Doctors' Health

BACKGROUND: 31.4 million people in low- and middle-income countries die from chronic diseases annually, particularly in Africa. To address this, strategies such as task-shifting from doctors to nurses have been proposed and have been endorsed by the World Health Organization as a potential solution; however, no comprehensive review exists describing the extent of nurse-led chronic disease management in Africa. AIMS: This study aimed to provide a thorough description of the current roles of nurses in managing chronic diseases in Africa, identify their levels of knowledge, the challenges, and gaps they encounter in this endeavor...

BACKGROUND: A growing body of evidence has demonstrated that a gender-sensitive approach to healthcare is needed in all areas of medicine. Although medical and nursing guidelines include gender-sensitive care (GSC+) recommendations, the level of implementation in health care practice is unknown. This study aims to examine the current level of implementation and acceptance of GSC+ among physicians and nurses and to identify potential gaps between guidelines and practice and barriers and facilitators of GSC+ implementation, taking the perceptions of all relevant stakeholders into account...

BACKGROUND: Limited evidence on utilisation of health care by recently arrived asylum seekers and refugees in high-income countries is available. This study aims to describe the implementation of an integrated care facility (ICF) in an initial reception centre and measure the utilisation of care and the influence of operational parameters. METHODS: In a retrospective cohort study design, using medical records, we followed inhabitants of a reception centre in Germany between 11...

Medical schools must create doctors who can address health workforce challenges. This article compares broad trends in medical education between the United Kingdom and Australia. Medical schools both help develop and are constrained by the health workforce. Innovations developed in Britain, like medical doctor degree apprenticeships, are unlikely to address workforce issues. Australia's medical curricula have more effectively adapted to its workforce needs.

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) complicates ∼10% of pregnancies, with the highest rates among Asian women. Evidence suggests that GDM is associated with an increased risk for future chronic health conditions, yet data for Asian women are sparse. We explored the association between prior GDM and metabolic dysfunction with nationally representative data to obtain Asian-specific estimates. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, data were drawn from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 7195 women with a prior pregnancy...

Online consultation services have the potential to reduce the workload of healthcare staff, provide timely care to patients, and improve doctor-patient relationships. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the development of these services and platforms, but it remains to be seen whether the general public will continue to use them after the pandemic is under control. This research proposes a framework to examine the factors contributing to UK adults' continued usage of online healthcare consultation services after COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted...

OBJECTIVES: Kerala was the first state to implement a community-based, sustainable primary palliative care (PC) home care (HC) model. Beneficiary satisfaction, an important indicator to assess the quality of service provision with the HC program, has not been assessed since the programme was launched 14 years ago. This study tried to assess the satisfaction of beneficiaries receiving primary PC services through the Kerala State PC programme and the factors associated with the same. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The cross-sectional survey was conducted among 450 patients registered under the Kerala State Primary PC Programme...

INTRODUCTION: The Health System Impact (HSI) Fellowship is an embedded research training program that aims to prepare doctoral trainees and postdoctoral fellows for stronger career readiness and greater impact as emerging leaders within and beyond the academy, including in learning health systems (LHS). The program supports fellows to develop 10 leadership and research competencies that comprise the Enriched Core Competency Framework in Health Services and Policy Research through a combination of experiential learning, mentorship, and professional development training...

Recently, the importance of efficient and effective health care has been recognized, especially during the acute phase of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Intensive care units (ICUs) have faced an immense workload, with massive numbers of patients being treated in a very short period of time. In general, ICUs are required to deliver high-quality care at all times during the year. At the same time, high-quality organizational goals may not be aligned with the interests, motivation, and development of individual staff members (eg, nurses, and doctors)...

BACKGROUND: Climate change poses a substantial threat to the mental wellbeing of young people. Population-level research is urgently needed to help inform policies and interventions to ensure that young people are not burdened by long-term mental health impacts from climate change. We sought to identify the prevalence, distribution, and factors associated with climate change-related mental and emotional health outcomes among young people (aged 13-34 years) in Canada. METHODS: This study is part of a larger cross-sectional survey, which examined mental and emotional health responses to climate change among individuals aged 13 years or older from across Canada...

