Efficacy of screening cancer patients at hospital entrance for COVID-19 with a questionnaire and thermal scanning: An audit

Objectives: Although commonly practiced, the accuracy, effectiveness, and safety of screening patients for COVID-19 at hospital entrances is not well documented. Material and Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of single institution data involving screening patients for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection at hospital entrances by trained health personnel, with thermal scanning and administration of a standard questionnaire eliciting risk factors and symptoms of COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 positivity among patients screened positive and negative and among personnel involved in screening were estimated. Results: Between May 22, 2020, and July 4, 2020, a total of 20152 patients involving 54955 hospital visits were screened at hospital entrances of whom 668 (3.31%, 95% CI 3.07–3.57) were screened positive for suspected COVID-19 and 19484 (96.69%, 95% CI 96.44–96.93) were screened negative. Among patients screened positive, of the 638 patients with available records, 109 (17.08%, 95% CI 14.24–20.23) were confirmed to be SARS-CoV-2 positive by polymerase chain reaction test, 288 (45.14%, 95% CI 41.23–49.10) were negative, 71 (11.13%, 95% CI 8.79–13.83) were not tested after secondary assessment, and 170 (26.65%, 95% CI 23.25–30.26) patients declined the test. Among screen negative patients, 162 (0.83%, 95% CI 0.71–0.97) were SARS-CoV-2 positive. Of the 104 personnel involved in screening, 03 (2.88%, 95% CI 0.60–8.20) were confirmed to be SARS-CoV-2 positive during study period. Conclusion: Screening patients with a combination of thermal scanning and a standard questionnaire for COVID-19 has a high positive predictive value for detecting this infection with low risk of SARS-COV-2 transmission to the involved health personnel.

The Effect of Play on Children's Social Skills (Case Study: Kindergarten Children in Mazandaran Province)

This study aimed to investigate the effect of play type, playtime and type of toy on children's mental development, social skills and intelligence. The kindergarten of Mazandaran province in 2012 took place. The study's statistical population included 630 kindergarten children in Mazandaran province in 2012-13. Using the Jesse and Morgan table and the simple random sampling method, 240 was considered the sample size. The data collection method was based on a questionnaire and checklist. Reliability of questionnaires using Cronbach's alpha method for Gresham and Elliott standard questionnaire (1990, 0/83), and for standard questionnaire Intelligence Mazandaran - Stanford - Binet (2009) was obtained 0/91. Also, content and structure validity was used to test the validity of the questionnaire. In content validity, the questionnaires were approved by relevant experts. Analysis of information obtained from implementing questionnaires via SPSS software in two descriptive sections mean, variance, standard deviation, frequency distribution tables and graphs and inferential test.

Predictors of Persistence of Anxiety, Hyperarousal Stress, and Resilience During the COVID-19 Epidemic: A National Study in Iran

Background: The coronavirus pandemic can cause unprecedented global anxiety, and, in contrast, resilience can help the mental health of people in stressful situations. This study aimed to assess anxiety, hyperarousal stress, the resilience of the Iranian population, and their related factors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 31 provinces in Iran between March 18 and 25, 2020. A four-part questionnaire, including the demographic information, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-y1—a 20-item standard questionnaire for obvious anxiety), the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC—a 25 item standard questionnaire), and the stress hyperarousal subscale from the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), was used to collect data. The ordinal multivariable generalized estimating equation (GEE) model was used to identify correlates of the psychological factors mentioned above. The Fisher exact test was used to investigate the relationship between anxiety, stress, resilience, and the COVID-19 outbreak. All analyses were conducted with SPSS 26 and GIS 10.71.Results: The findings show that most people had moderate-to-severe anxiety (80.17%) and a high level of resilience (96.4%) during the COVID-19 epidemic. The majority of participants had a moderate level of stress (58.9%). The lowest and highest prevalences of psychiatric disorders were in Sistan and Baluchestan (3.14 cases per 100,000 people) and Semnan (75.9 cases per 100,000 people) provinces, respectively. Men and unmarried people were the only variables significantly associated with anxiety and resilience. Age, gender, and education were significantly associated with hyperarousal stress.Conclusion: The high and moderate levels of anxiety and stress in Iranians can have negative effects on the well-being and performance of the people and can lead to serious problems. Also, high resilience during negative life events (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) is associated with the well-being in the lives of people. The results of this study can be used in interventions and other psychological studies.

A COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT MIDDLE SCHOOL PHYSICAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS OF KASHMIR DIVISION

The objective of the present study was to access the “comparison of different middle school physical education programs of kashmir division”. The paper endeavors to examine the Adoption of Physical educations program in different schools of Kashmir. The data was collected from various schools of Jammu and Kashmir state. A Standard questionnaire was followed and the collected data was analyzed. During the present study it was concluded that during the females were more interested in physical education than that of males. It is pertinent to mention here that in all the schools the students were more eagerly taking part in physical educational programs.

