Knowledge regarding Immunity Boosting Measures for Self-care during COVID-19 crisis: Survey of Urban Community in Haryana

Author(s):  
Rashmi Negi ◽  
Khushbu Saharan ◽  
Kavita Pillai

Background: In the wake of the Covid 19 outbreak, entire mankind across the globe is suffering. Enhancing the body’s natural defence system (immunity) plays an important role in maintaining optimum health. We all know that prevention is better than cure. While there is no medicine for COVID-19 as of now, it will be good to take preventive measures which boost our immunity in these times. The COVID-19 (also commonly called coronavirus) pandemic is causing a lot of changes in the daily lives of people around the world. However, there are things that can be done to maintain a healthy lifestyle in these difficult times. First and foremost, everyone is encouraged to follow World Health Organization (WHO) and governmental advice to protect against COVID-19 infection and transmission. Physical distancing and good hygiene are the best protection for everyone against COVID-19. Experiences from previous outbreaks have shown that as an epidemic evolves, there is an urgent need to expand public health activities beyond direct clinical management. The nutritional status of individuals has for long been considered as an indicator of resilience against destabilization. Method: A web-based, survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to obtain responses from community people during the third week of May 2020. A 30-item survey instrument was developed using course materials available on WHO’s website on emerging COVID-19. The survey covered community people’s socio demographic profile, awareness, information sources, and knowledge related to maintenance of healthy dietary measures for self-care during COVID-19 pandemic. Result: The study findings suggests that majority of the study participants have poor knowledge score (45.25%), average knowledge (25.12%) and 29.63% respondents had adequate knowledge about self-care measures to follow to boosts immunity during COVID 19. Conclusion: The study concludes that participants had considerable poor to average knowledge regarding Immunity boosting measures for self-care. The enhancement in knowledge is greatly required on Immunity boosting measures for self-care to enhance the natural defense system of individual.

Author(s):  
Chandrashekhar Mahato ◽  
Sunilkumar Suryavanshi

Background: The world health organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic on 11th March 2020. As this is a novel illness, thus knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) related to the pandemic is a new area of research. KAP in a non-COVID facility, such as a psychiatric institution is rare.Methods: Cross-sectional survey with purposive sampling, conducted at central institute of psychiatry, Ranchi, India. A sample of 235 healthcare workers consisting of nurses, wards attendants, and housekeeping staff took part in the study. Participants completed a 36-item questionnaire assessing their KAP related to COVID-19.Results: 79.42% of healthcare workers in this study had adequate knowledge of COVID-19 symptomatology, transmission, management, and preventive measures. 89.79% were confident that India would win the battle against COVID-19. 35.32% fear to work in a hospital, but on the other hand, 80.85% of healthcare staff considered coming to work as part of their duty. Good practices like wearing a mask before leaving home and practicing proper cough hygiene were observed. The significant difference found in KAP among the three groups. Spearman’s correlation was significant between age, level of education of the participants with the KAP.Conclusions: The study suggests increased attention is required towards the training of the healthcare workers to enhance their knowledge and attitude so that the practices can be improved.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah M. Al-Shahrani ◽  
Mohammed A. Al-Saleem ◽  
Mohamed O’haj ◽  
Faleh Th. Mohammed ◽  
Mutasim E. Ibrahim

OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of diabetes mellitus (DM) among the adult population in Bisha province, Saudi Arabia.METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted during December, 2015 using the World Health Organization STEPS wise approach for data collection. Blood glucose level and anthropometric measurements of blood pressure, height, weight, and waist circumference were performed per standard methods.  Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the prevalence and risk of diabetes.RESULTS: Of 542 adult individuals included in the study, 13.3% (72) had diabetes, of which 8.1% were previously diagnosed and 5.2% represented new cases. The proportions of DM were 14.7% for men and 10.8% for women. Diabetes was significantly higher among married compared to unmarried individuals (19.3% vs 5.5 %; p<0.001) and among individuals aged ≥40 years old compared to those <40 years (31.3% vs 9.3%; p<0.001). The risk of diabetes was significantly increased with older age (Odds Ratio=4.470; 95% CI 2.264-7.614), married individuals (OR=4.097; 95% CI 2.188-7.672), weight/obesity (OR=2.827; 95% CI 1.567-5.072), hypertension (OR=4.383; 95% CI 2.085-9.214) and having a job (OR=2.327; 95% CI 1.347-4.02). The independent risk factors predicted diabetes were hypertension (Adjusted OR=2.897; 95% CI 1.269-66.13) and job patterns (Adjusted OR=2.793; 95% CI 1.064-7.329).CONCLUSION: Different risk factors alarming diabetes among adult population in Bisha province were detected.  Strategies aimed to improving a healthy lifestyle are necessary to reduce the burden of the disease. 


The Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) are distinguished by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior. Coronaviruses are an extremely common cause of colds and other upper respiratory infections. COVID-19, short for “coronavirus disease 2019”. The fast spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 has sparked alarm worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Most of the countries around the world are adopting social distancing to slow the spread of coronavirus. There are several possible impacts of this pandemic on the daily lives of individuals with ASD, such as worsening of dysfunctional behaviors and regression of skills already acquired in different domains of development due to the social isolation. The objective of this article is to provide guidance to parents, health and education professionals that live or work with ASD individuals during the social isolation, on how to manage interventions that can be executed in the home environment, like remote training in language and social communication skills, behavioral strategies and sensory integration activities


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-316
Author(s):  
Seyed Mohammadreza Alavizadeh ◽  
◽  
Mojgan Sepahmansour ◽  
Somaye Entezari ◽  
Mohammadreza Seirafi ◽  
...  

Objective: The Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) has recently been identified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The outbreak of the disease has caused numerous individuals around the world to become extremely frightened and subsequently present the signs of phobia. Fear is the basic emotion of anxiety disorders and individuals cope with their emotions by different strategies. The present study aimed at developing and validating Emotion Regulation Strategies for Germophobia Questionnaire (ERS-GPQ). Methods: The study participants were 99 individuals (74 females) of the Iranian population with concerns about germs who were selected with the snowball sampling method. They completed the ERS-GPQ and GPQ in the Google Forms platform. Results: The present study results illustrated that the ERS-GPQ has acceptable internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (a=0.61), reliability coefficients with split-half (0.70), and one-week test-retest (0.92); the ERS-GPQ also presented a moderate positive correlation with the contamination obsessions checklist of GPQ (r=0.44) as the convergent coefficient. Besides, the confirmatory factor analysis indicated 2 factors of the ERS-GPQ. Finally, the ERS-GPQ has 2 components with good convergent and discriminate validities and composite reliability. Conclusion: Based on the current research findings, the ERS-GPQ has acceptable and good psychometric properties; researchers can use the ERS-GPQ as a reliable and valid instrument for assessing ER strategies concerning germophobia. Furthermore, it has some considerations for practitioners in epidemic and pandemic crises, like COVID-19.


Author(s):  
Annmariya T.A ◽  
Arya K ◽  
Binni Varughese ◽  
Diniya M.T ◽  
Festimol Pinhero ◽  
...  

World Health Organization (WHO) defines accident as an unexpected and an unintended event causing physical and mental injures. Children being less aware of danger are more vulnerable to accidents are one of the five leading causes of death in developing countries yearly. Accidents are main cause of death among children aged between 1-5 years old. As children are explorative in nature a number of accidents occur in this age group. Aims of the study: To assess the knowledge of mothers regarding prevention of home accidents and to find association between the knowledge score of mothers and selected demographic variables. Methodology: A descriptive study approach was adopted and structured questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge of mothers. Convenience sampling technique was used to select the 50 samples from the selected community at Mangalore. The results and Conclusion: Majority (36%) of the mothers belonged to the age group 25-31 years. Half (50%) of the samples are belonged to Muslim community, 60% of the samples were from nuclear family, most (36%) of the samples were having one under five child. Majority 34% had pre-university and 30% had secondary school education. Majority (84 %) of the respondents had moderately adequate knowledge, only few (4 %) had inadequate knowledge and only 12% had adequate knowledge on prevention of home accidents. The maximum score of knowledge score was about 19, range 16, mean 10.54, standard deviation ± 4.20 and the mean percentage was 13. The computed chi-square value chi-square value computed between the level of knowledge and selected demographic variables i.e. age (22=1.093) Religion (22=2.155), Type of family (22=2.614), number of children below 5 years of age (22=.398) educational status (23=1.840) of the mothers and whether the child met with any type of accidents (21=.368) not significant at 0.05 level of significance. Thus, it can be interpreted that there is no significant association between knowledge of mothers of under five children and selected variables. Knowledge of mothers regarding prevention of home accidents was moderately adequate. Under five home accidents are common in India and it is necessary to take adequate precautions to prevent it. Educating mothers is the best way to prevent under five accidents at home.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 362-365
Author(s):  
Samlee Plianbangchang

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of taking responsibility for our own self-care as fundamental to achieving optimum healthcare at all levels: family, community and country. However, for self-care to work at its best, the support of the government and the national medical and public health workforce are required in addition to increased facilities that ensure the development and long-term maintenance of a person’s health status. Moreover, inter-disciplinary government policy, strategy and resource support should be placed as a central part of the national healthcare development system. Design/methodology/approach It is a commentary piece of work from own long experience in working with the World Health Organization. Findings The value of self-care and individual responsibility in achieving one’s own good health ultimately results in improved national and global health standards. Originality/value This commentary explores the ideas and concepts on ways and means of leading people to think and act toward achieving their own optimum health in order to lead a socially and economically productive life and ultimately achieve “the highest attainable standard of health,” a WHO objective.


