Prevention of asthma attacks is one of the major challenges of public health. Sufficient knowledge and positive attitudes and correct practices are crucial for the prevention of exacerbations. However, there is insufficiency of information in regard to these in Sudan. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and to identify the attitude and practice of mothers of asthmatic children concerning their use of inhalers, compliance to preventers and to measure its effect on the severity of the disease in their children. A sample of 100 consecutive mothers of asthmatic children was enrolled. Any mother with a child diagnosed with bronchial asthma for more than 3 months, and who attended the outpatient clinic of paediatric asthma in Soba or Ahmed Gasim hospitals or the Emergency room of Ahmed Gasim or Ibrahim Malik hospital in the period from 1st to 31st of October 2016 was eligible to be included. Asthma was believed to be infectious by 7% of the respondents. 17% of the mothers thought asthma was preventable by a vaccine. 21% found inhaler use unacceptable. Half of the mothers (50%) did not use the inhaler correctly. Most of the mothers (69%) did not use the inhaler if symptoms were mild and 53% didn’t use preventers. The severity of asthma was found to be significantly associated with the attitude and practice of mothers (P < 0.05). In conclusion, sustained efforts are required to increase knowledge about all dimensions of asthma and its management among patients and to disperse myths and misguided judgments regarding the disease and its treatment.

Objective: To conduct a two-stage epidemiological survey in order to measure the prevalence rate of major depressive disorder in girls 12–19 years of age and to relate it to age. Subjects and Methods: The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) questionnaire was administered to 1,107 girls from 3 elementary and 3 secondary schools in Khartoum, Sudan, 272 of whom were selected for intensive interviews. Results: The estimated prevalence of major depressive disorder for the population was 4.2%. Using a cutoff point of 15 on a short BDI, 11% of the adolescent girls reported severe depression. The BDI scores increased with age. A proportion of girls interviewed reported depressive symptoms which did not meet the criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM-IV) for major depressive disorder, and the estimated prevalence of this ‘partial syndrome’ was 8.6%. Conclusion: The findings indicate a high rate of depression. Considering the fact that none of the girls who were identified with major depression reported to the health system, a surveillance system is recommended to identify depression among adolescent girls.

No abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Voluntary blood donation represents the main source of blood in Sudan. While students are a potential source of blood, this study aim to address the knowledge, attitudes, barriers and motives of both medical and non-medical students in order to recruit them for donating blood to meet the demands of the patients.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> A facility based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Khartoum University between January and March 2019.  Structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. The Data were analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Science software version 23.  </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Of the total 308 students, 75% were medical students and 25% were non-medical. Only 34 (11%) had ever donated blood. 97.1% don’t donate regularly. 79.4% of the donations were voluntary. Males were significantly more donors than females (p value=000). Students had poor knowledge about blood donation requirements but demonstrated better knowledge regarding blood borne diseases. More medical students knew their blood group than non-medical students. Not being asked to be the most reported reason for not donating blood (55.1%). Most of the donors reported that a relative or a friend needs blood was their motivation factor to donate blood (64.7%).</p><strong>Conclusions:</strong>Information about blood donation services and requirements should be available to the students. In addition, campaigns and educational sessions regarding the safety and demands of blood donation is crucial to address the fears and recruit students as eligible source of blood<p class="abstract"> </p>

No abstract

Background: The objectives of this study are to assess the quality of life, levels of anxiety, and depression among Sudanese ostomates with special emphasis on sociodemographic data and ostomy-related data.Methods: This is a facility-based cross-sectional study in Khartoum state between 2018 and 2019. 100 patients participated in the study with a response rate of 80 in seven hospitals throughout Khartoum state. Standardized fecal incontinence quality of life (FIQOL) and hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) questionnaires were used and data obtained were analyzed by multiple statistical tests to identify any group differences and associations to the sociodemographic data.Results: Quality of life total score was found to be below the average. Depression scale scores at the average, and religious score account for the worst. While there is a strong correlation between the QOL subscales, there was no significant association between quality of life score and the sociodemographic data. Regarding anxiety and depression levels 51.3% of the participants are normal for anxiety level while 25% and 23.8% were borderline and abnormal respectively. For depression level, the score was 45% normal, 26.3% borderline and 28.8% were abnormal. neither some significant association nor subgroup differences were found regarding sociodemographic and ostomy-related data.Conclusions: Respondents had a quality of life below the average and high levels of anxiety and depression. Religious and spiritual QOL is marginally influenced by the intestinal stoma, qualitative comments also lend insight to the spiritual aspect. this finding can assist in the provision of holistic care in our stoma patients.

No abstract

No abstract