Most patients awaiting surgery experience anxiety. The study aims to assess the levels of preoperative anxiety and social support, determine the association of background variables with levels of preoperative anxiety and social support and to examine the relationship between levels of preoperative anxiety with social support. A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted among patients undergoing surgery in a government Hospital, Pokhara. The study period was from September 2016 to August 2017. Total sample was 442 patients scheduled for surgery. Data was collected through Anxiety Specific to Surgery Questionnaire for anxiety and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support through face to face interview. Ethical approval was obtained from IRC, Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University. Data were entered and analysis was performed with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS).The total 94.1 percent of patients were married and 52 percent had low living standard. High level of preoperative anxiety and social support are seen in 42.1 and 64.3 percent respectively. Preoperative anxiety had significant statistical association with standard of living, experience of past operation, and types of operation(p<0.05). Social support had significant statistical association with age, gender, residence, standard of living, and types of operation (p<0.05). Correlation between preoperative anxiety and social support insignificant (r = -.133, p = 0.005) at the 0.05 level. As social support increased; preoperative anxiety decreased. Therefore, health care provider should identify patients with high anxiety, encourage them to talk about their feelings and facilitate more time with their families.

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A field trial was carried out to test performance of four locally available substrates (split bamboo, whole bamboo, banana midrib and plastic bottle) for periphyton enhancement in farmer's ponds at Seri and Nandapur in Nawalparasi district for 7 months. Six carp species were stocked at 15000 fish/hectare and SIS at unrecorded densities. Carp was fed with rice bran and mustard oil cake at 1.5% BW while grass carp was fed with grass and banana leaves at 50% BW. There was no significant effect of substrates on growth and production of carp. Combined NFY was 19% higher in plastic bottle ponds than control ponds, while NFY of SIS was 50% higher in banana midrib ponds than control and other substrate ponds. FCR was significantly better (P<0.05) in split bamboo ponds than control ponds. Banana midrib decayed fast and was replaced 3-4 times during experimental period while plastic bottles performed better in terms of production and profit.

Introduction: Nursing is considered as one of the most stressful and demanding profession. In the health care organizations, work stress may contribute to absenteeism and turnover, both of which detract from the quality of care. The aim of this study was to assess the job-related stress and to identify and compare the factors associated with job stress among nurses’ working in selected hospitals of Pokhara, Nepal. Methods: The descriptive research design based on simple random sampling method was used. The sample size was 238. The data was collected using self-administered questionnaire consisted of socio-demographic information and Expanded Nursing Stress Scale. Both descriptive and inferential statistics was used for data analysis. Results: The study findings showed that majority of nurses were in moderate level of stress and ‘patients and their families' were the most stressful factors perceived by both government and private hospital nurses. ‘Problems with peers’ was the least stressful factor perceived by both group of nurses and experiencing ‘discrimination’ was also the least stressful factors for private hospital nurses. Furthermore, a chi-square test revealed significant association between work setting and job stress in government hospital nurses. Conclusions: Nurses working in the both government and private hospitals were working under stressful conditions.

Aquaculture plays an important role to increase farm income and hence alleviate widespread poverty in the country. Fish is considered as the principal source of animal protein. The research was conducted to assess the status of adoption of improved fish production technologies available in the Rupandehi, Nepal. The research was designed to ascertain the socio-demographic characteristics of the farmers, determine available technologies on fish production, determine awareness and adoption of the available technologies and identify the major problems faced by farmers in using improved fish production technologies. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select 100 respondents for the study. Data were analyzed using frequency count, percentages, standard deviation and indexing. The result shows that average age of the respondents was 39.8 years. Eighty percent respondents had post-secondary school certificate. Major sources of information of fish farming were trainings and information and communication technologies. Average pond size of respondents was 0.8 ha. Most of the respondents were aware of the technologies and adopted them. Indexing showed that High cost of fish feed was ranked as the major problem followed by high cost of fingerlings and inadequate capital in using improved fish production technology.