No abstract

This study investigates the impact of HEdPERF on students' satisfaction and academic performance in Ghanaian private universities, with students' attitude towards learning as a mediator. The study was conducted on a total of 600 students selected from 6 private universities in Ghana out of which 421 responses received were useable representing 70.16% response rate. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were adopted in selecting respondents. Questionnaire was used to collect data. Explanatory research design was also used. Stata version 13 and IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 were the software used in data analysis. The study made use of Structural Equation Model (SEM) for data analysis and explored direct, indirect and total effect relationships. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used for data purification. The research found that HEdPERF has positive and statistical significant relationships with students' satisfaction, attitude towards learning and academic performance. Attitude towards learning also has positive and statistical significant relationship with students' satisfaction and academic performance. As regards the mediation effect, attitude towards learning partially mediates between HEdPERF on one hand, and students' satisfaction and academic performance on the other. This means that managers of Private Universities should consider service quality effects on students' satisfaction and academic performance with and without attitude towards learning in their strategic management.

No abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and current treatment status of immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) in Taiwan.Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted using claim data collected from the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) of Taiwan from 2003 to 2007. ITP patients were identified using the ICD-9 code, 287.3 (primary thrombocytopenia), with two diagnoses separated by at least 14 days for diagnostic specificity. In addition, sensitivity analysis was based on 28 (ITP-28) and 84 (ITP-84) days.Results: ITP prevalence ranged from 10.35 to 11.02 (per 100,000 individuals) with an annual number of 2,300 to 2,500 patients, and sensitivity analyses using ITP-28 and ITP-84 criteria showed that the prevalence were "9.52 to 10.35" and "6.87 to 8.14" in 5,445 ITP patients, respectively. The median age of ITP-14 patients was 46.5 years. In children, the female-to-male ratio was nearly equal (0.93), whereas in adults, it was 1.91. About 3.9% received splenectomy, of which 64.3% were responsive to splenectomy. Further, 92.6% were responsive to steroids. The average costs per visit were US$ 36 and US$ 1,700 for outpatients and inpatients, respectively. For steroid-responsive patients, the mean costs for clinic visits and hospitalization were US$ 35 and US$ 1,415, respectively. In contrast, the medical expense for steroid-refractory patients was approximately one and a half times the costs for responsive patients (inpatient: US$ 54; outpatient: US$ 2,349). For splenectomy-responsive inpatients, the average expenses prior to, at, and after splenectomy were US$ 1,877, 5,476, and 2,061, respectively. For splenectomy-refractory inpatients, the costs were comparable to those of responsive patients (P> 0.05). On the contrary, there were significant differences between the expenditure for splenectomy-responsive and -refractory outpatients. Among ITP patients in Taiwan, 7.4% and 6.4% had hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections, respectively, and 1.5% had both HBV and HCV infections. Patients with HBV were significantly high in the splenectomy group (splenectomy vs. non-splenectomy 11.7% vs. 7.2%, P = 0.01), and those who were more responsive to splenectomy had a low HCV infection rate, i.e., 14.5% had HCV infection in splenectomy-refractory group vs. 4.38% in splenectomy-responsive group (P = 0.02). Conclusions:The epidemiology of ITP in Taiwan, including the age and sex, was comparable with that in western countries, except with lower incidence of splenectomy in our patients. The status of HBV and HCV infection in splenectomized patients should be closely monitored. The medical expenditure in Taiwan was much lower than that in western countries. We suggest that novel agents or more aggressive treatment strategies should be further explored or considered in Taiwan.

No abstract

The study investigates the effect of service quality on students' intention to provide funding support to private universities in Ghana, the mediating role of students' satisfaction. 600 students were selected from 6 private universities of which 421 responses were useable representing 70.16% response rate. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were adopted in selecting respondents. Questionnaire was used for data collection. Stata version 13 and IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 were the software used in data analysis. The study made use of Structural Equation Model for data analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was also used for data purification in achieving fit indices. The research found that HEdPERF positively and significantly affects students' satisfaction and their intention to provide funding support to Private University. Students satisfaction also positively and significantly impact on student's intention to provide funding support to Private University. As regards the mediation effect, customer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between HEdPERF and intention to provide funding support to Private Universities. Managers and policy makers must take action to improve students' intention to provide funding support to Universities by promoting Reputation and Access issues in tertiary education.