scholarly journals Engaging healthcare providers and patients on climate action through physical, emotional and social wellness

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Minna Allarakhia

According to the World Health Organization, the health challenges from climate change are many and varied including: Malnutrition due to lack of quality food access. Mental health challenges in addition to severe socioeconomic challenges, through the loss of homes, jobs and needed social connections due to extreme events. Acute illness and the risk of water-borne diseases associated with lack of access to clean water. The increased risk of vector-borne diseases with warmer temperatures. Chronic illnesses associated with heat stress and pollution. Death from cardiovascular and respiratory disease, particularly among vulnerable people as temperatures rise to extreme levels. Both healthcare providers and patients must be engaged on climate change and action. While several medical training institutions are exploring opportunities to embed climate change and health education into their curricula, of importance are the holistic strategies to engage patients on climate action. The challenges are complex, and the data is overwhelming. Patients may not fully comprehend the personal implications of climate change and as citizens, may not understand their role in climate action. We suggest through the creation of a sustainable living mindset based on wellness, it is possible for healthcare providers to create a personal and emotional connection to climate action. The results from workshops with older adults are shared in this paper, demonstrating how the link to physical, emotional and social wellness, can encourage behavior change with respect to dietary and consumption practices as well as increased connection to and protection of greenspaces for health and well-being.  

2020 ◽  
pp. 07-19
Author(s):  
Hiba Takieddine ◽  
Samaa AL Tabbah

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly infectious disease that has rapidly swept across the world, inducing a considerable degree of fear, worry and concern in the population at large and among certain groups in particular, such as older adults, healthcare providers and people with underlying health conditions. Authorities around the world tried to prevent the virus spread by imposing social distancing measures, quarantining citizens and isolating infected persons. Apart from its physical impact, COVID-19 pandemic has brought numerous changes to people’s lives. It changed daily routines, caused worldwide economic crisis, increased unemployment, and placed people under emotional and financial pressures. It affected people psychologically and mentally especially in terms of emotions and cognition. During the acute crisis, everyone to varying degrees experienced fear of infection, somatic concerns, worries about the pandemic’s consequences, loneliness, depression, stress, as well as increased alcohol and drug use. As part of its public health response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has worked with partners to develop a set of new guidelines and messages that can be used to prevent, manage, and support mental and psychological well-being in different vulnerable target groups during the outbreak. Whether people like it or not, the psychological sequela of this pandemic will emerge and persist for months and years to come leading to long-term consequences. New lifestyles and “New Normals” will surely emerge. The main purpose of this review is to summarize the impact of coronavirus pandemic on the psychological and mental health of people around the world especially vulnerable groups. It also presents the relevant intervention actions and recommendations to cope efficiently and effectively with the psychological short-term and long-term outcomes, mental changes, and the “New Normal” during and after COVID-19. Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus, Psychological; Mental; New Normal


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Lou E. Neri

The World Health Organization (2003) stated that there is growing evidence that changes in the global climate will have profound effects on the well-being of citizens in countries throughout the world. The “business as usual” frame of mind in dealing with this phenomenon is no longer feasible. Rather, there is a great need for a “sense of urgency” to empower and actively involve every individual to adapt and to mitigate the worsening of climate change. A great number of studies show that the leadership of the educational system in developed countries for more than 2 decades has been successful in promoting environmental sustainability. Some of these studies are reviewed and documented in this paper so that vulnerable countries may learn and benchmark from their experiences. Keywords - Education, sustainable development, climate change


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (03) ◽  
pp. 118-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran Jangra ◽  
Nitin Manohar ◽  
Prasanna U. Bidkar ◽  
Ponniah Vanamoorthy ◽  
Devendra Gupta ◽  
...  

AbstractThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a major health emergency in today’s time. In December 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China was attributed to a novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization declared it as a pandemic. As the majority of the cases suffering from COVID-19 are mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, it becomes a great challenge to identify the infected persons in the absence of extensive testing. In the hospital environment, it can infect several other vulnerable patients and healthcare providers, significantly impacting the hospital services. Anesthesiologists are at an increased risk of COVID-19 transmission from the patients, as they are frequently involved in several aerosol-generating procedures. It is not possible to identify asymptomatic COVID-19 patients solely based on history-taking during their first point of contact with the anesthesiologists at the preanesthetic checkup clinic.Most of the neurosurgical conditions are of urgent in nature and cannot be postponed for a longer duration. In view of this, the position statement and practice advisory from the Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care (ISNACC) provides guidance to the practice of neuroanesthesia in the present scenario. The advisory has been prepared considering the current disease status of the COVID-19 pandemic, available literature, and consensus from experts in the field of neuroanesthesiology. Since the pandemic is still progressing and the nature of the disease is dynamic, readers are advised to constantly look for updated literature from ISNACC and other neurology and neurosurgical societies.


Author(s):  
Bani Ahmad Amer, RN, MHA, Ph.D.

Aim: To establish how COVID-19 affected the burnout and job satisfaction levels among the health care provider in Jordan hospitals. Methodology: The online survey questionnaire was distributed to 160 nurses, doctors, and specialists and 152 responses were captured in the Google form feedback from healthcare workers from Jordan hospitals. The survey questions wanted responses related to establishment of job satisfaction and burnout levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The questionnaire contained questions investigating the nurses' and doctors' demographic factors, work-related variables, and personal experiences. Additionally, the provision of basic needs at the workplace were investigated, and the world Health Organization-5 well-being index was established through the questionnaires (Hamdam et al., 2020). Different statistics measurements were used. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize both the background information about the healthcare providers and burnout levels. Results: From the 152 healthcare professionals filed their responses, 32.6% were males, and the rest were females. Approximately 48%.13% and 16% were nurses, doctors, and pharmacists. Burnout was caused by exhaustion, depression, anxiety, and overtime working time. 7% of the nurses were satisfied with the work, while 72.5% were not satisfied. Approximately 24% of the male healthcare providers demonstrated resilience in employment, while 5% of the female healthcare professionals demonstrated burnout and total withdrawal due to the scourging effects of COVID-19 (Abujilban et al., 2021). The healthcare providers that received psychological support from their families seemed strong and suffered lower burnout levels. The fear of infection created anxiety that led to stress, and high burnout levels. Conclusions: COVID -19 led to increased levels of burnout and lack of job satisfaction. The hospitals in Jordan were not prepared, and the fear of nurses and doctors getting infected created more anxiety. The healthcare motivation and energy to work reduced to a bare minimum.


Author(s):  
Emily Ying Yang Chan

Climate change poses one of the biggest threats to public health in the twenty-first century. Climate-related disasters include extreme temperature events, extreme precipitation, sea-level rise, flooding, and drought. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, climate change may lead to an annual death rate of 250,000 between 2030 and 2050. The direct health impact of climate change includes mortality and morbidity associated with extreme temperature (e.g. heat stroke) and changing patterns of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as a result of more frequent and severe extreme temperature events. Climate change also has indirect health impacts by facilitating the breeding of mosquitoes to spread vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, reducing access to clean water and food supplies resulted from drought or flood, and leading to forced migration associated with the loss of economic livelihood of communities. Adaptation and mitigation are the two main approaches adopted to alleviate and manage the health risks of climate change to achieve climate-resilient pathways for sustainable development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233372142199931
Author(s):  
Ugochi Ohuabunwa ◽  
Joyce Turner ◽  
Ted Johnson

Typical presenting symptoms of COVID-19 have been reported to be common in older adults. Current guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for testing and diagnosis are based on the presence of these typical symptoms. Several older adults seen at our hospital have presented atypically with symptoms such as delirium, falls, increasing the need for attention to diagnostic protocols since this has significant implications for early detection and patient outcomes, infection control and promotion of safety among healthcare providers. With the increased risk of fatality among older adults with COVID-19, appropriate diagnostic protocols are needed to ensure early diagnosis and management. Recognizing these atypical presentations in nursing homes would also facilitate early screening and cohorting in these congregate living facilities where older adults have had disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates. We present two patients who presented with delirium and falls, found to have COVID-19 infection.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Markus Hartono ◽  
Antonius Johanes Tjahjoanggoro ◽  
Marselius Sampe Tondok ◽  
Indri Hapsari

A study on the intervention of human factors engineering (known as ergonomics) on sustainable living based on biopsychological needs was conducted, taking samples of small housing inhabitants. In total, 90 participants were involved. Those who were living in small housings have a significant challenge of how to live comfortably given very limited space. The measurement of the quality of human life through WHOQOL-BREF (World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF) and ergonomics-based usability were used to describe the current human well-being satisfaction, to propose the modified physical facilities, and to validate the proposed design and improvement. The findings showed that all implemented improvements have supported the inhabitant’s quality of life.


