This study was conducted to determine the gut bacteria and nutritional status of children (n = 30) aged 2 - 11 in Benue’s largest internally displaced persons (IDP) camp since information on this is lacking. Gut bact...This study was conducted to determine the gut bacteria and nutritional status of children (n = 30) aged 2 - 11 in Benue’s largest internally displaced persons (IDP) camp since information on this is lacking. Gut bacteria were identified using culture techniques, while Body Mass Index (Kg/m<sup>2</sup>), Weight-for-Height (WHZ), and Weight-for-Age (WAZ) z scores were computed from anthropometric measurements. Socio-demographic and economic variables were collected via structured questionnaires. IBM SPSS v25 was used to analyze the data, with p Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., and Escherichia coli compared to children from a nearby private school (n = 10), except for E. coli, where the prevalence was equal. The results for BMI revealed that 23 (57.5%) of the children had a healthy weight while 17 (42.5%) were underweight.WAZ z-scores were between (-0.02 - 2.51) with evidence of mildly underweight (20%) and mildly overweight (5%) children. WHZ z-scores were between -0.03 - 2.37, with moderately wasted (30%) and severely wasted (5%) found. To ensure better health outcomes for residents, conditions in the camp must be improved.展开更多
Mobile communication and the Internet of Things(IoT)technologies have recently been established to collect data from human beings and the environment.The data collected can be leveraged to provide intelligent services...Mobile communication and the Internet of Things(IoT)technologies have recently been established to collect data from human beings and the environment.The data collected can be leveraged to provide intelligent services through different applications.It is an extreme challenge to monitor disabled people from remote locations.It is because day-to-day events like falls heavily result in accidents.For a person with disabilities,a fall event is an important cause of mortality and post-traumatic complications.Therefore,detecting the fall events of disabled persons in smart homes at early stages is essential to provide the necessary support and increase their survival rate.The current study introduces a Whale Optimization Algorithm Deep Transfer Learning-DrivenAutomated Fall Detection(WOADTL-AFD)technique to improve the Quality of Life for persons with disabilities.The primary aim of the presented WOADTL-AFD technique is to identify and classify the fall events to help disabled individuals.To attain this,the proposed WOADTL-AFDmodel initially uses amodified SqueezeNet feature extractor which proficiently extracts the feature vectors.In addition,the WOADTLAFD technique classifies the fall events using an extreme Gradient Boosting(XGBoost)classifier.In the presented WOADTL-AFD technique,the WOA approach is used to fine-tune the hyperparameters involved in the modified SqueezeNet model.The proposedWOADTL-AFD technique was experimentally validated using the benchmark datasets,and the results confirmed the superior performance of the proposedWOADTL-AFD method compared to other recent approaches.展开更多
Transgender persons constitute a non-negligible percentage of the general population.Physical gender-transitioning in trans persons is mainly achieved with hormonal cross-sex therapy and sex reassignment surgeries tha...Transgender persons constitute a non-negligible percentage of the general population.Physical gender-transitioning in trans persons is mainly achieved with hormonal cross-sex therapy and sex reassignment surgeries that aim to align bodily appearance with gender identity.Hormonal treatment acts via suppressing the secretion of the endogenous sex hormones and replacing them with the hormones of the desired sex.The administration of testosterone is the typical masculinizing treatment in trans men,whilst trans women are routinely treated with estradiol agents in combination with anti-androgens or gonadotrophinreleasing hormone agonists if testes are present.Exogenous androgenic steroids,estradiol agents,and anti-androgens have been implicated in a series of hepatotoxic effects.Thus,liver integrity is a major concern with the long-term administration of cross-sex therapy.Hepatic tissue is susceptible to coronavirus disease 19(COVID-19)through various pathophysiological mechanisms.Special consideration should be paid to minimize the risk of hepatic damage from the potential cumulative effect of COVID-19 and gender-affirming treatment in transgender patients.Appropriate care is significant,with continuous laboratory monitoring,clinical observation and,if needed,specific treatment,especially in severe cases of infection and in persons with additional liver pathologies.The pandemic can be an opportunity to provide equal access to care for all and increase the resilience of the transgender population.展开更多
Objective:Community-based rehabilitation(CBR)is a strategy by which persons living with disability(PWDs)access comprehensive rehabilitation services with limited evidence regarding its impact on the quality of life(QO...Objective:Community-based rehabilitation(CBR)is a strategy by which persons living with disability(PWDs)access comprehensive rehabilitation services with limited evidence regarding its impact on the quality of life(QOL)and self-esteem(SE)of PWDs and their family members.This study compared the QOL and SE of Nigerian PWDs in communities with and without a CBR programme(CBR and non-CBR respectively),and the family quality of life(FQOL)of their family members.Methods:Cross-sectional study involving 2604 PWDs(1302 in CBR and 1302 in non-CBR);5208 family members of PWDs(2604 in CBR and 2604 non-CBR),recruited from four randomly selected geo-political zones in Nigeria,purposive/consecutive selection of eight CBR programmes,PWDs and their family members(CBR and non-CBR).Outcomes assessed using Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale(RSES),World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument-short form(WHOQOL-BREF)and Beach Centre Family Quality of Life Instrument(BCFQOL).Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman's rank order correlation were used to analyse data at P<0.05.Results:PWDs in CBR scored higher in all domains of WHOQOL-BREF(P<0.0001 in all cases)and RSES than non-CBR group(P<0.0001).The CBR families scored significantly higher than non-CBR families in all domains(P<0.05)except Emotional Well-Being of the BCFQOL.The CBR group scores on Psychological and Social Health domains of the WHOQOL-BREF showed significant positive correlation with CBR families'Family Interaction(P=0.06)and Parenting(P=0.07)domains and total FQOL(P=0.07).Conclusion:Community-based rehabilitation positively impacted on SE and QOL of PWDs and their family members.展开更多
Background: Due to the increase in longevity and use of antiretroviral treatment, Uganda has had a growing population of older persons living with HIV/AIDS. However, there is a paucity of information on the mental hea...Background: Due to the increase in longevity and use of antiretroviral treatment, Uganda has had a growing population of older persons living with HIV/AIDS. However, there is a paucity of information on the mental health of the elderly living with HIV/AIDS. In this cross-sectional study, we determined the prevalence of, and associated factors for depression and suicidal ideation among older persons living with HIV/AIDS in Mbarara city, southwest Uganda. Methods: Older persons (150 females, 115 males), with mean age = 64.2 (±5.1) years, accessing health services from three purposively selected HIV/AIDS care centers in Mbarara city, southwest Uganda were recruited. Data on depression and suicidal ideation were collected using a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) validated in Uganda, and a structured questionnaire was used to collect data on clinical and socio-demographic characteristics. Data were analysed using logistic regression. Results: Approximately 8.3% and 12.1% had depression and suicidal ideation, respectively. The factors associated with lowering the likelihood of depression were: an increase in the number of family members they stayed with and having no having any problems with their ARVs. On the other hand, earning more than 100,000 Uganda shillings was associated with reducing the risk of suicidal ideations among the participants. Conclusion: Approximately 8 to 12 in 100 older persons living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda have experienced depression or suicidal ideation. Family support and financial control were instrumental factors associated with depression and suicidal ideations, respectively. We recommended strengthening family structures and creating more avenues for financial independence among older persons living with HIV/AIDS to reduce the burden of depression, and suicidal behaviours among this vulnerable population.展开更多
