BACKGROUND Majority of smokers are aware of health consequences due to smoking but reported inability to quit smoking in multiple studies. Reasons attributed to continued smoking include multiple causes like addiction, habit and stress, as well as face-valid causes such as disease, personality problems, weakness of character, etc. Tobacco cessation services promoted by World Health Organization (WHO) are typically to be initiated by the service provider and include brief opportunistic assessment for smoking cessation widely known as 5A’ and 5R’s for brief assessment. Health interventions are identified by WHO as an effective way to enhance the promotion of tobacco cessation as only three percent of smokers manage to quit without help of intervention. This study explored the awareness of smart phone apps for smoking cessation among private healthcare providers in Chennai. METHODS A qualitative, explorative study through one-on-one, personal interviews among 36 randomly approached and consenting healthcare providers primarily providing tobacco related health care services including dentists, psychiatrists, ear – nose - throat surgeons, general medicine, respiratory medicine, surgeons and obstetricians at six private teaching medical institutes was conducted from July 2020 to October 2020 in Chennai. RESULTS The results showed that majority of the healthcare providers lack awareness of smart phone-based apps for smoking cessation. However, a very small minority3 who were aware were limited by social determinants of health of the clients such as perceived poor digital literacy, unaffordability of internet packages to recommend them. CONCLUSIONS The healthcare providers from various fields lacked the awareness of smart phone apps aiding with smoking cessation with the exception of a minor few3 who acknowledged their existence but were engaged very minimally with these modalities. KEYWORDS Healthcare Providers’ Awareness, Smart Phone Based-Apps, Smoking Cessation Apps, Tobacco Clients, Personal Interviews
Background: SARS-CoV-19 or popularly known as COVID-19 is recognized as a global public health emergency and a pandemic necessitating readiness of the health system and its operational work force to address the unprecedent challenge. Objective: To assess perceived stress and coping methods using novel brief COPE-4 factor structure and narrate thematic testimonials among health care professionals involved in COVID care in India. Settings and Designs: Health care settings and multi-state cross-sectional study. Methods and Material: A cross sectional mixed-methods study, with multi-modal aids was undertaken during April-May, 2020 using a novel brief COPE-4 Factor structure. Oral informed consent was obtained to document narrative testimonials verbatim from interviews among doctors, nurse practitioners. Statistical Analysis Used: The web-survey data from Google forms analyzed using STATA (Ver 12.0) statistical package. The interview content was subjected to manual inductive thematic coding, grouped into piles to identify broad themes as main categories. Results: Among total 218 respondents, 75 (34.4%) were female and 143 (65.6%) male, mean age of 34.71 (SD = 8.9) years. Majority of the respondents were medical post-graduates on duty (38%) followed by nurses (25%) and public health professionals (14%). Slightly higher levels of stress seen among respondents involved in COVID-19 duty, compared to those not involved (p < 0.001) and positive thinking is the major coping method adopted. Conclusions: Appraising the coping mechanisms of health care professionals reveals positive outlook amidst medium levels of perceived stress while providing COVID-19 pandemic related health care services.
BACKGROUND Sleep disturbances usually accompany osteoarthritis (OA) because of chronic pain. Poor sleep quality is related to many factors like pain, fatiguability, restless leg syndrome, immobility of joints, anxiety and depression. But the quality of the sleep in patients with osteoarthritis has been rarely studied. We wanted to assess the prevalence of sleep disturbances in OA patients, determine the sleep quality in osteoarthritis patients and evaluate the relationship between pains and sleep quality. METHODS 150 patients with osteoarthritis were selected through convenience sampling as per the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) were applied. Data was analysed using SPSS. One sample T test and Pearson Correlation were applied to find the correlation between the pains and sleep quality. RESULTS A total of 86 (57 %) patients with osteoarthritis were found to have sleep disturbances and were assessed for sleep quality and pain level. This group contains 18 (20 %) males and 68 (80 %) females. A total of 62 (72 %) osteoarthritis patients including 14 males and 48 females were having poor sleep quality; 67 (78 %) patients had intolerable pain (NPRS > 7). Strong positive correlation (p-value < 0.001) was found between GPSQI and NPRS. CONCLUSIONS Patients with osteoarthritis with high NPRS values have poor sleep quality. There is significant association between pain and poor sleep quality. It will be highly useful for the patients with osteoarthritis if osteoarthritis treatment protocol includes assessment and management of poor sleep quality. As poor quality is an early indicator of majority of mental illnesses, psychiatric liaison services will be highly beneficial for patients with osteoarthritis. KEYWORDS Osteoarthritis, Pain, Sleep Quality, Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)
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