The Relevance among Dietary Habits, Body Mass Index and Oral Disease Symptom Experiences of Korean High School Students-Focusing on the 15th Online Youth Health Behavior Survey in 2019

Objectives: This study was to survey the distribution of Korean high school students’ dietary habits, body mass index (BMI) and oral symptom experiences and analyze the relevance of those to contribute to the development of a program to prevent and manage their oral diseases.Methods: The analysis was based on the raw data of the 15th Online Youth Health Behavior Survey in 2019 and the subjects were 27,919 high school students which went under complex sample analysis.Results: In the dietary habits of the subjects, the highest were ‘once or twice a week’ with 33.8% in recent 7 days’ fruit intake frequency, 42.9% of ‘once or twice a week’ in soda intake frequency, 35.8% of ‘once or twice a week’ in sweet drinks frequency, and 56.1% of ‘once or twice a week’ in fast food frequency. BMI showed the highest 52.9% of ‘normal’, 19.5% of ‘obesity’, 14.1% of ‘overweight’, and 13.5% of ‘underweight’ in order. In the recent 12-month experience of oral disease symptoms, the highest was 39.2% of ‘none’ with 25.4% of ‘one’, 18.0% of ‘more than three’, and 17.4% of ‘two’ in order. In the affecting factors on BMI ‘3 or 4 times a week’ in soda, ‘once or twice a week’ in sweet drinks were significantly high and ‘3 or 4 times a week’ were significantly low in vegetable intake (p< 0.05). The affecting factors on oral disease symptoms were significantly lower with male than female, and those on academic achievements and economic status were significantly lower in ‘mid’ than in ‘low’ (p< 0.01). ‘Once or twice a week’ soda intake and less sweet drinks and fast food were significantly low (p< 0.01). Less vegetable intake showed significantly higher (p< 0.01), and there were no significant relevance between BMI and oral disease symptoms.Conclusions: It is suggested that a program be developed as soon as possible for preventing and managing oral diseases for adolescents to grow up to be healthy adults in terms of surveying characteristic distribution of dietary habits, BMI and oral disease symptoms and analyzing the relevance among them efficiently.

Symptom Experiences and Needs of Older Persons Living with Hemodialysis in Relation to Integrating Home Telehealth into Holistic End of Life Care: Phase I

The integration of home telehealth into holistic end of life care with nurse oversight for older persons living with hemodialysis is still limited in Thailand. This study explains the symptom experiences and health care needs related to integrating a home telehealth model into end of life care for older persons living with hemodialysis (OPLH). The paper represents the first phase of a mixed methods exploratory sequential study with dominant quantitative components, carried out over a six-month period. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from 100 OPLH. The instruments included the VOICES (View of Informal Carers Evaluation of Service-ESRD/Thai – patients’ version) questionnaire, the 9-item Thai Health Status Assessment questionnaire, and a demographic data form. The quantitative data were analysed using the statistical package SPSS version 17. Most of the participants had comorbid conditions (98%). The most common of these were hypertension (41.02%) followed by diabetes mellitus (23.25%). 25% had shortness of breath, and some had pain (31%), swelling (31%), anorexia some of the time (30%), and nausea and vomiting (15%). Moreover, participants also had symptoms of anxiety (23%), and moderate stress (10%). 8% had to be readmitted to hospital at least twice per month. Most participants had never received home care. The needs of the participants in relation to their holistic end of life care at home were reported in terms of: 1) knowledge of symptoms management at home; 2) activity and role management; 3) emotional management; and 4) spiritual support. The telehealth provision was mentioned by participants as an important part of their care, requiring VDO visiting, telephone counselling, and web-based education/ monitoring. Keywords: ESRD, Older persons living with hemodialysis (OPLH), Home telehealth.

Using patients’ own knowledge of early sensations and symptoms to develop an interactive, individualized e-questionnaire to facilitate early diagnosis of lung cancer

Background One reason for the often late diagnosis of lung cancer (LC) may be that potentially-indicative sensations and symptoms are often diffuse, and may not be considered serious or urgent, making their interpretation complicated. However, with only a few exceptions, efforts to use people’s own in-depth knowledge about prodromal bodily experiences has been a missing link in efforts to facilitate early LC diagnosis. In this study, we describe and discuss facilitators and challenges in our process of developing and initial testing an interactive, self-completion e-questionnaire based on patient descriptions of experienced prodromal sensations and symptoms, to support early identification of lung cancer (LC). Methods E-questionnaire items were derived from in-depth, detailed explorative interviews with individuals undergoing investigation for suspected LC. The descriptors of sensations/symptoms and the background items obtained were the basis for developing an interactive, individualized instrument, PEX-LC, which was refined for usability through think-aloud and other interviews with patients, members of the public, and clinical staff. Results Major challenges in the process of developing PEX-LC related to collaboration among many actors, and design/user interface problems including technical issues. Most problems identified through the think-aloud interviews related to design/user interface problems and technical issues rather than content, for example we re-ordered questions to be in line with patients’ chronological, rather than retrospective, descriptions of their experiences. PEX-LC was developed into a final e-questionnaire on a touch-screen smart tablet with one background module covering sociodemographic characteristics, 10 interactive, individualized modules covering early sensations and symptoms, and a 12th assessing current symptoms. Conclusions Close collaboration with patients throughout the process was intrinsic for developing PEX-LC. Similarly, we recognized the extent to which clinicians and technical experts were also important in this process. Similar endeavors should assure all necessary competence is included in the core research team, to facilitate timely progress. Our experiences developing PEX-LC combined with new empirical research suggest that this individualized, interactive e-questionnaire, developed through systematizing patients’ own formulations of their prodromal symptom experiences, is both feasible for use and has potential value in the intended group.