Author(s):  
Martin D. Cheatle ◽  
Perry G. Fine

Almost daily, we seem to be witnessing astonishing innovations in diagnostic technologies and the development of novel therapeutics. In spite of these advancements and other time-tested interventions to mange the major diseases including intractable pain, patient nonadherence continues to undermine efforts to optimize individual and population health. The World Health Organization defines adherence as “The extent to which a person’s behavior taking medication, following a diet, and/or executing lifestyle changes, corresponds with agreed recommendations from a healthcare provider.” This definition implies that the patient-clinician relationship is based on a model of collaboration and patient-centeredness requiring time and resources which are scarce commodities in current practice. With these constraints in mind, acquiring skills to facilitate adherence to prescribed therapies and healthy lifestyle behaviors is critical to improving clinical outcomes.In this chapter we will review the evolution of the concept of adherence, the incidence of nonadherence, factors influencing adherence behavior and provider and nonprovider enhancement of adherence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 215013272093529
Author(s):  
Rashid M. Ansari ◽  
Mark F. Harris ◽  
Hassan Hosseinzadeh ◽  
Nicholas Zwar

Objective: The English version of the Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities (SDSCA) measure is the most frequently used self-reporting instrument assessing diabetes self-management. This study is aimed at translating English SDSCA into the Urdu version and validating and evaluating its psychometric properties. Methods: The Urdu version of SDSCA was developed based on the guidelines provided by the World Health Organization for translation and adaptation of instruments. The panel of experts examined the content validity, reliability, and internal consistency of the instrument. The translation process from the English version to the Urdu version revealed excellent results at all the stages. Results: The instrument showed promising and acceptable results. Of particular mention are the results related to split-half reliability coefficient 0.90, test-retest reliability ( r = 0.918, P < .001), intraclass coefficient (0.912), and Cronbach’s alpha (.79). The factor analysis (exploratory and confirmatory) was not performed in this study due to the small sample size (n = 30) as the objective was to validate the Urdu version of the SDSCA instrument. Conclusions: This study provided evidence for the reliability and validity of the Urdu Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities (U-SDSCA) instrument, which may be used in the future for the patients of diabetes in order to assess type 2 diabetes self-management activities in the rural area of Pakistan and other Urdu-speaking countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Bhim Bahadur Kunwar

This research aims to discover and present the impacts of COVID-19 in tourism in the context of Lumbini and its premises. As COVID-19 spread globally, it has created many challenges in health and security, daily lives, the national economy, and the global tourism industry. The COVID-19 outbreak has been considered as the most challenging tragedy that occurred in the world after the 2nd world war. The World Health Organization (WHO) had listed Nepal also as a country with a high-risk zone of COVID-19.The travel restriction and nationwide lock-down implemented by many countries including Nepal have resulted in a stranded traveler’s movement. As the consequences ticket reservation, flight services, transportation, hotel, and restaurants were closed and several job losses were registered in the tourism sector. The negative effects like fear, threat, frustration, and losing the confidence of tourism entrepreneurs appeared. This has brought changes in the tourists’ behavior and their motivation to travel for the next few years. In Lumbini businesses like lodges, hotels, restaurants, and travel offices were also severely affected by the pandemic. Thus, the tourism sector has been facing serious threats due to the prolonged lockdown and closing of tourism activities than the terror of COVID-19 itself.


Indian pharmaceutical industry (IPI) has traversed through many phases and it is in emerging phase now (2019). IPI is looking for innovation, creativity, newness in patient connect to perform different activities to achieve their stated goals. According to a recent World Health Organization report, approximately 50% of the people with chronic illness do not take their medication as prescribed [1]. Medication NonAdherence is a huge problem across the world. Pharmaceutical companies across the world manufacture medicines with set of standard operating procedures, guidelines, quality execution systems, inspection and verification from quality control and quality assurance activities. The very intention of producing medicines is to sell them to the patients who are in need. The last thing Pharmaceutical companies expects from Health Care Professional (HCP) is to write the prescription and patient carrying it to Pharmacy to buy the medicine. The medicines for chronic illness are expensive in general. Despite having the prescriptions for medicines, there are plethora of reasons for Patient not to buy them. One of the most remarkable reason is – ‘the medicine costs are exorbitant’. If the medicines are not taken in case of the chronic illness, the patient’s quality of life degrades over a period of time, eventually resulting to fatality. This is a known concern to Pharmaceutical companies and new methods are invented to address the need for supporting the Patient at difficult times. This paper made an attempt to introduce predictive analytics based financial assistance model for chronic care patients in India.


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