Two questions in the research of animal personality—whether there is a correlation between a personality trait and individual reproductive success,and what is the genetic basis underlying a personality trait—remain ...Two questions in the research of animal personality—whether there is a correlation between a personality trait and individual reproductive success,and what is the genetic basis underlying a personality trait—remain unresolved.We addressed these two questions in three shrub-nesting birds,the Azure-winged Magpie(Cyanopica cyanus,AM),White-collared Blackbird(Turdus albocinctus,WB),and Brown-cheeked Laughingthrush(Trochalopteron henrici,BL).The personality type of an individual was first identified according to its response to a territorial intruder.Then,we compared the fleeing distance,breeding parameters,and differential expressed genes(DEGs) in the brain transcriptome between bold and shy breeders.In the three species,bold breeders exhibited more aggressiveness towards an intruder of their territory than did shy breeders.The reproductive success of bold breeders was significantly higher than that of shy breeders in AM but not in WB and BL.The three species shared one DEG,crabp1,which was up-regulated in bold relative to in shy individuals.By regulating the expression of corticotropin-releasing hormone,higher crabp1 gene expression can decrease cellular response to retinoic acid.Therefore,bold individuals are insensitive to external stresses and able to exhibit more aggressiveness to intruders than their shier counterparts.Aggressiveness is beneficial to bold individuals in AM but not in WB and BL because the former could evoke neighbors to make the same response of defending against intruders but the latter could not.Although a personality trait may have the same genetic basis across species,its correlation with reproductive success depends largely on the life history style of a species.展开更多
The attention mechanism can extract salient features in images,which has been proved to be effective in improving the performance of person re-identification(Re-ID).However,most of the existing attention modules have ...The attention mechanism can extract salient features in images,which has been proved to be effective in improving the performance of person re-identification(Re-ID).However,most of the existing attention modules have the following two shortcomings:On the one hand,they mostly use global average pooling to generate context descriptors,without highlighting the guiding role of salient information on descriptor generation,resulting in insufficient ability of the final generated attention mask representation;On the other hand,the design of most attention modules is complicated,which greatly increases the computational cost of the model.To solve these problems,this paper proposes an attention module called self-supervised recalibration(SR)block,which introduces both global and local information through adaptive weighted fusion to generate a more refined attention mask.In particular,a special"Squeeze-Excitation"(SE)unit is designed in the SR block to further process the generated intermediate masks,both for nonlinearizations of the features and for constraint of the resulting computation by controlling the number of channels.Furthermore,we combine the most commonly used Res Net-50 to construct the instantiation model of the SR block,and verify its effectiveness on multiple Re-ID datasets,especially the mean Average Precision(m AP)on the Occluded-Duke dataset exceeds the state-of-the-art(SOTA)algorithm by 4.49%.展开更多
Person identification is one of the most vital tasks for network security. People are more concerned about theirsecurity due to traditional passwords becoming weaker or leaking in various attacks. In recent decades, f...Person identification is one of the most vital tasks for network security. People are more concerned about theirsecurity due to traditional passwords becoming weaker or leaking in various attacks. In recent decades, fingerprintsand faces have been widely used for person identification, which has the risk of information leakage as a resultof reproducing fingers or faces by taking a snapshot. Recently, people have focused on creating an identifiablepattern, which will not be reproducible falsely by capturing psychological and behavioral information of a personusing vision and sensor-based techniques. In existing studies, most of the researchers used very complex patternsin this direction, which need special training and attention to remember the patterns and failed to capturethe psychological and behavioral information of a person properly. To overcome these problems, this researchdevised a novel dynamic hand gesture-based person identification system using a Leap Motion sensor. Thisstudy developed two hand gesture-based pattern datasets for performing the experiments, which contained morethan 500 samples, collected from 25 subjects. Various static and dynamic features were extracted from the handgeometry. Randomforest was used to measure feature importance using the Gini Index. Finally, the support vectormachinewas implemented for person identification and evaluate its performance using identification accuracy. Theexperimental results showed that the proposed system produced an identification accuracy of 99.8% for arbitraryhand gesture-based patterns and 99.6% for the same dynamic hand gesture-based patterns. This result indicatedthat the proposed system can be used for person identification in the field of security.展开更多
Personality recognition plays a pivotal role when developing user-centric solutions such as recommender systems or decision support systems across various domains,including education,e-commerce,or human resources.Tra-...Personality recognition plays a pivotal role when developing user-centric solutions such as recommender systems or decision support systems across various domains,including education,e-commerce,or human resources.Tra-ditional machine learning techniques have been broadly employed for personality trait identification;nevertheless,the development of new technologies based on deep learning has led to new opportunities to improve their performance.This study focuses on the capabilities of pre-trained language models such as BERT,RoBERTa,ALBERT,ELECTRA,ERNIE,or XLNet,to deal with the task of personality recognition.These models are able to capture structural features from textual content and comprehend a multitude of language facets and complex features such as hierarchical relationships or long-term dependencies.This makes them suitable to classify multi-label personality traits from reviews while mitigating computational costs.The focus of this approach centers on developing an architecture based on different layers able to capture the semantic context and structural features from texts.Moreover,it is able to fine-tune the previous models using the MyPersonality dataset,which comprises 9,917 status updates contributed by 250 Facebook users.These status updates are categorized according to the well-known Big Five personality model,setting the stage for a comprehensive exploration of personality traits.To test the proposal,a set of experiments have been performed using different metrics such as the exact match ratio,hamming loss,zero-one-loss,precision,recall,F1-score,and weighted averages.The results reveal ERNIE is the top-performing model,achieving an exact match ratio of 72.32%,an accuracy rate of 87.17%,and 84.41%of F1-score.The findings demonstrate that the tested models substantially outperform other state-of-the-art studies,enhancing the accuracy by at least 3%and confirming them as powerful tools for personality recognition.These findings represent substantial advancements in personality recognition,making them appropriate for the development of user-centric applications.展开更多