BACKGROUND: The "Adequate Childbirth Program" (PPA) is a quality improvement project that aims to reduce the high rates of unnecessary cesarean section in Brazilian private hospitals. This study aimed to analyze labor and childbirth care practices after the first phase of PPA implementation. METHOD: This study uses a qualitative approach. Eight hospitals were selected. At each hospital, during the period of 5 (five) days, from July to October 2017, the research team conducted face to face interviews with doctors (n = 21) and nurses (n = 28), using semi-structured scripts...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Effective communication skills are essential for all pharmacists, regardless of practice setting. An implicit need in pharmacy education is to emphasize direct application of these skills to future healthcare practice prior to experiential rotations. The aim of this article is to describe how we revised a required first professional year (P1) doctor of pharmacy course to achieve two main goals: 1) improve the course relevance by connecting content to real-world skills; and 2) qualify all pharmacy students at our institution as certified National Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) lifestyle coaches upon course completion...

OBJECTIVE: To identify determinants of the utilisation of ophthalmic clinical health services among students who failed school vision screening. METHODS: This study employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, underpinned by Andersen's Behavioural Model of Health Service Utilisation. Data were initially gathered through interviews with 27 stakeholders-comprising 5 ophthalmologists, 7 community doctors, 7 public health professionals and 8 teachers. The qualitative insights informed the construction of a questionnaire, which subsequently garnered responses from 6215 participants...

AIM: Treatment of periodontitis, a chronic inflammatory disease driven by biofilm dysbiosis, remains challenging due to patients' poor performance and adherence to the necessary oral hygiene procedures. Novel, artificial intelligence-enabled multimodal-sensing toothbrushes (AI-MST) can guide patients' oral hygiene practices in real-time and transmit valuable data to clinicians, thus enabling effective remote monitoring and guidance. The aim of this trial was to assess the effect of such a system as an adjunct to clinical practice guideline-conform treatment...

Insufficient sleep on weekdays has become a societal norm, and studies have shown that sleep deprivation increases the risk of depression. Although individuals often resort to weekend catch-up sleep (CUS) as a compensatory measure, the present evidence supporting its efficacy in mitigating the risk of depression is limited. This article attempts to explore the relationship between CUS and depression. In this study, a total of 5510 participants were included, characterized into two groups: nondepressed (n = 5051) and depressed (n = 459), with data extracted from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)...

In the past several decades, the United States has enacted civil rights legislation protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations from discrimination, including enacting proactive healthcare laws such as the Affordable Care Act. However, given today's divisive politics, LGBTQ people's access to appropriate and respectful health care is precarious. This study explored the disconnections from and connections to health care and the respective health effects among two self-identified groups: i) older LGBT adults and ii) transgender and gender-diverse (TG/GD) adults...

BACKGROUND: The operating theatre (OT) complex of hospitals represents areas of considerable expenditure with regard to costs and requires maximum use to ensure optimum cost benefit for both patients and the hospital. Inefficient use of an operating theatre room (OTR) may result in hospital wasteful expenditure and frustrations for patients owing to surgery delays, cancellations and prolonged hospitalisation while waiting. AIM: The aim of the study was to explore and describe using a consensus method, factors impacting the use of an emergency orthopaedic theatre that can be optimised in a selected public hospital in Gauteng province...

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the opinions on the insurance coverage of artificial intelligence (AI), as categorized based on the distinct value elements offered by AI, with a specific focus on patient-centered outcomes (PCOs). PCOs are distinguished from traditional clinical outcomes and focus on patient-reported experiences and values such as quality of life, functionality, well-being, physical or emotional status, and convenience. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We classified the value elements provided by AI into four dimensions: clinical outcomes, economic aspects, organizational aspects, and non-clinical PCOs...

BACKGROUND: Sexual assault occurring within healthcare settings represents a significant breach of public trust. This scoping review aimed to highlight the profile of people raped, those who committed the rape within the health facilities, and the legal actions taken to resolved cases. METHODS: Media-reported data on incidents of rape in healthcare settings were collected. The search was conducted in May and June 2023, focusing on English-language publications with accessible full texts...

Multidimensional health function impairments are common in older patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The purpose of this study was to explore whether the risk or severity of geriatric syndrome increased with a decline in renal function. This survey was conducted for CKD patients aged  ≥ 60 years and hospitalized at West China Hospital of Sichuan University (Center of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Nephrology, and Endocrinology) and Chengdu Kangfu Kidney Disease Hospital from September 01, 2013 to June 30, 2014...