsø Study. We included participants with information on baseline leisure-time PA (LTPA) and the level of cold pressor-assessed cold pain tolerance, who reported chronic pain status at follow-up as any of the following: chronic pain for ≥3 months, widespread chronic pain, moderate-to-severe chronic pain, or widespread moderate-to-severe chronic pain. We included 6834 participants (52% women; mean age, 55 years) in counterfactual mediation analyses. Prevalence decreased with severity, for example, 60% for chronic pain vs 5% for widespread moderate-to-severe chronic pain. People with one level higher LTPA rating (light to moderate or moderate to vigorous) at baseline had lower relative risk (RR) of 4 chronic pain states 7 to 8 years later. Total RR effect of a 1-level LTPA increase was 0.95 (0.91-1.00), that is, -5% decreased risk. Total effect RR for widespread chronic pain was 0.84 (0.73-0.97). Indirect effect for moderate-to-severe chronic pain was statistically significant at RR 0.993 (0.988-0.999); total effect RR was 0.91 (0.83-0.98). Statistically significantly mediated RR for widespread moderate-to-severe chronic pain was 0.988 (0.977-0.999); total effect RR was 0.77 (0.64-0.94). This shows small mediation of the effect of LTPA through pain tolerance on 2 moderate-to-severe chronic pain types. This suggests pain tolerance to be one possible mechanism through which PA modifies the risk of moderate-to-severe chronic pain types with and without widespread pain.

PMID:38442413 | DOI:10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003209

J Nurs Educ. 2024 Mar;63(3):197-198. doi: 10.3928/01484834-20240108-12. Epub 2024 Mar 1.

ABSTRACT

In 2024, the Methodology Corner will briefly look at how we might foster enduring commitments from nurse education researchers to remain up-to-date on their statistical expertise and to use optimal statistical methods. The first column of the year specifically looks at how graduate programs might enrich their statistics curriculum in a manner that could foster an increasingly valid science of nursing education. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(3):197-198.].

PMID:38442402 | DOI:10.3928/01484834-20240108-12

Oncol Nurs Forum. 2024 Feb 19;51(2):163-174. doi: 10.1188/24.ONF.163-174.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To examine sleep quality and self-reported causes of sleep disturbance among patients with breast cancer at diagnosis and one year later.

SAMPLE &AMP; SETTING: 486 of 606 patients with histologically confirmed breast cancer completed a Pittsburgh Quality Sleep Index (PSQI) survey at the time of diagnosis and again one year later.

METHODS &AMP; VARIABLES: In this secondary data analysis, descriptive statistics were computed for seven PSQI components and its global score. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and McNemar’s tests were used. Self-reported reasons for sleep disturbances were summarized.

RESULTS: PSQI scores significantly increased from baseline (mean = 6.75) to one-year follow-up (mean= 7.12), indicating worsened sleep. Sleep disturbance and onset latency scores increased, whereas sleep efficiency decreased. The two most frequently reported reasons for sleep disturbance were waking up late in the night or early in the morning (more than 50%) and needing to use the bathroom (49%). Feeling too hot and experiencing pain three or more times per week were reported by participants at baseline and one year later.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Results can aid in monitoring patient response to treatment methods and formulating benchmarks to manage sleep problems.

PMID:38442284 | DOI:10.1188/24.ONF.163-174

Oncol Nurs Forum. 2024 Feb 19;51(2):127-141. doi: 10.1188/24.ONF.127-141.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To examine associations of sociodemographic factors and social limitations with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) from pre- to postdiagnosis in older female cancer survivors.

SAMPLE &AMP; SETTING: 9,807 women aged 65 years or older with breast or gynecologic cancer from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare Health Outcomes Survey.

METHODS &AMP; VARIABLES: Physical and mental HRQOL were assessed using the physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) of the Veterans RAND 12-Item Health Survey. Descriptive statistics and mixed-effects models for repeated measures were used.

RESULTS: Social limitations were the only significant factor associated with changes in MCS scores. Race and ethnicity, rurality, and social interference were associated with significant decreases in PCS scores.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Nurses can assess mental and physical HRQOL after diagnosis and advocate for appropriate referrals. Oncology care should be tailored to cultural considerations, including race and ethnicity, rurality, and social support.

PMID:38442282 | DOI:10.1188/24.ONF.127-141