The International Council on Women’s Health Issues (ICOWHI) is an international nonprofit association dedicated to the goal of promoting health, health care, and well-being of women and girls throughout the world through participation, empowerment, advocacy, education, and research. We are a multidisciplinary network of women’s health providers, planners, and advocates from all over the globe. We constitute an international professional and lay network of those committed to improving women and girl’s health and quality of life. This document provides a description of our organization mission, vision, and commitment to improving the health and well-being of women and girls globally.

The results demonstrate consistently low levels of knowledge and also knowledge gaps about basic pain mechanisms, terms and treatment amongst these three final year nursing classes. Such information is useful to define levels of basic knowledge about this topic, and can be explored further as to whether some or all of these facts are deemed necessary for inclusion in nursing curriculum by reference to documents such as the International Association for the Study of Pain curriculum.

Background The characteristics of nursing doctoral programs and the doctoral students’ experience have not been thoroughly investigated. Hence, this study aimed to describe the characteristics of nursing doctoral programs in East and South East Asian (ESEA) countries and regions from the views of doctoral program coordinators, and to explore the students’ experiences of and satisfaction with their doctoral nursing program. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted using two self-designed questionnaires, one focusing on PhD program coordinators and the other on doctoral students. Characteristics of the nursing doctoral programs focused on program characteristics, faculty characteristics, career pathways for graduates, and challenges for nursing doctoral education. Doctoral students’ assessment of study experiences included quality of supervision, doctoral training programs, intellectual/cultural climate of institutions, general facilities/support, and the overall study experience and satisfaction. Results In the PhD coordinators survey, 46 institutions across nine ESEA countries and regions participated. More than half of nursing departments had academic members from other health science disciplines to supervise doctoral nursing students. The majority of graduates were holding academic or research positions in higher education institutions. Faculty shortages, delays in the completion of the program and inadequate financial support were commonly reported challenges for doctoral nursing education. In the students’ survey, 193 doctoral students participated. 88.3% of the students were satisfied with the supervision they received from their supervisors; however, 79% reported that their supervisors ‘pushed’ them to publish research papers. For doctoral training programs, 75.5% were satisfied with their curriculum; but around half reported that the teaching training components (55.9%) and mobility opportunities (54.2%) were not included in their programs. For overall satisfaction with the intellectual and cultural climate, the percentages were 76.1 and 68.1%, respectively. Only 66.7% of the students felt satisfied with the facilities provided by their universities and nursing institutions. Conclusion Doctoral nursing programs in most of the ESEA countries value the importance of both research and coursework. Doctoral nursing students generally hold positive experiences of their study. However, incorporating more teaching training components, providing more opportunities for international mobility, and making more effort to improve research-related facilities may further enhance the student experience. There is also a need to have international guidelines and standards for quality indicators of doctoral programs to maintain quality and find solutions to global challenges in nursing doctoral education.

Aims:To determine the mediating role of surgical readiness on patient characteristics (surgical risk, type of surgery, pre-operative anxiety, and health literacy) and its influence on surgical outcomes (pain, postoperative complications, and surgical experience).Design: Correlational, theory testing using structural equation modelling. Methods:A total of 376 consecutively selected surgical patients from four tertiary hospitals were recruited and followed-up 48-72 hr postoperatively from May-October 2017. Consenting respondents answered questionnaires measuring basic surgical information, health literacy, anxiety, surgical readiness, pain score, and surgical experience. Further, records review was conducted to identify occurrence of any postoperative complications and use of additional analgesics. Results:A good fit and parsimonious model (χ 2 /df = 0.75, RMSEA = 0.00, GFI = 0.99, CFI = 1.00, PNFI = 0.50) highlighted the mediating effect of pre-operative readiness between patient characteristics and surgical outcomes. The type of surgery (curative) influenced patient readiness, surgical complications, and use of additional postoperative analgesics. Higher health literacy negatively influenced patient readiness; can decrease the use of postoperative analgesics; and lessen postoperative pain. Further, pre-operative anxiety decreased patient readiness and increased postoperative pain and negatively influenced the surgical experience. Conclusion:Patient readiness is beyond the physiological aspect of pre-operative preparation and it is influenced primarily by the mental and emotional state of a patient. Addressing issues such as anxiety and health literacy can improve pre-operative readiness that can enhance pain management and surgical experience. Hence, the mediating role of readiness in improving surgical outcomes emphasizes the need to deliver a patient-centred and individualized approach to patient preparation with a key focus on their readiness for surgery. Impact:This study demonstrates the difference between preparing patients and promoting readiness for surgery. Surgical readiness requires patient-centred approach in promoting a more engaged and confident patient who is capable to use appropriate health information and how it can lead to better surgical outcomes.

Worldwide trends in health risks, lifestyle behaviors, health perceptions, and health-seeking patterns suggest alarming disparities among individuals from low- and middle-income countries; particularly for older individuals (≥ 60 years). This study aims to compare health risks, perceptions, lifestyle behaviors, and health-seeking patterns between younger (< 60 years) and older (≥ 60 years) Filipinos from rural communities in the Philippines; and assess relationships between demographic, health risks and perceptions, and lifestyle behaviors to bolster health promotion efforts. A comparative cross-sectional study was employed with 863 younger and 427 older Filipinos. Results show that older participants were more likely to be single/widowed and had ≤ high school education. Older participants had higher rates of hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, and depression but were more likely to report higher quality of life, ≥ 150 minutes of physical activity per week, ≥ 5 servings of fruits and vegetable per day, more difficulty falling asleep, report seeing a physician regularly, going to the community health center when sick, and attend stress management classes compared to their younger counterparts (all p’s < .001). There were no differences in rates of obesity, self-medication, and use of integrative health. Older age was associated with higher risks, improved health perceptions, healthier lifestyle behaviors, and better health-seeking patterns. Our data suggest that health risks are higher in older individuals but risky lifestyle behaviors were higher in younger individuals and suggest the need to design separate health promotion interventions that target the unique needs of older and younger Filipinos from rural communities.