Identifying children and/or adolescents who are at highest risk for developing chronic depression is of utmost importance, so that we can develop more effective and targeted interventions to attenuate the risk trajectory of depression. To address this, the objective of this study was to identify young people with persistent depressive symptoms across adolescence and young adulthood and examine the prospective associations between factors and persistent depressive symptoms in young people.

We used data from 6711 participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Depressive symptoms were assessed at 12.5, 13.5, 16, 17.5, 21 and 22 years with the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, and we further examined the influence of multiple biological, psychological and social factors in explaining chronic depressive symptoms.

Using latent class growth analysis, we identified four trajectories of depressive symptoms: persistent high, persistent low, persistent moderate and increasing high. After applying several logistic regression models, we found that loneliness and feeling less connected at school were the most relevant factors for chronic course of depressive symptoms.

Our findings contribute with the identification of those children who are at highest risk for developing chronic depressive symptoms.

The study aimed to identify the factors that influence the disaster preparedness of hospitals and validate an evaluation framework to assess hospital disaster preparedness (HDP) capability in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

A cross-sectional survey of all hospitals (n = 72) in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia was conducted. A factor analysis method was used to identify common factors and validate the evaluation framework to assess HDP capacity.

Sixty-three (63) hospitals responded to the survey. A 3-factor structure was identified as key predicators of HDP capacity. The first factor was the most highly weighted factor, which included education and training (0.849), monitoring and assessing HDP (0.723), disaster planning (0.721), and command and control (0.713). The second factor included surge capacity (0.708), triage system (0.844), post-disaster recovery (0.809), and communication (0.678). The third factor represented safety and security (0.638) as well as logistics, equipment, and supplies (0.766).

The identified 3-factor structure provides an innovative approach to assist the operationalization of the concept of HDP capacity building and service improvement, as well as serve as a groundwork to further develop instrument for assessing HDP in future studies.

Despite the implementation of various coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention and control strategies, the rate of COVID-19 is alarmingly increasing in Ethiopia as well as worldwide. The success of COVID-19 prevention measures is highly influenced by a lack of knowledge and misconceptions. This study aimed to assess misconceptions about COVID-19 and associated factors among residents of Dilla Town, southern Ethiopia.

A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from December 1 to 30, 2020. Data were collected from 415 individuals using structured interviewer-based questionnaires. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify the relationship between the dependent and independent variables.

The proportion of respondents who have a high misconception about COVID-19 was 41.1%. Study participants who had poor knowledge were 2.1 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.1-3.8) times more likely to have a misconception about COVID-19 than their counterparts. Respondents who had access to information from more than 2 sources were 3.29 (with 95% CI: 1.2-9.2) times less likely to have a misconception about COVID-19 when compared with those who had access to 2 or fewer information sources.

A significant proportion of people have misconceptions about COVID-19 in the study area. To resolve these misconceptions, health sectors and stakeholders need to improve the residents’ knowledge by delivering COVID-19–related information from credible sources on a routine basis.

The objective of this study is to map vulnerability of Asian countries to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 framework for natural hazards, vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. From an extensive literature review, we identified 16 socioeconomic, meteorological, environmental, and health factors that influence coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths. The underlying factors of vulnerability were identified using principal component analysis.

Our findings indicate that the percentage of the urban population, obesity rate, air connectivity, and the population aged 65 and over, diabetes prevalence, and PM2.5 levels all contributed significantly to COVID-19 sensitivity. Subsequently, governance effectiveness, human development index (HDI), vaccination rate, and life expectancy at birth, and gross domestic product (GDP) all had a positive effect on adaptive capacity. The estimated vulnerability was corroborated by a Pearson correlation of 0.615 between death per million population and vulnerability.

This study demonstrates the application of universal indicators for assessing pandemic vulnerability for informed policy interventions such as the COVAX vaccine roll-out priority. Despite data limitations and a lack of spatiotemporal analysis, this study’s methodological framework allows for ample data incorporation and replication.

This review intends to provide an overview of revealed preferences of decision-makers for recommendations of cancer drugs in health technology assessment (HTA) among the different agencies.

A systematic literature search was performed in MEDLINE and EMBASE databases from inception to July 2020. The studies were eligible for inclusion if they conducted a quantitative analysis of HTA’s previous decisions for cancer drugs. The factors with p-values below the significance level of .05 were considered as the statistically significant factors for HTA decisions.

A total of nine studies for six agencies in Australia, Belgium, France, South Korea, the UK, and Canada were eligible to be included. From the univariable analysis, improvements in clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness were found as significant factors for the agencies in Belgium, South Korea, and Canada. From the multivariable analysis, cost-effectiveness was found as a positive factor for the agencies in the UK, South Korea, and Canada. Few factors related to characteristics of disease and technology were found to be significant among the included agencies.

Despite the different drug reimbursement systems and the socioeconomic situations, cost-effectiveness and/or improvement on clinical outcomes seemed to be the most important factors for recommendations of cancer drugs among the agencies.

The turnover of rural doctors, including doctors who leave clinical practice in rural areas, may disrupt the continuity of care. Though strategies had been formulated to address the problems associated with low retention rates, they proved to be unrewarding. This study aimed to investigate how we could anticipate the loss of rural doctors to facilitate their retention in advance.

We conducted a cross-sectional survey and collected data from rural doctors in Jiangsu Province.

Research on the employment status of target admission graduates in Jiangsu.

Multi-stage stratified sampling methods were employed to select the respondents in this study. We selected 722 rural physicians, who represented all the rural physicians from Northern, Central, and Southern Jiangsu.

Factors affecting anticipated rural retention (odds ratios (OR)).