Medical Internet of Things(IoT)devices are becoming more and more common in healthcare.This has created a huge need for advanced predictive health modeling strategies that can make good use of the growing amount of mu...Medical Internet of Things(IoT)devices are becoming more and more common in healthcare.This has created a huge need for advanced predictive health modeling strategies that can make good use of the growing amount of multimodal data to find potential health risks early and help individuals in a personalized way.Existing methods,while useful,have limitations in predictive accuracy,delay,personalization,and user interpretability,requiring a more comprehensive and efficient approach to harness modern medical IoT devices.MAIPFE is a multimodal approach integrating pre-emptive analysis,personalized feature selection,and explainable AI for real-time health monitoring and disease detection.By using AI for early disease detection,personalized health recommendations,and transparency,healthcare will be transformed.The Multimodal Approach Integrating Pre-emptive Analysis,Personalized Feature Selection,and Explainable AI(MAIPFE)framework,which combines Firefly Optimizer,Recurrent Neural Network(RNN),Fuzzy C Means(FCM),and Explainable AI,improves disease detection precision over existing methods.Comprehensive metrics show the model’s superiority in real-time health analysis.The proposed framework outperformed existing models by 8.3%in disease detection classification precision,8.5%in accuracy,5.5%in recall,2.9%in specificity,4.5%in AUC(Area Under the Curve),and 4.9%in delay reduction.Disease prediction precision increased by 4.5%,accuracy by 3.9%,recall by 2.5%,specificity by 3.5%,AUC by 1.9%,and delay levels decreased by 9.4%.MAIPFE can revolutionize healthcare with preemptive analysis,personalized health insights,and actionable recommendations.The research shows that this innovative approach improves patient outcomes and healthcare efficiency in the real world.展开更多
Investigating the role of Big Five personality traits in relation to various health outcomes has been extensively studied. The impact of “Big Five” on physical health is here explored for older Europeans with a focu...Investigating the role of Big Five personality traits in relation to various health outcomes has been extensively studied. The impact of “Big Five” on physical health is here explored for older Europeans with a focus on examining age groups differences. The study sample included 378,500 respondents derived from the seventh data wave of Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The physical health status of older Europeans was estimated by constructing an index considering the combined effect of well-established health indicators such as the number of chronic diseases, mobility limitations, limitations with basic and instrumental activities of daily living, and self-perceived health. This index was used for an overall physical health assessment, for which the higher the score for an individual, the worst health level. Then, through a dichotomization process applied to the retrieved Principal Component Analysis scores, a two-group discrimination (good or bad health status) of SHARE participants was obtained as regards their physical health condition, allowing for further con-structing logistic regression models to assess the predictive significance of “Big Five” and their protective role for physical health. Results showed that neuroti-cism was the most significant predictor of physical health for all age groups un-der consideration, while extraversion, agreeableness and openness were not found to significantly affect the self-reported physical health levels of midlife adults aged 50 up to 64. Older adults aged 65 up to 79 were more prone to open-ness, whereas the oldest old individuals aged 80 up to 105 were mainly affected by openness and conscientiousness. .展开更多
Objective:To explore the value of receiving personalized comprehensive care for patients with severe pneumonia.Methods:73 patients with severe pneumonia who visited the clinic from February 2020 to February 2023 were ...Objective:To explore the value of receiving personalized comprehensive care for patients with severe pneumonia.Methods:73 patients with severe pneumonia who visited the clinic from February 2020 to February 2023 were included in this study.The patients were randomly grouped into Group A and Group B.Group A received personalized comprehensive care whereas Group B received conventional care.The value of care was compared.Results:The duration of mechanical ventilation time,the time taken for fever and dyspnea relief,and the hospitalization time of Group A were shorter than those in Group B(P<0.05).The blood gas indexes such as PaO_(2),PaCO_(2),and blood pH of Group A were better than those of Group B(P<0.05).The pulmonary function indexes such as peak expiratory flow(PEF),forced vital capacity(FVC),and forced expiratory volume in 1 second(FEV_(1))of Group A were better than those of Group B,P<0.05.Moreover,the patients in Group A were generally more satisfied with the care given compared to the patients in Group B(P<0.05).Conclusion:Personalized comprehensive care improves blood gas indexes,enhances lung function,accelerates the relief of symptoms,and also enhances patient satisfaction in severe pneumonia patients.展开更多
In this decade, an increase is expected in end-stageliver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma, most commonly caused by hepatitis C virus(HCV) infection.Although people who inject drugs(PWID) are the ma-jor source for...In this decade, an increase is expected in end-stageliver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma, most commonly caused by hepatitis C virus(HCV) infection.Although people who inject drugs(PWID) are the ma-jor source for HCV infection, they were excluded fromantiviral treatments until recently. Nowadays there isincontrovertible evidence in favor of treating these patients, and substitution therapy and active substanceuse are no longer contraindications for antiviral treatment. The viral clearance in PWID after HCV antiviraltreatment with interferon or pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin is comparable to the viral clearancein non-substance users. Furthermore, multidisciplinary approaches to delivering treatment to PWID are advised, and their treatment should be considered on anindividualized basis. To prevent the spread of HCV inthe PWID community, recent active PWID are eligiblefor treatment in combination with needle exchange programs and substitution therapy. As the rate of HCV reinfection is low after HCV antiviral treatment, there is no need to withhold HCV treatment due to concerns about reinfection alone. Despite the advances in treatment efficacies and data supporting their success, HCV assessment of PWID and initiation of antiviral treatment remains low. However, the proportion of PWID assessed and treated for HCV is increasing, which can be further enhanced by understanding the barriers to and facilitators of HCV care. Removing stigmatization and implementing peer support and group treatment strategies, in conjunction with greater involvement by nurse educators/practitioners, will promote greater treatment seeking and adherence by PWID. Moreover, screening can be facilitated by noninvasive methods for detecting HCV antibodies and assessing liver fibrosis stages. Recently, HCV clearance has become a major endpoint in the war against drugs for the Global Commission on Drug Policy. This review highlights the most recent evidence concerning HCV infection and treatment strategies in PWID.展开更多
