scholarly journals Vaginal examinations and mistreatment of women during facility-based childbirth in health facilities: secondary analysis of labour observations in Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Suppl 2) ◽  
pp. e006640
Author(s):  
Kwame Adu-Bonsaffoh ◽  
Hedieh Mehrtash ◽  
Chris Guure ◽  
Ernest Maya ◽  
Joshua P Vogel ◽  
...  

BackgroundPrevious research on mistreatment of women during childbirth has focused on physical and verbal abuse, neglect and stigmatisation. However, other manifestations of mistreatment, such as during vaginal examinations, are relatively underexplored. This study explores four types of mistreatment of women during vaginal examinations: (1) non-consented care, (2) sharing of private information, (3) exposure of genitalia and (4) exposure of breasts.MethodsA secondary analysis of data from the WHO multicountry study ‘How Women Are Treated During Childbirth’ was conducted. The study used direct, continuous labour observations of women giving birth in facilities in Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria. Descriptive and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to describe the different types of mistreatment of women during vaginal examinations and associated privacy measures (ie, availability of curtains).ResultsOf the 2016 women observed, 1430 (70.9%) underwent any vaginal examination. Across all vaginal examinations, 842/1430 (58.9%) women were observed to receive non-consented care; 233/1430 (16.4%) women had their private information shared; 397/1430 (27.8%) women had their genitalia exposed; and 356/1430 (24.9%) had their breasts exposed. The observed prevalence of mistreatment during vaginal examinations varied across countries. There were country-level differences in the association between absence of privacy measures and mistreatment. Absence of privacy measures was associated with sharing of private information (Ghana: adjusted OR (AOR) 3.8, 95% CI 1.6 to 8.9; Nigeria: AOR 4.9, 95% CI 1.9 to 12.7), genitalia exposure (Ghana: AOR 6.7, 95% CI 2.9 to 14.9; Nigeria: AOR 6.5, 95% CI 2.9 to 14.5), breast exposure (Ghana: AOR 5.9, 95% CI 2.8 to 12.9; Nigeria: AOR 2.7, 95% CI 1.3 to 5.9) and non-consented vaginal examination (Ghana: AOR 2.5, 95% CI 1.4 to 4.7; Guinea: AOR 0.21, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.38).ConclusionOur results highlight the need to ensure better communication and consent processes for vaginal examination during childbirth. In some settings, measures such as availability of curtains were helpful to reduce women’s exposure and sharing of private information, but context-specific interventions will be required to achieve respectful maternity care globally.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (Suppl 2) ◽  
pp. e003564
Author(s):  
Mamadou Dioulde Balde ◽  
Khalidha Nasiri ◽  
Hedieh Mehrtash ◽  
Anne-Marie Soumah ◽  
Meghan A Bohren ◽  
...  

BackgroundEvidence has shown the benefits of labour companions during childbirth. Few studies have documented the relationship between the absence of labour companions and mistreatment of women during childbirth in low-income and middle-income countries using a standardised tool.MethodsWe conducted a secondary analysis of the WHO multi-country study on how women are treated during childbirth, where a cross-sectional community survey was conducted with women up to 8 weeks after childbirth in Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Myanmar. Descriptive analysis and multivariable logistic regression were used to examine whether labour companionship was associated with various types of mistreatment.ResultsOf 2672 women, about half (50.4%) reported the presence of a labour companion. Approximately half (49.6%) of these women reported that the timing of support was during labour and after childbirth and most of the labour companions (47.0%) were their family members. Across Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria, women without a labour companion were more likely to report physical abuse, non-consented medical procedures and poor communication compared with women with a labour companion. However, there were country-level variations. In Guinea, the absence of labour companionship was associated with any physical abuse, verbal abuse, or stigma or discrimination (adjusted OR (AOR) 3.6, 1.9–6.9) and non-consented vaginal examinations (AOR 3.2, 1.6–6.4). In Ghana, it was associated with non-consented vaginal examinations (AOR 2.3, 1.7–3.1) and poor communication (AOR 2.0, 1.3–3.2). In Nigeria, it was associated with longer wait times (AOR 0.6, 0.3–0.9).ConclusionLabour companionship is associated with lower levels of some forms of mistreatment that women experience during childbirth, depending on the setting. Further work is needed to ascertain how best to implement context-specific labour companionship to ensure benefits while maintaining women’s choices and autonomy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147612702098287
Author(s):  
Peng Wang ◽  
Xu Jiang ◽  
Maggie Chuoyan Dong

