scholarly journals Work-environmental determinants of mass fainting illness among textile factory workers

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-122
Author(s):  
Maly Phy ◽  
Twisuk Pungpeng ◽  
Chaweewon Boonshuyar ◽  
Thanu Chartananondh

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a brief screening instrument to identify risk factors of factory workers experiencing mass fainting illness (MFI) due to work-environmental determinants. Design/methodology/approach A factory-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 740 workers in October 2017 and was completed with face-to-face interviews. Data analyses included univariate logistic regression, backward stepwise linear regression and multiple logistic regression. Sum scores on significant items and receiver operator characteristic curves were used to compute potential cut-off points and the sensitivity and specificity rates. Findings Significant work-environmental factors were identified as working at very high speeds, having less influence on the choice of working partners, perceived high temperature at work, having less opportunity to do their best at work, and concern about losing a job in the next six months. In developing a screening instrument, a 6.5 cut-off point that corresponded to 99.6 percent sensitivity and 92.2 percent specificity was identified. Originality/value The study concludes that this MFI-instrument could potentially be used to prevent MFI. By understanding the policy implications, the government body, employers, workers, development partners and stakeholders should work toward preventing MFI. Implementing a preventive measure is therefore warranted due to the health education impact.

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashwani Verma ◽  
Dhanshree R Gunjawate ◽  
Sanny Bhushan Kumar ◽  
CNV Sai Bharath ◽  
Rohit Ravi

PurposeCoronavirus disease 2019 is a global public health emergency affecting almost the entire world. The exponential spread of the infection has become a matter of concern. The study aims to determine how well people in India know about COVID-19 outbreak and actions taken to cope up during lockdown.Design/methodology/approachA total of 5,000 randomly selected participants were sent the survey link, of which 1,526 responded (response rate of 30.5%). The survey was conducted from March 28 till March 31, 2020. The 20-item questionnaire aimed to determine how well people know about COVID-19 outbreak as well as actions taken to cope up during the lockdown. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the findings.FindingsParticipants exhibited good knowledge about the primary and secondary symptoms of COVID-19 and infection spread. Over 95% participants knew preventive measures such as use of masks, sanitizers and hand wash. And, 80% of the participants felt that steps taken by the government are effective, while 93% opined that lockdown would be effective. There was apprehension regarding the infection spread, its containment and age group affected. Over 60% referred the World Health Organization website as their source of information. During the lockdown, participants engaged in home-based exercise (39%) and yoga (28%) for fitness while used social media (64%) and television (63%) for entertainment.Originality/valueAlthough participants exhibited good knowledge related to symptoms and preventive measure related to COVID-19, the beliefs related to infection spread and containment need to be addressed. These should be targeted through health promotional campaigns focusing on mental health and home-based physical activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tengku Mohd Azizuddin Tuan Mahmood ◽  
Abdullah Al Mamun ◽  
Mohamed Dahlan Ibrahim

Purpose This study intended to determine the effect of selected entrepreneurial traits on the attitude of Asnaf Millennials in Malaysia towards entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This is a cross-sectional study that collected the quantitative data via structured interviews from 310 randomly selected Asnaf Millennials from Kelantan, Malaysia. Findings The findings confirmed the positive and statistically significant effect of innovativeness, internal locus of control, need for achievement and proactive personality on the attitude of Asnaf Millennials on entrepreneurship. Originality/value This study focussed on the development of non-cognitive skills for individual characteristics regarding entrepreneurship for the benefit of development practitioners and policymakers. The government and development organisations should focus on developing entrepreneurial traits that are expected to improve the attitude towards entrepreneurship and increase the entrepreneurial activities in Malaysia. This initiative can improve the socio-economic condition of Asnaf Millennials with low income.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-159
Author(s):  
Adeel Eliyas ◽  
Badil Das Goil ◽  
Shaheen Sherali ◽  
Imran Khan ◽  
Kamran Khan ◽  
...  

Background: Pneumonia is the leading cause of death of children under five years of age. The considerable number of children having pneumonia has difficulty to reach health services in the appropriate time due to their mother's failure to recognize the seriousness of their infection. Methods: Present cross-sectional study was performed by using a close-ended, adapted questionnaire comprising of 15 closed-ended items. Data was gathered through a convenient sampling method. The calculated sample size was 120 subjects of the female gender. Written consent was taken from each participant before filling of the questionnaire. Data was entered and analyzed in SPSS version 21.00. Results: Out of 120 subjects, 59.2% study participant was illiterate, 51.6% subjects were in the age group of 31 to 41 years. 15.8% of women had fair knowledge whereas 55.5% of women did not have knowledge about pneumonia. And 28.7% of women they did not know what is pneumonia. 60.8 % of respondents were unable to recognize sign and symptoms of pneumonia. Only 19.2% of participants know vaccination of pneumonia should be made essential for children. Conclusion: The study concluded that mother had scanty knowledge of pneumonia its preventive measure, and immunization. The government should also provide awareness through mass media, so that the mortality and morbidity rates can be reduced and many valuable lives can be protected.