Despite a high prevalence of hepatitis C virus(HCV)infection,the vast majority of persons who inject drugs(PWID)have not engaged in HCV care due to a large number of obstacles.Education about the infection among both ...Despite a high prevalence of hepatitis C virus(HCV)infection,the vast majority of persons who inject drugs(PWID)have not engaged in HCV care due to a large number of obstacles.Education about the infection among both PWID and providers remains an important challenge as does discrimination faced by PWID in conventional health care settings.Many providers also remain hesitant to prescribe antiviral therapy due to concerns about adherence and relapse to drug use resulting in reinfection.Presently,however,as a result of improvements in treatment efficacy combined with professional society and government endorsement of HCV treatment for PWID,a pressing need exists to develop strategies to engage these individuals into HCV care.In this article,we propose several strategies that can be pursued in an attempt to engage PWID into HCV management.We advocate that multidisciplinary approaches that utilize health care practitioners from a wide range of specialties,as well as co-localization of medical services,are strategies likely to result in increased numbers of PWID entering into HCV management.Pursuit of HCV therapy after stabilization through drug treatment is an additional strategy likely to increase PWID engagement into HCV care.The full impact of direct acting antivirals for HCV will only be realized if innovative approaches are pursued to engage all HCV infected individuals into treatment.展开更多
With the development of ordnance technology,the survival and safety of individual combatants in hightech warfare are under serious threat,and the Personal Protective Equipment(PPE),as an important guarantee to reduce ...With the development of ordnance technology,the survival and safety of individual combatants in hightech warfare are under serious threat,and the Personal Protective Equipment(PPE),as an important guarantee to reduce casualties and maintain military combat effectiveness,is widely developed.This paper systematically reviewed various PPE based on individual combat through literature research and comprehensive discussion,and introduced in detail the latest application progress of PPE in terms of material and technology from three aspects:individual integrated protection system,traditional protection equipment,and intelligent protection equipment,respectively,and discussed in depth the functional improvement and optimization status brought by advanced technology for PPE,focusing on the achievements of individual equipment technology application.Finally,the problems and technical bottlenecks in the development of PPE were analyzed and summarized,and the development trend of PPE were pointed out.The results of the review will provide a forward-looking reference for the current development of individual PPE,and are important guidance for the design and technological innovation of advanced equipment based on the future technological battlefield.展开更多
This study explores the meaning of the use of community psychiatric rehabilitation(CPR)services to gain knowledge to improve services and shed more light on how to facilitate recovery.The topics explored included:the ...This study explores the meaning of the use of community psychiatric rehabilitation(CPR)services to gain knowledge to improve services and shed more light on how to facilitate recovery.The topics explored included:the motivation for participation,perception and expectation towards CPR,the interactions with professionals in the CPR Center,and the feelings towards activities.A qualitative approach was adopted,and 30 consumers were interviewed face-to-face by using semi-structured interview guide.Data were analyzed using the open coding method of grounded theory.The consumer accounts provided information on the eight aspects of CPR services.The findings revealed that the CPR Center created a lifeworld,a friendly place similar to home with structure and activities.Professional relationship was the key change agent for rehabilitation.Most professionals adopted recovery-oriented approach to empower participants by giving opportunities and choices.The essential ingredients of this lifeworld covered rehabilitation goals,physical exercises,psychological impact,social interactions,learning,and economic gains.The services were venues for interpersonal interactions and provided structure for daily life,which helped consumers reach their rehabilitation goals and brought existential meaning to their lives.Yet,the accounts also revealed negative phenomena in the CPR center.Suggestions were made to improve services.展开更多
Many studies about the health problems of persons with physical disabilities have been performed, however few studies have focused on the life circumstances of persons with physical disabilities. This study aimed to c...Many studies about the health problems of persons with physical disabilities have been performed, however few studies have focused on the life circumstances of persons with physical disabilities. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between stress and the life circumstances of persons with congenital physical disabilities who must use wheelchairs. The participants were 70 individuals who used the services of care workers employed by welfare service business offices. Participants used wheelchairs. In addition, those participants who used a standard manual wheelchair were not able to operate it alone. Participants were required to answer a two-part questionnaire with questions about factors related to basic lifestyle and stress, and about life factors related to the stress of individuals with physical disabilities. No significant relationship between lifestyle and stress was found in either males or females. Most persons with congenital physical disabilities using wheelchairs had some kind of stress in daily life. In particular, significantly more level of stress was found in females (90%) than that in males (65%). Levels of stress according to life factor differed between males and females. The most dramatic gender difference was that the level of stress caused by the mental or mind factor in females was significantly higher than that in males (p < 0.05). Most persons who must use wheelchairs have stress resulting from daily life, and in particular, females experience more mental stress than males.展开更多
Introduction: During 1986-2009, an estimated 1.6 million persons were internally displaced from northern and eastern regions of Uganda due to civil war. We investigated accessibility to and availability of health care...Introduction: During 1986-2009, an estimated 1.6 million persons were internally displaced from northern and eastern regions of Uganda due to civil war. We investigated accessibility to and availability of health care services for the internally displaced persons in Kitgum and Pader districts, northern Uganda. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in Kitgum and Pader districts, northern Uganda. We interviewed a total of 1383 respondents comprising 968 (70%) adults and 415 (30%) adolescents;60% were females and 40% males, randomly selected from 35 of 67 (52.2%) internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. We held 27 key informant interviews and 52 focus group discussions. Data were entered in EPI data version 3.02 and analysed using SPSS version 12.00 statistical packages. Findings: Two thirds of the respondents 67.5% lived within 5 km distance of a health facility. The majority 62.9% of respondents mentioned that health related information was readily provided. 43.5% of health providers were always available in a health facility. A quarter 25.1% of health facilities always had drugs available, while 56.9% of the drugs prescribed were always available. Two thirds of the respondents 65.9% were satisfied with the health care services provided. The main reasons for the choice of a health facility were proximity 29.6%, provision of free treatment 24.7% and availability of drugs 17.2%. Main barriers to health care access were due to the lack of financial resources, trained personnel, and inadequate drugs and supplies in the health facilities. Conclusions and Recommendations: The majority of IDPs lived in close proximity to health facilities and obtained health care services from public health facilities. Access to health care was determined mainly by proximity and availability of free services and drugs. Although geographic accessibility to health services was high, lack of finances, information and decision power hindered access to health care services.展开更多