Author(s):  
Anna Machowska ◽  
Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg

The unnecessary use of antibiotics and concomitant rapid growth of antibiotic resistance (ABR) is a widely acknowledged threat to global health, development, and sustainability. While the underlying cause of ABR is undoubtedly the overall volume of antibiotic use in general, irrational antibiotic use, which is influenced by several interrelated factors, is a major contributory factor. Here, we aimed to present and describe selected main drivers of irrational use of antibiotics in Europe. We performed a broad search of the current literature in databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane, as well as various institutional websites (World Health Organization, European Observatory, European Commission) to provide a new perspective on selected drivers of irrational antibiotic use in Europe. We also searched for relevant literature using snowballing, i.e., using reference lists of papers to identify additional papers. In this narrative review, we present that major factors among the general public driving antibiotic resistance are lack of public knowledge and awareness, access to antibiotics without prescription and leftover antibiotics, and knowledge attitude and perception of prescribers and dispensers, inadequate medical training, pharmaceutical promotion, lack of rapid and sufficient diagnostic tests, and patient–doctor interaction as major factors among healthcare providers. We further discuss initiatives that, if taken and implemented, can have an impact on and improve the current situation in Europe.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Shirzadfar ◽  
Narsis Gordoghli

In recent years, chronic medical problems have become increasingly prevalent. Chronic ‎illnesses challenge the view of life as a regular and continuous process, a challenge that has ‎important psychological consequences. The long duration of people suffering from these ‎diseases, the long process of treatment and the fact that there is no proper and definitive ‎treatment for most of these diseases and their associated complications have made chronic ‎diseases a detrimental factor in public health. According to the World Health Organization ‎‎(2006), the prevalence of chronic and non-communicable diseases is increasing in all countries, ‎especially developing countries, so that the major challenge for the health system in the present ‎century, is not living people, but better adapted to chronic illnesses and maintaining their ‎mental and social health and well-being Ed's life-threatening chronic physical illness.‎ Chronic pain is a pain that lasts longer than usual, and according to the criteria of the ‎International Association of Pain, this time is defined as at least 3 months to 6 months. Chronic ‎pain is such that not only faced the sick person whit the pressure of the pain but also with many ‎other pressure that affect different parts of her life. Fibromyalgia is one of the most rheumatologic disorders and one of the most resistant chronic ‎pain syndromes. Fibromyalgia is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders in adults ‎and chronic pain is one of the most common complaints in this group of patients.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (18) ◽  
pp. 2140-2165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena B. Popovic-Djordjevic ◽  
Ivana I. Jevtic ◽  
Tatjana P. Stanojkovic

Background: Diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMT2) is an endocrine disease of global proportions which is currently affecting 1 in 12 adults in the world, with still increasing prevalence. World Health Organization (WHO) declared this worldwide health problem, as an epidemic disease, to be the only non-infectious disease with such categorization. People with DMT2 are at increased risk of various complications and have shorter life expectancy. The main classes of oral antidiabetic drugs accessible today for DMT2 vary in their chemical composition, modes of action, safety profiles and tolerability. Methods: A systematic search of peer-reviewed scientific literature and public databases has been conducted. We included the most recent relevant research papers and data in respect to the focus of the present review. The quality of retrieved papers was assessed using standard tools. Results: The review highlights the chemical structural diversity of the molecules that have the common target-DMT2. So-called traditional antidiabetics as well as the newest and the least explored drugs include polypeptides and amino acid derivatives (insulin, glucagon-like peptide 1, dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitors, amylin), sulfonylurea derivatives, benzylthiazolidine- 2,4-diones (peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-γ agonists/glitazones), condensed guanido core (metformin) and sugar-like molecules (α-glucosidase and sodium/ glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors). Conclusion: As diabetes becomes a more common disease, interest in new pharmacological targets is on the rise.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document