Author(s):  
Emmanuel K. Bondah ◽  
Daniel O. Agyemang

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> With the increasing rate of COVID-19 cases and mortality across the globe, countries and most people have adopted precautionary and preventive measures to avoid been infected with the disease. However, several trending myths and misconceptions also floods the world during this era.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods: </strong>A cross-sectional study was conducted among 587 participants (53% males, 78% aged 18-30 years, and 74% having at least tertiary level education) in Ghana, using a convenience snowballing sampling approach. A self-designed questionnaire based on “World Health Organization (WHO) myth-busters” was used for data collection. A logistic regression model was developed to explore variables predicting misconceptions.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results: </strong>With about 75% of respondents believing they knew “a lot” about coronavirus, 41% (confidence interval: 37-45) reported a high level of knowledge on the new coronavirus misconceptions. Social media (87%), and television/radio (57%) were the major sources of knowledge. Masters/Ph.D. degree education, National democratic congress (NDC) political members, other political party members, excellent self-health ratings, social media, respondents that anticipate a remedy in 1-5 years, and the perception that the government is “not doing enough” in fighting the pandemic, were reported factors predicting knowledge in a multiple logistic regression model (p&lt;0.05). Region of residence, political affiliation, self-health ratings, predicted time of remedy, and level of knowledge on covid-19 misconceptions were also associated with the perception of government efforts (p&lt;0.05).</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Most Ghanaians have much belief in trending misinformation related to the pandemic. Public health education and campaigns should address these misconceptions and encourage the public to seek information from credible sources.</p>


Author(s):  
Nowshin Sharmila ◽  
Shah Ehsan Habib

Background: Dengue remains a major public health challenge causing death among many people in Bangladesh. The magnitude of dengue-related illness and death has significantly increased over recent years. Study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to Dengue fever. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among a total of 193 males and females who consented to participate in the study. Respondents were included purposively from selected areas in Malibagh an area classified as a stable dengue-prone region of the capital city. The survey was carried out by face-to-face interview using a pre-tested standardized and structured questionnaire. Results: The results reveal that dengue infection occurred in 20.2% of residents. Only 27.5% had a good knowledge score (8 out of 11 items), and 83.9% had a positive attitude, while 34.2% had a good compliance practice.  Knowledge was significantly associated with education, income, and age (p < 0.05). Misconceptions existed about the transmission of dengue – more than one-third (36.8%) reported that the Aedes aegypti mosquito could only breed in clean water, and 32.1% were aware of the biting time of the mosquito. Most participants (55.4%) strongly agreed that dengue is a serious illness, and over half (65.3%) reported that it could be prevented with coverage of vector control interventions. The majority (64.2%) used mosquito nets as a preventive measure, while over one-third (35.2%) reported they discarded waste, containers, and non-used bottles across their yards that hold water. Although the respondents had quite positive attitude of preventive measures regarding dengue (83.9%), a sizeable number (34.2%) did not put this attitude into practice. Conclusion: Poorly planned urbanization combined with an explosive urban population in the capital city has brought the mosquito and the human host into close proximity. The government should launch health education programs on dengue prevention to educate the community members, addressing misconceptions about their preventive measures and on how they could eliminate the risk factors related to practices.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patcharaporn Krainara ◽  
Pongchai Dumrongrojwatthana ◽  
Pattarasinee Bhattarakosol

PurposeThis paper aims to uncover new factors that influence the spread of malaria.Design/methodology/approachThe historical data related to malaria were collected from government agencies. Later, the data were cleaned and standardized before passing through the analysis process. To obtain the simplicity of these numerous factors, the first procedure involved in executing the factor analysis where factors' groups related to malaria distribution were determined. Therefore, machine learning was deployed, and the confusion matrices are computed. The results from machine learning techniques were further analyzed with logistic regression to study the relationship of variables affecting malaria distribution.FindingsThis research can detect 28 new noteworthy factors. With all the defined factors, the logistics model tree was constructed. The precision and recall of this tree are 78% and 82.1%, respectively. However, when considering the significance of all 28 factors under the logistic regression technique using forward stepwise, the indispensable factors have been found as the number of houses without electricity (houses), number of irrigation canals (canals), number of shallow wells (places) and number of migrated persons (persons). However, all 28 factors must be included to obtain high accuracy in the logistics model tree.Originality/valueThis paper may lead to highly-efficient government development plans, including proper financial management for malaria control sections. Consequently, the spread of malaria can be reduced naturally.