As people live longer, a larger percentage will live with multiple chronic conditions and functional impairments such as difficulties with activities of daily living, mobility, and the management of one’s household. ...As people live longer, a larger percentage will live with multiple chronic conditions and functional impairments such as difficulties with activities of daily living, mobility, and the management of one’s household. The purpose of this paper is to examine the care of older persons in a technologically advanced nursing future by discussing roles and responsibilities of nurses who practice gerontological nursing, and explaining how a technologically advanced future would change the delivery of home health care for older persons in the community. The theory of Technological Competency as Caring in Nursing grounds 3 processes of nursing as knowing persons as caring, wholeness is oneness, and caring as a multi-dimensional process. Harnessing technology for the health of older persons would enable them to live independently, socially engaged, and safely. A technologically advanced nursing future leads to concomitant sustainable disruptive and frugal innovations in healthcare. Nurses in practice must take advantage of these disruptions and consider frugal innovations as the futures of nursing education, practice, and research are here.展开更多
文摘This study was conducted to determine the gut bacteria and nutritional status of children (n = 30) aged 2 - 11 in Benue’s largest internally displaced persons (IDP) camp since information on this is lacking. Gut bacteria were identified using culture techniques, while Body Mass Index (Kg/m<sup>2</sup>), Weight-for-Height (WHZ), and Weight-for-Age (WAZ) z scores were computed from anthropometric measurements. Socio-demographic and economic variables were collected via structured questionnaires. IBM SPSS v25 was used to analyze the data, with p Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., and Escherichia coli compared to children from a nearby private school (n = 10), except for E. coli, where the prevalence was equal. The results for BMI revealed that 23 (57.5%) of the children had a healthy weight while 17 (42.5%) were underweight.WAZ z-scores were between (-0.02 - 2.51) with evidence of mildly underweight (20%) and mildly overweight (5%) children. WHZ z-scores were between -0.03 - 2.37, with moderately wasted (30%) and severely wasted (5%) found. To ensure better health outcomes for residents, conditions in the camp must be improved.
基金The authors extend their appreciation to the King Salman Center for Disability Research for funding this work through Research Group no KSRG-2022-030.
文摘Mobile communication and the Internet of Things(IoT)technologies have recently been established to collect data from human beings and the environment.The data collected can be leveraged to provide intelligent services through different applications.It is an extreme challenge to monitor disabled people from remote locations.It is because day-to-day events like falls heavily result in accidents.For a person with disabilities,a fall event is an important cause of mortality and post-traumatic complications.Therefore,detecting the fall events of disabled persons in smart homes at early stages is essential to provide the necessary support and increase their survival rate.The current study introduces a Whale Optimization Algorithm Deep Transfer Learning-DrivenAutomated Fall Detection(WOADTL-AFD)technique to improve the Quality of Life for persons with disabilities.The primary aim of the presented WOADTL-AFD technique is to identify and classify the fall events to help disabled individuals.To attain this,the proposed WOADTL-AFDmodel initially uses amodified SqueezeNet feature extractor which proficiently extracts the feature vectors.In addition,the WOADTLAFD technique classifies the fall events using an extreme Gradient Boosting(XGBoost)classifier.In the presented WOADTL-AFD technique,the WOA approach is used to fine-tune the hyperparameters involved in the modified SqueezeNet model.The proposedWOADTL-AFD technique was experimentally validated using the benchmark datasets,and the results confirmed the superior performance of the proposedWOADTL-AFD method compared to other recent approaches.
文摘Transgender persons constitute a non-negligible percentage of the general population.Physical gender-transitioning in trans persons is mainly achieved with hormonal cross-sex therapy and sex reassignment surgeries that aim to align bodily appearance with gender identity.Hormonal treatment acts via suppressing the secretion of the endogenous sex hormones and replacing them with the hormones of the desired sex.The administration of testosterone is the typical masculinizing treatment in trans men,whilst trans women are routinely treated with estradiol agents in combination with anti-androgens or gonadotrophinreleasing hormone agonists if testes are present.Exogenous androgenic steroids,estradiol agents,and anti-androgens have been implicated in a series of hepatotoxic effects.Thus,liver integrity is a major concern with the long-term administration of cross-sex therapy.Hepatic tissue is susceptible to coronavirus disease 19(COVID-19)through various pathophysiological mechanisms.Special consideration should be paid to minimize the risk of hepatic damage from the potential cumulative effect of COVID-19 and gender-affirming treatment in transgender patients.Appropriate care is significant,with continuous laboratory monitoring,clinical observation and,if needed,specific treatment,especially in severe cases of infection and in persons with additional liver pathologies.The pandemic can be an opportunity to provide equal access to care for all and increase the resilience of the transgender population.
文摘Objective:Community-based rehabilitation(CBR)is a strategy by which persons living with disability(PWDs)access comprehensive rehabilitation services with limited evidence regarding its impact on the quality of life(QOL)and self-esteem(SE)of PWDs and their family members.This study compared the QOL and SE of Nigerian PWDs in communities with and without a CBR programme(CBR and non-CBR respectively),and the family quality of life(FQOL)of their family members.Methods:Cross-sectional study involving 2604 PWDs(1302 in CBR and 1302 in non-CBR);5208 family members of PWDs(2604 in CBR and 2604 non-CBR),recruited from four randomly selected geo-political zones in Nigeria,purposive/consecutive selection of eight CBR programmes,PWDs and their family members(CBR and non-CBR).Outcomes assessed using Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale(RSES),World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument-short form(WHOQOL-BREF)and Beach Centre Family Quality of Life Instrument(BCFQOL).Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman's rank order correlation were used to analyse data at P<0.05.Results:PWDs in CBR scored higher in all domains of WHOQOL-BREF(P<0.0001 in all cases)and RSES than non-CBR group(P<0.0001).The CBR families scored significantly higher than non-CBR families in all domains(P<0.05)except Emotional Well-Being of the BCFQOL.The CBR group scores on Psychological and Social Health domains of the WHOQOL-BREF showed significant positive correlation with CBR families'Family Interaction(P=0.06)and Parenting(P=0.07)domains and total FQOL(P=0.07).Conclusion:Community-based rehabilitation positively impacted on SE and QOL of PWDs and their family members.
