Background: Effective and routine mouth care is necessary for hospitalized patients as it helps to maintain the health of oral cavity and overall health. However, oral care is often overlooked and not prioritized in daily activity plan of nurses even when oral problems are apparent. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess nurses' attitude towards oral care and their practicing level for hospitalized patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted in adult medical-surgical department of Orotta hospital from December 2017 to January 2018. Data was collected from all (N = 73) diploma and associate nurses through face to face interview using a pretested and structured questionnaire. Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U tests and spearman rank correlation coefficient tools were performed to analyze the data using SPSS (Version 22). Results: Out of the 79 participants, 73 completed the interview successfully with a response rate of 92.4%. Of the total, 56.2% were diploma nurses and 43.9% were associate nurses. The median attitude score was 68.89/100 (IQR = 48.89). The majority (94.5%) of the nurses agreed that oral cavity assessment is nurse's responsibility and 94.5% reported adequate training is needed to provide quality oral care. On the other hand, the median practice score was 50.00/100 (IQR = 17.86). Majority of the participants (76.7%) did not perform routine oral health assessment. Almost all (98.4%) used gauze and normal saline for oral care. Practice score was significantly different across the various wards (p < 0.001), however, it was not significantly correlated with attitude (p = 0.646). Conclusions: The participants had poor level of oral care practice to hospitalized patients, nevertheless, they had favourable attitude. Therefore, Orotta National Referral Hospital needs to give further effort to train the nursing staff, ensure the availability of adequate oral care equipment and provide clear guidelines regarding oral care of hospitalized patients.

Background Oral care is a fundamental nursing practice that has a great impact on patient well-being and general health during hospitalization. Nurses are responsible for providing oral care in the hospital, however, they usually implement it unsatisfactorily due to inadequate resources, lack of standard protocol, time shortage and ineffective training. The aim of the study was, therefore, to assess nurses’ barriers to quality oral care practice at a generalized hospital. The information obtained will help in highlighting the magnitude of the problem and in the promotion of oral health, prevention and control of oral diseases, reduction of hospital stays and diseases, and in strengthening healthcare systems. Methods A cross-sectional design using mixed (quant-qual) method was applied at a generalized hospital. Data for the quantitative study were collected from all (N = 73) diploma and associate nurses through face to face interview with a structured questionnaire. On the other hand, in the qualitative part, head nurses (n = 6) and staff nurses (n = 7) discretely participated in the focus group discussions (FGDs), whereas matron (n = 1), assistant matrons (n = 2), and supervisor (n = 1) in total 4, participated in the key informant interview (KII). The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed, respectively, using descriptive statistics and thematic framework analysis. Results The majority (93.2%) of participants had barriers performing oral care. The barriers mentioned by the participants were; lack of oral care equipment (91.2%), absence of guidelines (73.5%), shortage of staff (67.6%), time constraints (66.2%), inadequate knowledge (54.4%), poor supervision (47.1%), high work load (44.1%), and not being a priority (33.8%). Moreover, through FGD and KII, four main barriers to oral care were identified namely; inadequacy of resources, knowledge gap in oral care practice, nurse related barriers (perception of nurses and initiative of nurses) and gaps in management. Conclusions The study concluded that nurses faced barriers at individual, organizational and ministry level that hindered them from performing standard and effective oral care. Therefore, there is a need for further training, motivation, standardized protocol and provision of equipment and supplies to promote oral health of patients.

Background: Sub-optimal health status (SHS) and unhealthy lifestyle among college students have become a major focus for research on public health worldwide. Hence, this study was designed to assess the effects of socio-cultural factors on medical college students' self-rated health status (SRH) and health-promoting lifestyles (HPL) in Eritrea.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Orotta School of Medicine (OSM), using a self-administered questionnaire. Data was collected from all medical students who had fulfilled the inclusion criteria using Sub-Optimal Health Measurement Scale (SHMS V1.0) and Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II (HPLP-II) scale questionnaires. Independent samples t-test, ANOVA, Chi-square test, Pearson's correlation coefficient and Binary multivariate logistic regression were performed. Data analysis was undertaken using SPSS version 22.Results: The overall SRH was significantly higher among college students with BMI of 25 to 29.9 (M=88.23, SD=6.28) as compared to <18.5 (p=0.027) and 18.5 to 24.9 (p=0.027). Moreover, physiological subscale of SRH was significantly related to gender (M males= 88.96 Vs M females= 85.41, p=0.001) and monthly stipend (M income = 89.52 Vs M no-income = 87.28, p=0.040). On the other hand, physical activity of HPL was found to vary by gender (M males= 2.12 Vs M females=1.87, p=0.005) and alcohol consumption (M drinkers= 2.22 Vs M non-drinkers = 1.99, p=0.016). Nutrition differences of HPL were observed in BMI of 25 to 29.9 (M =2.40, p=0.028), internship students (M=2.15, p=0.027), and monthly income (M=2.11, p=0.029). The overall SRH was significantly correlated with the overall HPL (r=0.493, p<0.001). In-addition, students who had good and excellent HPL had self-rated themselves as almost five times (AOR=4.97, 95% CI: 1.28, 19.32), and were 3.73 times (AOR=3.73, 95% CI: 1.09, 12.80) healthier than those who had poor HPL, respectively.Conclusions: Based on our study, gender, BMI and monthly stipend play a major role in the SRH whereas gender, alcohol consumption, BMI, study year and monthly stipend play a major role in the HPL. Moreover, there was a significant correlation between SRH and HPL in this study. Therefore, our findings provide evidence that support the role of socio-cultural influences' on SRH and HPL of medical students.

Sub-optimal health status (SHS) and unhealthy lifestyle among college students have become a major focus for research on public health worldwide. Hence, this study was designed to assess the effects of socio-cultural factors on medical college students' self-rated health status (SRH) and health-promoting lifestyles (HPL) in Eritrea. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Orotta School of Medicine (OSM), using a self-administered questionnaire. Data was collected from all medical students who had fulfilled the inclusion criteria using Sub-Optimal Health Measurement Scale (SHMS V1.0) and Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II (HPLP-II) scale questionnaires. Independent samples t-test, ANOVA, Chi-square test, Pearson's correlation coefficient and Binary multivariate logistic regression were performed. Data analysis was undertaken using SPSS version 22. The overall SRH was significantly higher among college students with BMI of 25 to 29.9 (M=88.23, SD=6.28) as compared to <18.5 (p=0.027) and 18.5 to 24.9 (p=0.027). Moreover, physiological subscale of SRH was significantly related to gender (M males =88.96 Vs M females =85.41, p=0.001) and monthly stipend (M income =89.52 Vs M no-income =87.28, p=0.040). On the other hand, physical activity of HPL was found to vary by gender (M males =2.12 Vs M females =1.87, p=0.005) and alcohol consumption (M drinkers =2.22 Vs M non-drinkers =1.99, p=0.016). Nutrition differences of HPL were observed in BMI of 25 to 29.9 (M=2.40, p=0.028), internship students (M=2.15, p=0.027), and monthly income (M=2.11, p=0.029). The overall SRH was significantly correlated with the overall HPL (r=0.493, p<0.001). In addition, students who had high (≥good) HPL were more likely to rate themselves as healthier: AOR=4.97, 95% CI: 1.28-19.32 and AOR=3.73, 95% CI: 1.09-12.80. In all, the study adds to the evidence on the impact of socio-cultural influences' on SRH (gender, BMI, stipend) and HPL (gender, alcohol, BMI, study year, stipend) of medical students.