Author(s):  
Nowshin Sharmila ◽  
Shah Ehsan Habib

Background: Dengue remains a major public health challenge causing death among many people in Bangladesh. The magnitude of dengue-related illness and death has significantly increased over recent years. Study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to Dengue fever. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among a total of 193 males and females who consented to participate in the study. Respondents were included purposively from selected areas in Malibagh an area classified as a stable dengue-prone region of the capital city. The survey was carried out by face-to-face interview using a pre-tested standardized and structured questionnaire. Results: The results reveal that dengue infection occurred in 20.2% of residents. Only 27.5% had a good knowledge score (8 out of 11 items), and 83.9% had a positive attitude, while 34.2% had a good compliance practice.  Knowledge was significantly associated with education, income, and age (p < 0.05). Misconceptions existed about the transmission of dengue – more than one-third (36.8%) reported that the Aedes aegypti mosquito could only breed in clean water, and 32.1% were aware of the biting time of the mosquito. Most participants (55.4%) strongly agreed that dengue is a serious illness, and over half (65.3%) reported that it could be prevented with coverage of vector control interventions. The majority (64.2%) used mosquito nets as a preventive measure, while over one-third (35.2%) reported they discarded waste, containers, and non-used bottles across their yards that hold water. Although the respondents had quite positive attitude of preventive measures regarding dengue (83.9%), a sizeable number (34.2%) did not put this attitude into practice. Conclusion: Poorly planned urbanization combined with an explosive urban population in the capital city has brought the mosquito and the human host into close proximity. The government should launch health education programs on dengue prevention to educate the community members, addressing misconceptions about their preventive measures and on how they could eliminate the risk factors related to practices.


2021 ◽  
pp. 101053952110125
Author(s):  
Normaliza Ab Malik ◽  
Rusyda Helma Mohd ◽  
Nor Ba’yah Abdul Kadir

This study aimed to assess the knowledge, self-efficacy, and preventive behaviors against coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was conducted during the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak using an online self-administered questionnaire. A high percentage of the respondents had high knowledge and perceived self-efficacy scores. Most of them performed the government-recommended preventive measure such as hand washing for 20 seconds, wearing a face mask, use of hand disinfectant, avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth, cover mouth when coughing, staying home when sick, and not travelling abroad, as these are effective preventive measures to prevent the spread of the disease. However, less than half of the participants believed social distancing, self-quarantine, and avoiding crowded places were effective preventive measures. Enhancing social distancing along with other preventive measures help prevent the spread of COVID-19 transmission.


Author(s):  
Scott Moodie ◽  
Simon Dolan ◽  
Roland Burke

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between the positive and negative psychological states of work (i.e. engagement and burnout, respectively) and their effects on an individual’s mental and physical health. This study analyzes their separate and joint manifestations. In total, 2,094 nurses were segmented into quadrants that represent a 50/50 median split on both engagement and burnout. The four resulting quadrants were then examined in a series of analyses including logistic regression and ANOVA. Design/methodology/approach – This is a cross-sectional study based on a very large survey (> 2,000 people) in Spain. Data were collected from nurses in collaboration with the official nurses corporations in half a dozen provinces in Spain. Data were analyzed in stages which included zero-item correlations and ANOVA to determine their independence and suitability for predicting states of engagement and burnout. This was followed by a series of binary logistic regression analyses. Findings – The findings suggested that engagement and burnout were generally inversely related (67 per cent of the sample) which is the conventional wisdom in this regard, but 33 per cent of the sample manifested concurrently at either extreme. Burnout was chiefly driven by work demands, as both quadrants of low burnout had lower demands and both quadrants of high burnout had higher demands. Engagement was primarily driven by resources and affinity. Social support acted independently (perhaps as a moderator) by aligning with states of burnout. Worker health was primarily driven by burnout, wherein both states of low burnout exhibited better health and both states of high burnout exhibited poorer health. Originality/value – Much of the current research on this topic considers engagement and burnout to be linear dimensions and focuses on building structural models of the precise relationships between variables. That approach is to be encouraged, but there is also a need to jointly deconstruct dimensions and relationships in a tactile manner that can inform future structural models. The secondary benefit of this approach is that these findings can be submitted directly to managers to provide an easily understood approach for assessments and interventions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (11) ◽  
pp. 1515-1532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Shahidul Islam ◽  
Khurshed Alam

Purpose Social capital accrues to numerous positive socioeconomic outcomes, especially poverty reduction in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between social capital and poverty reduction with special reference to Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study was conducted in a rural setting of north-eastern Bangladesh, where primary data were collected from 310 households. Exploratory factor analysis was pursued to extract multiple dimensions of social capital. Afterward, multivariate binary logistic regression model was applied to measure the association between social capital dimensions and poverty. In this model, odds ratios were used to present the regression coefficients. Findings The study confirms that social network, norms of reciprocity, social trust and civic participation were associated with poverty. The logistic regression reveals that social trust, social networks, norms of reciprocity and civic participation are negatively associated with poverty by OR=0.488, 95% CI=0.377–0.633; OR=0.709, 95% CI=0.542–0.927; OR=0.619, 95% CI=0.473–0.812; and OR=0.783, 95% CI=0.598–1.025 units. Originality/value This study has a significant policy implication related to reducing entrenched poverty in Bangladesh as social capital has a potential to bring about a concomitant improvement in the condition of the poor.


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