Alliance experience has been a frequent topic in strategic alliance research in recent decades. Nonetheless, its performance consequences, either as a whole or differentiated into general versus partner-specific alliance experience, are neither theoretically clear nor empirically consistent. We use a range of meta-analytic techniques to integrate the empirical findings of 143 studies and provide a more conclusive assessment compared to prior research. Our study thus addresses a long-standing, understudied, and controversial topic: the distinction between the two types of alliance experiences. Going beyond traditional sub-group analysis, we reveal the contextual contingencies by examining how different types of alliance experiences and performance outcomes jointly affect the alliance experience–performance relationship. Moreover, we identify critical country-level institutional contingencies that moderate the focal effect.


Author(s):  
Andriiva S. S.

Phonosemantics is a science with a thousand-year history, the attitude to which is ambiguous. Despite the fact that the main principle of this linguistic discipline about the motivation of the sound unit and the legitimacy of the phenomenon has been repeatedly questioned, although discussions on the universality and specificity of the phenomenon under study continue to this day. Language is the most powerful means of forming thought; social phenomenon that attest to such its main functions as informational, communicative, emotional, cognitive, epistemological, accumulative. All functions are usually implemented not in isolation, but in various combinations, because each statement in most cases is multifunctional. All functions ultimately work for communication, and that's in the sense that the communicative function is leading. Simultaneously with the acquisition of human language, it acquires knowledge about the world around, which significantly shortens and simplifies the path of cognition, protects a person from unnecessary mistakes. F. de Saussure explained the problem of the value of a linguistic sign, arguing that a linguistic sign combines a concept and an acoustic image and has two essential features: arbitrariness (unmotivated) and linearity (unfolding in time and one dimension). The sign is used to indicate an object outside it, to receive, store and transmit information. A sign acquires its meaning only in a certain system, because outside it is not a sign and means nothing. The palette of phonosemantic searches is inexhaustible, as each linguistic and literary-artistic direction in various manifestations considers the symbolism of images of phonemes, phonemes, morphemes, tokens, syntagms, texts. The scope of using linguistic units with existing phonosemantic features is different types of movement, sound, light phenomena, physiological and emotional states of both humans and animals.


Author(s):  
I. V. Linev

Securitization of leasing assets was widely adopted abroad within the last decades. Securitization of leasing assets usually is meant as process of formation of a portfolio based on future leasing payments of one and (or) more leasing company and sale of securities to investors for the subsequent refinancing of leasing operations. These securities can be bonds, actions or bills. Thus the asset leased, acts as providing these papers. Nomenclature of property includes office, medical (first of all, stomatology), training, video the equipment, and also a car, motor-equipment, towers of cellular communication production of heavy mechanical engineering and computers. The essence of securitization of leasing assets consists in isolation of streams of leasing payments from risk of bankruptcy of the leasing company. As the considered mechanism has the greatest development in the USA, so far as consideration of experience of its application in this country is represented especially actual. The special attention is deserved by a question of decrease in credit risk of the investor. External and internal providing is applied to its decision in different types. Interest of participants in securitization of leasing assets consists in distribution of risks between them, emergence of a new source of financing, depreciation of attracted resources, increase of liquidity of a leasing portfolio and optimization by management by balance of the enterprise. Appeal of this tool to the leasing company in a case when it has no available own funds for business development, represents separate interest. Securitization allows the leasing company to expand sources of attraction of the capital and to receive a reserve for the future, and also to broaden the sphere of options of activity and to give it new opportunities for financing of projects. Widespread introduction of schemes of securitization in practice of the Russian leasing business, requires development, and on some aspects -creation of the corresponding legislative base. In the conditions of a tendency observed around the world to broad use of this tool, which gives a powerful impulse to development both bank, and real to sectors, Russia cannot stand aside from this process.


