Psychological Readiness for Mobile Learning among Maldivian Students at Higher Education Institutions

Mobile technology, associated with mobility has led to the fluidity of knowledge transfer from any part of the globe. The rise in technology-enabled mobile devices tend to impact teaching and learning one or the other way. The fast-growing mobile learning (mLearning) and its instructional strategies are reaching learners anytime anywhere. Thereby, mLearning and its learning activities engage students passively, behaviorally, intellectually and emotionally in learning (Yao & Wang, 2018). Especially, in a country like Maldives where the people live in small islands separated by sea, mLearning could be an advantageous mode that can be adopted in the higher education of Maldives. The dispersed institutional students were were reached using mobile technology creating a psychological acceptance towards mLearning. Therefore, the study was developed to explore psychological readiness of institutional distance learning students to adopt mobile learning in Maldives. Keywords: Mobile learning, psychological readiness, paradigm shift, higher education institutions, Maldives.

Chest tube drainage placement may not be a necessity in paediatric thoracoscopic surgery: a retrospective study

Objective: Chest tube drainage placement, a standard procedure in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, was reported to cause perioperative complications like pain and increased risk of infection. The present study was designed to evaluate the necessity of chest tube drainage inpaediatric thoracoscopic surgery. Methods: Thirty children admitted to our hospital from April 2018 to April 2020 were included in the current study and were grouped as the tube group (children receiving video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery with chest tube drainage) and the non-tube group (children receiving video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery without chest tube drainage). Laboratory hemogram index, length of hospitalisation, post-operative performance of involved children, and psychological acceptance of indicated therapy by guardians of the involved children were investigated. Results: Laboratory examination revealed that the mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration in the non-tube group was significantly higher than that in the tube group on post-operative day 1 (p < 0.05). Children in the non-tube group had a shorter length of hospitalisation (7–9 days) than that of patients from the tube group. Additionally, the frequency of crying of children was decreased and psychological acceptance by patients’ guardians was improved in the non-tube group when compared with the tube group. Conclusion: This study showed that chest tube drainage placement may not be necessary in several cases of paediatric video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Rapid recovery with decreased perioperative complications in children operated by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery without tube placement could also reduce the burden of the family and society both economically and psychologically.

P419 Psychological acceptability of surgery in patients with ulcerative colitis after total colectomy

Background The purpose of surgery for patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) is to save their lives and improve their quality of life (QOL). However, deciding whether to undergo surgical intestinal resection is among the most difficult decision that patients with UC may be required to make during the disease course. Although clinical outcomes and changes in QOL after total colectomy have been reported, few studies have investigated the psychological acceptability or subjective feelings among patients after surgery. This study aimed to evaluate the psychological acceptability of surgery among patients with UC who underwent total colectomy. Methods A cross-sectional single questionnaire survey for patients with UC who underwent colectomy was conducted from October 2019 to February 2020 at five Japanese IBD centres in Japan. According to the opinions of seven physicians specialising in IBD and a clinical psychologist, we created a questionnaire using a 10-point visual analog scale (VAS) consisting of 20 questions related to surgical acceptance and concerns related to UC. We asked patients to answer the questionnaire by recollection of the pre- and postoperative periods. The VAS scores before surgery were described by the patients looking back on their recollections. Pre- and post-surgical VAS scores were compared using Wilcoxon’s rank sum test. Cases under 6 years old at colectomy and patients followed for more than 10 years after surgery were excluded. Results There were 71 cases, and the median age at surgery was 31.0 [range 9–75] years. The median time since surgery was 4.0 [range 0–10] years, and the valid response rate was 93 percent. Compared with pre-operatively, psychological acceptability of surgery significantly improved significantly after total colectomy (p &lt; .001). The median scores for psychological acceptability of surgery were 5.1 (0–10) and 8.6 (0.3–10) before and after surgery, respectively. Scores improved in more than 90% of the patients. Subscores for a sense of loss of the colon, shame related to excretion, and dietary satisfaction improved significantly after surgery (p &lt; .0001). Conclusion We examined for the first time the psychological acceptance of surgery among patients with UC who underwent total colectomy. We found that many of the emotional, physical, and social questions associated with UC improved after surgery.

A Review on Seismic Performance Analysis of High Rise Modular Steel Construction (MSC)

The construction industry has tried out a variety of trends in its field to bring out innovative, economic, efficient and sustainable infrastructure to meet the growing demand. One such development is the off-site manufactured modular steel buildings. The practice reduces the construction period as well as reduces wastage of resources. It was extensively used for low rise structures earlier, but due to increasing urban construction demand the practice is preferred nowadays in high rise structures too. For the high rise structures the lateral stability needed to be well looked into as there may arise a mass irregularity, structural irregularity, discontinuity etc. Psychological acceptance of such construction practice by the public is also not assured as they are not well aware of the advantages and use of the practice. And hence there is a need to conduct detailed and thorough investigation on its contradiction part to seismic performance. The modular construction consists of different structural systems and load transferring mechanisms. The integration of many materials and elements to modular structures are also discussed in various papers. But regarding lateral force resistance of its structural and non-structural components only limited research is conducted. Further research is required. The aim of the study is to provide a collective critical review on individual units or components of the structural system and their effects contributing to seismic resistance.