文摘Background: Due to the increase in longevity and use of antiretroviral treatment, Uganda has had a growing population of older persons living with HIV/AIDS. However, there is a paucity of information on the mental health of the elderly living with HIV/AIDS. In this cross-sectional study, we determined the prevalence of, and associated factors for depression and suicidal ideation among older persons living with HIV/AIDS in Mbarara city, southwest Uganda. Methods: Older persons (150 females, 115 males), with mean age = 64.2 (±5.1) years, accessing health services from three purposively selected HIV/AIDS care centers in Mbarara city, southwest Uganda were recruited. Data on depression and suicidal ideation were collected using a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) validated in Uganda, and a structured questionnaire was used to collect data on clinical and socio-demographic characteristics. Data were analysed using logistic regression. Results: Approximately 8.3% and 12.1% had depression and suicidal ideation, respectively. The factors associated with lowering the likelihood of depression were: an increase in the number of family members they stayed with and having no having any problems with their ARVs. On the other hand, earning more than 100,000 Uganda shillings was associated with reducing the risk of suicidal ideations among the participants. Conclusion: Approximately 8 to 12 in 100 older persons living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda have experienced depression or suicidal ideation. Family support and financial control were instrumental factors associated with depression and suicidal ideations, respectively. We recommended strengthening family structures and creating more avenues for financial independence among older persons living with HIV/AIDS to reduce the burden of depression, and suicidal behaviours among this vulnerable population.
基金provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 32071491, 31772465, 31672299, 31572271, and 32260128)the Natural Sciences Foundation of the Tibetan (XZ202101ZR0051G)。
文摘Two questions in the research of animal personality—whether there is a correlation between a personality trait and individual reproductive success,and what is the genetic basis underlying a personality trait—remain unresolved.We addressed these two questions in three shrub-nesting birds,the Azure-winged Magpie(Cyanopica cyanus,AM),White-collared Blackbird(Turdus albocinctus,WB),and Brown-cheeked Laughingthrush(Trochalopteron henrici,BL).The personality type of an individual was first identified according to its response to a territorial intruder.Then,we compared the fleeing distance,breeding parameters,and differential expressed genes(DEGs) in the brain transcriptome between bold and shy breeders.In the three species,bold breeders exhibited more aggressiveness towards an intruder of their territory than did shy breeders.The reproductive success of bold breeders was significantly higher than that of shy breeders in AM but not in WB and BL.The three species shared one DEG,crabp1,which was up-regulated in bold relative to in shy individuals.By regulating the expression of corticotropin-releasing hormone,higher crabp1 gene expression can decrease cellular response to retinoic acid.Therefore,bold individuals are insensitive to external stresses and able to exhibit more aggressiveness to intruders than their shier counterparts.Aggressiveness is beneficial to bold individuals in AM but not in WB and BL because the former could evoke neighbors to make the same response of defending against intruders but the latter could not.Although a personality trait may have the same genetic basis across species,its correlation with reproductive success depends largely on the life history style of a species.
基金supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region(Grant No.2022D01B186 and No.2022D01B05)。
文摘The attention mechanism can extract salient features in images,which has been proved to be effective in improving the performance of person re-identification(Re-ID).However,most of the existing attention modules have the following two shortcomings:On the one hand,they mostly use global average pooling to generate context descriptors,without highlighting the guiding role of salient information on descriptor generation,resulting in insufficient ability of the final generated attention mask representation;On the other hand,the design of most attention modules is complicated,which greatly increases the computational cost of the model.To solve these problems,this paper proposes an attention module called self-supervised recalibration(SR)block,which introduces both global and local information through adaptive weighted fusion to generate a more refined attention mask.In particular,a special"Squeeze-Excitation"(SE)unit is designed in the SR block to further process the generated intermediate masks,both for nonlinearizations of the features and for constraint of the resulting computation by controlling the number of channels.Furthermore,we combine the most commonly used Res Net-50 to construct the instantiation model of the SR block,and verify its effectiveness on multiple Re-ID datasets,especially the mean Average Precision(m AP)on the Occluded-Duke dataset exceeds the state-of-the-art(SOTA)algorithm by 4.49%.
基金the Competitive Research Fund of the University of Aizu,Japan.
文摘Person identification is one of the most vital tasks for network security. People are more concerned about theirsecurity due to traditional passwords becoming weaker or leaking in various attacks. In recent decades, fingerprintsand faces have been widely used for person identification, which has the risk of information leakage as a resultof reproducing fingers or faces by taking a snapshot. Recently, people have focused on creating an identifiablepattern, which will not be reproducible falsely by capturing psychological and behavioral information of a personusing vision and sensor-based techniques. In existing studies, most of the researchers used very complex patternsin this direction, which need special training and attention to remember the patterns and failed to capturethe psychological and behavioral information of a person properly. To overcome these problems, this researchdevised a novel dynamic hand gesture-based person identification system using a Leap Motion sensor. Thisstudy developed two hand gesture-based pattern datasets for performing the experiments, which contained morethan 500 samples, collected from 25 subjects. Various static and dynamic features were extracted from the handgeometry. Randomforest was used to measure feature importance using the Gini Index. Finally, the support vectormachinewas implemented for person identification and evaluate its performance using identification accuracy. Theexperimental results showed that the proposed system produced an identification accuracy of 99.8% for arbitraryhand gesture-based patterns and 99.6% for the same dynamic hand gesture-based patterns. This result indicatedthat the proposed system can be used for person identification in the field of security.
基金This work has been partially supported by FEDER and the State Research Agency(AEI)of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition under Grant SAFER:PID2019-104735RB-C42(AEI/FEDER,UE)the General Subdirection for Gambling Regulation of the Spanish ConsumptionMinistry under the Grant Detec-EMO:SUBV23/00010the Project PLEC2021-007681 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.
文摘Personality recognition plays a pivotal role when developing user-centric solutions such as recommender systems or decision support systems across various domains,including education,e-commerce,or human resources.Tra-ditional machine learning techniques have been broadly employed for personality trait identification;nevertheless,the development of new technologies based on deep learning has led to new opportunities to improve their performance.This study focuses on the capabilities of pre-trained language models such as BERT,RoBERTa,ALBERT,ELECTRA,ERNIE,or XLNet,to deal with the task of personality recognition.These models are able to capture structural features from textual content and comprehend a multitude of language facets and complex features such as hierarchical relationships or long-term dependencies.This makes them suitable to classify multi-label personality traits from reviews while mitigating computational costs.The focus of this approach centers on developing an architecture based on different layers able to capture the semantic context and structural features from texts.Moreover,it is able to fine-tune the previous models using the MyPersonality dataset,which comprises 9,917 status updates contributed by 250 Facebook users.These status updates are categorized according to the well-known Big Five personality model,setting the stage for a comprehensive exploration of personality traits.To test the proposal,a set of experiments have been performed using different metrics such as the exact match ratio,hamming loss,zero-one-loss,precision,recall,F1-score,and weighted averages.The results reveal ERNIE is the top-performing model,achieving an exact match ratio of 72.32%,an accuracy rate of 87.17%,and 84.41%of F1-score.The findings demonstrate that the tested models substantially outperform other state-of-the-art studies,enhancing the accuracy by at least 3%and confirming them as powerful tools for personality recognition.These findings represent substantial advancements in personality recognition,making them appropriate for the development of user-centric applications.