Author(s):  
Xiaohui Bei ◽  
Ning Chen ◽  
Guangda Huzhang ◽  
Biaoshuai Tao ◽  
Jiajun Wu

We study envy-free cake cutting with strategic agents, where each agent may manipulate his private information in order to receive a better allocation. We focus on piecewise constant utility functions and consider two scenarios: the general setting without any restriction on the allocations and the restricted setting where each agent has to receive a connected piece. We show that no deterministic truthful envy-free mechanism exists in the connected piece scenario, and the same impossibility result for the general setting with some additional mild assumptions on the allocations. Finally, we study a large market model where the economy is replicated and demonstrate that truth-telling converges to a Nash equilibrium.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hisashi Sawaki

This paper considers an electoral model in which an incumbent and a challenger have ideological policy preferences that are private information. The incumbent may bias pre-electoral policies to signal preferences to the electorate with the aim of affecting the outcome of the election. When the two candidates are of completely different types, such a policy bias can occur only in a moderate direction. However, when their possible types overlap, a policy bias can be created in either a moderate or an extreme direction.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 2820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lidia Avalle ◽  
Valeria Poli

The transcription factor signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)3 mediates the functions of cytokines, growth factors, and oncogenes under both physiological and pathological conditions. Uncontrolled/constitutive STAT3 activity is often detected in tumors of different types, where its role is mostly that of an oncogene, contributing in multiple ways to tumor transformation, growth, and progression. For this reason, many laboratories and pharmaceutical companies are making efforts to develop specific inhibitors. However, STAT3 has also been shown to act as a tumor suppressor in a number of cases, suggesting that its activity is strongly context-specific. Here, we discuss the bases that can explain the multiple roles of this factor in both physiological and pathological contexts. In particular, we focus on the following four features: (i) the distinct properties of the STAT3α and β isoforms; (ii) the multiple post-translational modifications (phosphorylation on tyrosine or serine, acetylation and methylation on different residues, and oxidation and glutathionylation) that can affect its activities downstream of multiple different signals; (iii) the non-canonical functions in the mitochondria, contributing to the maintenance of energy homeostasis under stress conditions; and (iv) the recently discovered functions in the endoplasmic reticulum, where STAT3 contributes to the regulation of calcium homeostasis, energy production, and apoptosis.


2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moacyr A Rosa ◽  
Marina O Rosa ◽  
Iara M T Belegarde ◽  
Celso R Bueno ◽  
Felipe Fregni

OBJECTIVES: To compare post anesthetic time for patient recovery after electroconvulsive therapy, as measured by the post anesthetic Recovery Score of Aldrete and Kroulik, using three different types of hypnotic drugs (propofol, etomidate and thiopental). METHOD: Thirty patients were randomized to receive one of the three drugs (n = 10 in each group), during a course of electroconvulsive therapy treatment. Patients and raters were blinded to which drug was received. Main treatment characteristics were recorded (as total electric charge received seizure threshold, number of treatments, and the mean time for recovery) along the whole treatment. RESULTS: Thiopental and propofol were associated with a significance increase in charge needed to induce a seizure (p < 0.0001) when compared to etomidate, as well as a significant decrease of time for recovery (p = 0.042). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that, although there seems to be no difference in the clinical outcome across these three drugs, propofol offers the best recovery profile. However, it makes a higher mean electric charge necessary.


Author(s):  
Carrie Reale ◽  
Ross Speir ◽  
Kurt Ruark ◽  
Jennifer Herout ◽  
Jason Slagle ◽  
...  

Context-specific descriptions of the intended user interactions with health information technology (HIT) systems provide an important perspective to the overall goals of HIT design. These descriptions — or scenarios — that represent the clinicians’ perspectives can describe how HIT should support users in providing patient care effectively, efficiently, and safely. Scenarios may improve the design of HIT systems by ensuring clinician needs are well-articulated for high-value patient-care situations. This Practice- Oriented paper presents suggestions for the development and application of clinical scenarios throughout a robust user-centered design (UCD) process. As a flexible artifact, different types of scenarios can be used at each point across the UCD process and the rationale for their use are discussed, and we suggest key aspects that must be included for each specific type of scenario. This practice innovation will be beneficial to practitioners working within UCD processes, as guidance on adding scenarios as a tool in their work.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document