Background. Bloodstream infections are among the top causes of morbidity and mortality in people of all ages, especially in immunocompromised patients in sub-Saharan Africa. This study aimed at describing the epidemiology of bloodstream infections and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern over a nine-year period at St. Dominic Hospital, Akwatia, in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Method. This study retrospectively analysed data from 4,489 patients who were referred to the Laboratory Department for blood culture and sensitivity testing from January 2009 to December 2017. Sociodemographic data included age, gender, and patients’ department. Blood culture results were retrieved from archival records in the laboratory. The authorities of St. Dominic Hospital granted approval for the study. Results. The incidence of bloodstream infection over the 9 years was 51.4 positive cultures per 100,000 hospital attendance. Staphylococcus aureus was the leading causative agent of bacteraemia for the first two scalar years (2009–2011 (38.9%) and 2012–2014 (42.2%)) while coagulase-negative staphylococcus (CoNS) (50.5%) was predominant for the last scalar year (2015–2017), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (169/587 (28.8%)). The highest incidence of bloodstream infections was recorded in the wet seasons (months of May (8.9 per 10,000 persons) and October (10.1 per 10,000 persons)). The bacterial isolates demonstrated high resistance to tetracyclines (390/531 (73.4%)), penicillins (1282/1669 (76.8%)), and sulphonamides (450/499 (90.2%)). Conclusion. Bloodstream infection and antimicrobial resistance are high in patients seeking healthcare in Akwatia. This therefore calls for concerted efforts aimed at reducing the incidence in the study area.

eHealth systems for behavior change need to cope with a wide variety of privacy requirements specified by governmental and other regulations. We conducted a systematic review of scientific articles. Analysis of the articles revealed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant eHealth technologies, challenges posed by GDPR as well as early solutions for them. In addition, we highlight key GDPR issues to be considered when designing persuasive technologies.

A common but false perception persists about the level and type of personalization in the offerings of contemporary software, information systems, and services, known as Personalization Myopia: this involves a tendency for researchers to think that there are many more personalized services than there genuinely are, for the general audience to think that they are offered personalized services when they really are not, and for practitioners to have a mistaken idea of what makes a service personalized. And yet in an era, which mashes up large amounts of data, business analytics, deep learning, and persuasive systems, true personalization is a most promising approach for innovating and developing new types of systems and services—including support for behavior change. The potential of true personalization is elaborated in this article, especially with regards to persuasive software features and the oft-neglected fact that users change over time.

The enforcement of the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) began in the European Union (EU) in May 2021. Under MDR, software and information systems may be considered as medical devices. Behaviour Change Support Systems (BCSS) are information and communication technologies aimed at helping their users to achieve behaviour change targets. Designers, developers, and researchers of health BCSS (hBCSS) need to understand the impact of this new regulation on the development of such systems as the regulation influences both design and development in a variety of ways. Furthermore, myriads of health BCSS have been developed previously in the medical, fitness, and wellbeing domains, and a substantial number of them may require qualification, classification, or reclassification as medical devices under the new regulation. However, the regulation process is complex and requires knowledge and expertise which many manufacturers do not have in-house. Depending on the context and classification, the costs may suddenly ramp up and become too much for smaller developers, and thus they should be carefully assessed. In this paper, we discuss the regulation from the point of view of hBCSS developers. We look at the regulatory process and highlight key issues for developers of hBCSS. Particular attention is given to the classification and design requirements most likely to pose immediate challenges to developers. In addition, we discuss the costs associated with MDR which are difficult to estimate without previous experience.

Ensuring that users can successfully perform their primary tasks and achieve their behavioral goals is critical for the success of persuasive system. Are user manuals needed to achieve this goal? In this paper, we sought to understand the role of end-user documentation for persuasive systems. 50 persuasive apps from the Google Play Store were analysed to determine the importance of user manuals or guides for persuasive health apps. Although based on a small data set, our results show that in most cases persuasive systems need user documentation and hence we encourage developers of such systems to allocate resources for creating quality documentation for their users.