文摘Medical Internet of Things(IoT)devices are becoming more and more common in healthcare.This has created a huge need for advanced predictive health modeling strategies that can make good use of the growing amount of multimodal data to find potential health risks early and help individuals in a personalized way.Existing methods,while useful,have limitations in predictive accuracy,delay,personalization,and user interpretability,requiring a more comprehensive and efficient approach to harness modern medical IoT devices.MAIPFE is a multimodal approach integrating pre-emptive analysis,personalized feature selection,and explainable AI for real-time health monitoring and disease detection.By using AI for early disease detection,personalized health recommendations,and transparency,healthcare will be transformed.The Multimodal Approach Integrating Pre-emptive Analysis,Personalized Feature Selection,and Explainable AI(MAIPFE)framework,which combines Firefly Optimizer,Recurrent Neural Network(RNN),Fuzzy C Means(FCM),and Explainable AI,improves disease detection precision over existing methods.Comprehensive metrics show the model’s superiority in real-time health analysis.The proposed framework outperformed existing models by 8.3%in disease detection classification precision,8.5%in accuracy,5.5%in recall,2.9%in specificity,4.5%in AUC(Area Under the Curve),and 4.9%in delay reduction.Disease prediction precision increased by 4.5%,accuracy by 3.9%,recall by 2.5%,specificity by 3.5%,AUC by 1.9%,and delay levels decreased by 9.4%.MAIPFE can revolutionize healthcare with preemptive analysis,personalized health insights,and actionable recommendations.The research shows that this innovative approach improves patient outcomes and healthcare efficiency in the real world.
文摘Investigating the role of Big Five personality traits in relation to various health outcomes has been extensively studied. The impact of “Big Five” on physical health is here explored for older Europeans with a focus on examining age groups differences. The study sample included 378,500 respondents derived from the seventh data wave of Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The physical health status of older Europeans was estimated by constructing an index considering the combined effect of well-established health indicators such as the number of chronic diseases, mobility limitations, limitations with basic and instrumental activities of daily living, and self-perceived health. This index was used for an overall physical health assessment, for which the higher the score for an individual, the worst health level. Then, through a dichotomization process applied to the retrieved Principal Component Analysis scores, a two-group discrimination (good or bad health status) of SHARE participants was obtained as regards their physical health condition, allowing for further con-structing logistic regression models to assess the predictive significance of “Big Five” and their protective role for physical health. Results showed that neuroti-cism was the most significant predictor of physical health for all age groups un-der consideration, while extraversion, agreeableness and openness were not found to significantly affect the self-reported physical health levels of midlife adults aged 50 up to 64. Older adults aged 65 up to 79 were more prone to open-ness, whereas the oldest old individuals aged 80 up to 105 were mainly affected by openness and conscientiousness. .
文摘Objective:To explore the value of receiving personalized comprehensive care for patients with severe pneumonia.Methods:73 patients with severe pneumonia who visited the clinic from February 2020 to February 2023 were included in this study.The patients were randomly grouped into Group A and Group B.Group A received personalized comprehensive care whereas Group B received conventional care.The value of care was compared.Results:The duration of mechanical ventilation time,the time taken for fever and dyspnea relief,and the hospitalization time of Group A were shorter than those in Group B(P<0.05).The blood gas indexes such as PaO_(2),PaCO_(2),and blood pH of Group A were better than those of Group B(P<0.05).The pulmonary function indexes such as peak expiratory flow(PEF),forced vital capacity(FVC),and forced expiratory volume in 1 second(FEV_(1))of Group A were better than those of Group B,P<0.05.Moreover,the patients in Group A were generally more satisfied with the care given compared to the patients in Group B(P<0.05).Conclusion:Personalized comprehensive care improves blood gas indexes,enhances lung function,accelerates the relief of symptoms,and also enhances patient satisfaction in severe pneumonia patients.
基金Supported by Limburg Clinical Research Program(LCRP)Supported by the Limburg Sterk Merk Foundation of Hasselt University,Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg and Jessa Hospital
文摘In this decade, an increase is expected in end-stageliver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma, most commonly caused by hepatitis C virus(HCV) infection.Although people who inject drugs(PWID) are the ma-jor source for HCV infection, they were excluded fromantiviral treatments until recently. Nowadays there isincontrovertible evidence in favor of treating these patients, and substitution therapy and active substanceuse are no longer contraindications for antiviral treatment. The viral clearance in PWID after HCV antiviraltreatment with interferon or pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin is comparable to the viral clearancein non-substance users. Furthermore, multidisciplinary approaches to delivering treatment to PWID are advised, and their treatment should be considered on anindividualized basis. To prevent the spread of HCV inthe PWID community, recent active PWID are eligiblefor treatment in combination with needle exchange programs and substitution therapy. As the rate of HCV reinfection is low after HCV antiviral treatment, there is no need to withhold HCV treatment due to concerns about reinfection alone. Despite the advances in treatment efficacies and data supporting their success, HCV assessment of PWID and initiation of antiviral treatment remains low. However, the proportion of PWID assessed and treated for HCV is increasing, which can be further enhanced by understanding the barriers to and facilitators of HCV care. Removing stigmatization and implementing peer support and group treatment strategies, in conjunction with greater involvement by nurse educators/practitioners, will promote greater treatment seeking and adherence by PWID. Moreover, screening can be facilitated by noninvasive methods for detecting HCV antibodies and assessing liver fibrosis stages. Recently, HCV clearance has become a major endpoint in the war against drugs for the Global Commission on Drug Policy. This review highlights the most recent evidence concerning HCV infection and treatment strategies in PWID.