Relationship Between Spiritual Health and Stress, Depression, and Anxiety in Hemodialysis Patients

Background: Chronic diseases confront the patient with questions about the meaning and the purpose of life, and many patients recognize spiritual health as a factor in creating meaning and purpose in life and improving the quality of life. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between spiritual health and stress, depression, and anxiety in hemodialysis patients of Birjand Special Diseases Center in 2019. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study, using the census method, all the dialysis patients visiting Birjand Special Diseases Center, Iran, were examined. A three-part questionnaire was used to collect information in this study. The first part deals with patient demographic information (i.e., age, gender, marital status, degree, occupation, duration of dialysis per week, and medical history), the second part includes the DASS21 standard questionnaire, and the third part comprises the Ellison-Palutzian spiritual health standard questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by the Mann-Whitney, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: In this study, 119 hemodialysis patients were studied, of which 77 (64.7%) were male. The mean depression, anxiety, and stress scores of the participants in the study were 18.8 ± 7.52, 16.43 ± 7.13, and 19.36 ± 8.31, respectively. The mean spiritual health of the patients studied was 82.37 ± 12.12. The results showed a significant (P < 0.05) inverse relationship between spiritual health and depression, anxiety, and stress in the patients studied. Conclusions: The findings showed that patients with higher spiritual health scores experienced less anxiety, stress, and depression. Thus, more focus should be on improving the spiritual health of hemodialysis patients by medical staff in the process of admitting and dealing with them in hospitals and medical centers.

A Comparison of Prebunking and Debunking Interventions for Implied versus Explicit Misinformation

Psychological research has offered valuable insights into how to combat misinformation. The studies conducted to date, however, have three limitations. First, pre-emptive (“prebunking”) and retroactive (“debunking”) interventions have mostly been examined in parallel, and thus it is unclear which of these two predominant approaches is more effective. Second, there has been a focus on misinformation that is explicitly false, but misinformation that uses literally true information to mislead is common in the real world. Finally, studies have relied mainly on questionnaire measures of reasoning, neglecting behavioural impacts of misinformation and interventions. To offer incremental progress towards addressing these three issues, we conducted an experiment (N = 735) involving misinformation on fair trade. We contrasted the effectiveness of prebunking versus debunking and the impacts of implied versus explicit misinformation, and incorporated novel measures assessing consumer behaviours (i.e., willingness-to-pay; information seeking; online misinformation promotion) in addition to standard questionnaire measures. In general, we found debunking to be more effective than prebunking, although both were able to reduce misinformation reliance. We also found that individuals tended to rely more on explicit than implied misinformation both with and without interventions.

Importance and value of Artificial Intelligence in Financial Sector – A critical Review

Artificial Intelligence has brought a great transformation to the financial sector by providing various opportunities for tailor made and customized services, reduction in costs and developing new models of business. Additionally, Artificial Intelligence has really boomed in past few years and many companies in different sectors have adopted it and applied in their operations. Many times, Artificial Intelligence is called as automation of the process within the sector, but a better way of usage of technology for the betterment of sector, mainly financial sector. Huge changes have been brought in financial sector through technology of artificial intelligence that created a range of innovative financial services such as intelligent consultant, intelligent lending, monitoring, and warning, as well as intelligent customer service. A sample of 175 respondents in which 62.29% “male” and 37.71% “female” has been considered by a “standard questionnaire” created on five-point interval scale.

Food insecurity, macronutrient intake and patterns of eating in a sample of UK adults

How do the dietary intake patterns of people exposed to food insecurity differ from those of people who are food secure? A recent study of a US sample found that food insecurity was associated with greater reliance on carbohydrate, a lower diversity of food, and more variable time gaps between eating. We examined whether these features were also present in a sample of UK adults. From a low-income population, we recruited matched groups of participants who were classified as food insecure (n = 196) or food secure (n = 198) according to a standard questionnaire measure. We collected up to five twenty-four-hour dietary recalls from each participant. Results were strikingly like those from the US study. Food insecure respondents consumed relatively more carbohydrate and less protein; had fewer distinct foods per meal; and had more variable time gaps between meals. Food insecure participants did not have significantly higher body mass indices in this study. Food insecurity as measured by questionnaire appears to relate to a repeatable set of changes to dietary intake across populations.

IMPACT OF BEHAVIOURAL BIASES IN CHOOSING INVESTMENT AVENUES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The behaviour of an individual investor is expansively influenced by different biases that came into limelight in the rising regulation of behaviour finance. In finance, behavioural finance is the latest regulation that studies the cognitive psychology of the decisions that are taken by an individual related to money. The theory of standard economic had evolved this in its response and it has the ability to presume that people are sensible, prefers low risks investments and maximises their profits. In real time scenario it is seen that people are not that sensible when they make their decisions during the investment process. There are different behavioral biases factors that influence the investors while choosing their investment avenues. The objective of the study is to know the behavioural factors that affect the decision of the Investors and their impact on the investor in choosing the investment avenues. A sample of 273 respondents were taken in which Investors from different sector were surveyed with the help of standard questionnaire. Mean and t test was used to get appropriate results. It is found that there are different behavioral factors such as mood, emotional, heuristic, personality and overconfidence that influence the investors while making his investments and all the behavioural biases has a significant impact on the process of choosing the investment avenues. KEYWORDS: Behavioural Biases, Behavioural Finance, Investment Avenues, Investors.