文摘Despite a high prevalence of hepatitis C virus(HCV)infection,the vast majority of persons who inject drugs(PWID)have not engaged in HCV care due to a large number of obstacles.Education about the infection among both PWID and providers remains an important challenge as does discrimination faced by PWID in conventional health care settings.Many providers also remain hesitant to prescribe antiviral therapy due to concerns about adherence and relapse to drug use resulting in reinfection.Presently,however,as a result of improvements in treatment efficacy combined with professional society and government endorsement of HCV treatment for PWID,a pressing need exists to develop strategies to engage these individuals into HCV care.In this article,we propose several strategies that can be pursued in an attempt to engage PWID into HCV management.We advocate that multidisciplinary approaches that utilize health care practitioners from a wide range of specialties,as well as co-localization of medical services,are strategies likely to result in increased numbers of PWID entering into HCV management.Pursuit of HCV therapy after stabilization through drug treatment is an additional strategy likely to increase PWID engagement into HCV care.The full impact of direct acting antivirals for HCV will only be realized if innovative approaches are pursued to engage all HCV infected individuals into treatment.
基金supported by the National Outstanding Youth Science Fund Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China(Projects No.52202012)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Projects No.51834007)。
文摘With the development of ordnance technology,the survival and safety of individual combatants in hightech warfare are under serious threat,and the Personal Protective Equipment(PPE),as an important guarantee to reduce casualties and maintain military combat effectiveness,is widely developed.This paper systematically reviewed various PPE based on individual combat through literature research and comprehensive discussion,and introduced in detail the latest application progress of PPE in terms of material and technology from three aspects:individual integrated protection system,traditional protection equipment,and intelligent protection equipment,respectively,and discussed in depth the functional improvement and optimization status brought by advanced technology for PPE,focusing on the achievements of individual equipment technology application.Finally,the problems and technical bottlenecks in the development of PPE were analyzed and summarized,and the development trend of PPE were pointed out.The results of the review will provide a forward-looking reference for the current development of individual PPE,and are important guidance for the design and technological innovation of advanced equipment based on the future technological battlefield.
基金theMinistry of Technology in Taiwan(MOST 104–2410-H-004-147-SS2).
文摘This study explores the meaning of the use of community psychiatric rehabilitation(CPR)services to gain knowledge to improve services and shed more light on how to facilitate recovery.The topics explored included:the motivation for participation,perception and expectation towards CPR,the interactions with professionals in the CPR Center,and the feelings towards activities.A qualitative approach was adopted,and 30 consumers were interviewed face-to-face by using semi-structured interview guide.Data were analyzed using the open coding method of grounded theory.The consumer accounts provided information on the eight aspects of CPR services.The findings revealed that the CPR Center created a lifeworld,a friendly place similar to home with structure and activities.Professional relationship was the key change agent for rehabilitation.Most professionals adopted recovery-oriented approach to empower participants by giving opportunities and choices.The essential ingredients of this lifeworld covered rehabilitation goals,physical exercises,psychological impact,social interactions,learning,and economic gains.The services were venues for interpersonal interactions and provided structure for daily life,which helped consumers reach their rehabilitation goals and brought existential meaning to their lives.Yet,the accounts also revealed negative phenomena in the CPR center.Suggestions were made to improve services.
文摘Many studies about the health problems of persons with physical disabilities have been performed, however few studies have focused on the life circumstances of persons with physical disabilities. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between stress and the life circumstances of persons with congenital physical disabilities who must use wheelchairs. The participants were 70 individuals who used the services of care workers employed by welfare service business offices. Participants used wheelchairs. In addition, those participants who used a standard manual wheelchair were not able to operate it alone. Participants were required to answer a two-part questionnaire with questions about factors related to basic lifestyle and stress, and about life factors related to the stress of individuals with physical disabilities. No significant relationship between lifestyle and stress was found in either males or females. Most persons with congenital physical disabilities using wheelchairs had some kind of stress in daily life. In particular, significantly more level of stress was found in females (90%) than that in males (65%). Levels of stress according to life factor differed between males and females. The most dramatic gender difference was that the level of stress caused by the mental or mind factor in females was significantly higher than that in males (p < 0.05). Most persons who must use wheelchairs have stress resulting from daily life, and in particular, females experience more mental stress than males.
文摘Introduction: During 1986-2009, an estimated 1.6 million persons were internally displaced from northern and eastern regions of Uganda due to civil war. We investigated accessibility to and availability of health care services for the internally displaced persons in Kitgum and Pader districts, northern Uganda. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in Kitgum and Pader districts, northern Uganda. We interviewed a total of 1383 respondents comprising 968 (70%) adults and 415 (30%) adolescents;60% were females and 40% males, randomly selected from 35 of 67 (52.2%) internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. We held 27 key informant interviews and 52 focus group discussions. Data were entered in EPI data version 3.02 and analysed using SPSS version 12.00 statistical packages. Findings: Two thirds of the respondents 67.5% lived within 5 km distance of a health facility. The majority 62.9% of respondents mentioned that health related information was readily provided. 43.5% of health providers were always available in a health facility. A quarter 25.1% of health facilities always had drugs available, while 56.9% of the drugs prescribed were always available. Two thirds of the respondents 65.9% were satisfied with the health care services provided. The main reasons for the choice of a health facility were proximity 29.6%, provision of free treatment 24.7% and availability of drugs 17.2%. Main barriers to health care access were due to the lack of financial resources, trained personnel, and inadequate drugs and supplies in the health facilities. Conclusions and Recommendations: The majority of IDPs lived in close proximity to health facilities and obtained health care services from public health facilities. Access to health care was determined mainly by proximity and availability of free services and drugs. Although geographic accessibility to health services was high, lack of finances, information and decision power hindered access to health care services.
文摘As people live longer, a larger percentage will live with multiple chronic conditions and functional impairments such as difficulties with activities of daily living, mobility, and the management of one’s household. The purpose of this paper is to examine the care of older persons in a technologically advanced nursing future by discussing roles and responsibilities of nurses who practice gerontological nursing, and explaining how a technologically advanced future would change the delivery of home health care for older persons in the community. The theory of Technological Competency as Caring in Nursing grounds 3 processes of nursing as knowing persons as caring, wholeness is oneness, and caring as a multi-dimensional process. Harnessing technology for the health of older persons would enable them to live independently, socially engaged, and safely. A technologically advanced nursing future leads to concomitant sustainable disruptive and frugal innovations in healthcare. Nurses in practice must take advantage of these disruptions and consider frugal innovations as the futures of nursing education, practice, and research are here.