The anticipated rural retention rate was 72.8% for the 722 respondents from Jiangsu province. Economically developed work areas (ORCentral JS = 0.501, ORSouthern JS = 0.475), a higher monthly income (OR 3000∼ = 0.584, OR6000∼ = 0.255), and an advanced rank among counterparts (OR = 0.507) were protective factors for anticipated rural retention. Risk factors involved the monthly expenditure, mainly for socialization with others (OR = 1.856), working hours of more than 50 hours/week (OR = 2.076), assignment of outpatient work (OR = 1.991), and filing work (OR = 1.544) as the main tasks on a daily basis.

A combination of strategies, including the strengthening of economic incentive as well as the ability to deal with a heavy workload, could increase the recruitment and retention rate in Jiangsu Province.

Mental illness may explain some acting outs, but it does not necessarily lead to a dangerous attitude.

Describe the socio-demographic, clinical and therapeutic characteristics of patients considered dangerous and to identify the determinants of psychiatric dangerousness.

We carried out a descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study during six months including patients hospitalized in the psychiatric department at the University Hospital of Mahdia. The data was collected using a 47-item pre-established questionnaire. The assessment of general psychopathology was carried out using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and that of dangerousness using the Historical Clinical Risk-20 scale (HCR-20).

We have collected 143 patients. The average age was 35 years. The majority of patients were single (70.6%). More than half of the population had addictive behaviors (60.1%). Personal psychiatric and criminal histories were present in 81.1% and 11.9% of cases respectively. More than three-quarters of patients (81.8%) were hospitalized without their consent. Hetero-aggressiveness was the main reason for hospitalization (67.8%). The diagnosis was schizophrenia and bipolar disorder type 2 in 21% of cases for each. The evaluation of psychiatric dangerousness by the HCR-20 scale revealed a mean score of 20.6 with an HCR-20 > 20 in 58.7% of cases indicating a high risk of violence. Factors contributing to violent or criminal behavior in psychiatric inpatients were marital status, presence of personal psychiatric history, presence of criminal history and hospitalization modalities.

The results of our study were generally consistent with the data in the literature.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a stressful event for humanity. The spread of this disease mainly affects health professionals and interests them closely.

Identify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of healthcare personnels and associated factors exposing them to increased psychological fragility.

The current article is a narrative review of the existing literature. A search on electronic database like PubMed was undertaken using the search terms “coronavirus mental health healthcare workers”. 20 articles were included in this review.

Studies revealed that health care workers have prensented considerable psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, stress, insomnia, somatization, mental and physical exhaustion, addiction and obssessive compulsive symptoms. The prevalence of these symptoms varies from study to another with almost a more notable prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms. The following factors that predispose to developing mental distress were noted: being a frontline health worker, having direct contact with infected patients, working in a city with a high infection rate, female sex, isolation, being a suspected case, stigmatization, change of organization, lack of materials, lack of information, lack of communication, lack of support, fear of contamination or of contaminating loved ones, having an organic pathology.

This notable impact of the pandemic on the mental health of healthcare workers alerts us as colleagues and civil society to the ultimate need for an urgent adequate and up-to-date intervention to alleviate this distress.

We aimed to understand practice nurses’ perceptions about how they engage with parents during consultations concerning the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

The incidence of measles is increasing globally. Immunisation is recognised as the most significant intervention to influence global health in modern times, although many factors are known to adversely affect immunisation uptake. Practice nurses are a key member of the primary care team responsible for delivering immunisation. However, little is known how practice nurses perceive this role.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 15 practice nurses in England using a qualitative descriptive approach. Diversity in terms of years of experience and range of geographical practice settings were sought. These interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and open-coded using qualitative content analysis to manage, analyse and identify themes.

Three themes were derived from the data: engaging with parents, the informed practice nurse and dealing with parental concerns: strategies to promote MMR uptake. During their consultations, practice nurses encountered parents who held strong opinions about the MMR vaccine and perceived this to be related to the parents’ socio-demographic background. Practice nurses sought to provide parents with tailored and accurate sources of information to apprise their immunisation decision-making about the MMR vaccine.

Gender analysis in health research is important to strengthen our health system. The current study aimed to explore factors related to body weight misperception in a national sample of the general Korean population.

Cross-sectional study.

South Korea, general population.

12,900 adults enrolled from the Seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2016–2018).

Disadvantageous socio-economic status was considered a predictor of participants’ misperceptions of themselves as being of a healthy weight despite being overweight and as underweight despite being of a healthy weight, mainly in men. Favourable socio-economic status was considered a predictor of participants’ misperceptions of themselves as being of a healthy weight despite being underweight and as overweight despite being of a healthy weight, mainly in women. Living in an urban area was an independent predictor of men’s misperception of themselves as being of a healthy weight despite being overweight and women’s misperception of themselves as being underweight despite being of a healthy weight. Physical inactivity was a predictor of most misperceptions in women. Psychological variables, such as stress and depression, were not significant predictors of misperception.

The current study highlighted the gender differences in factors related to body weight misperception. These differences suggested that more sophisticated policies should be formulated to identify solutions to health problems related to body weight.

Identifying profiles of people with mental and substance use disorders who use emergency departments may help guide the development of interventions more appropriate to their particular characteristics and needs.

To develop a typology for the frequency of visits to the emergency department for mental health reasons based on the Andersen model.

Questionnaires were completed by patients who attended an emergency department (n = 320), recruited in Quebec (Canada), and administrative data were obtained related to sociodemographic/socioeconomic characteristics, mental health diagnoses including alcohol and drug use, and emergency department and mental health service utilization. A cluster analysis was performed, identifying needs, predisposing and enabling factors that differentiated subclasses of participants according to frequency of emergency department visits for mental health reasons.

Four classes were identified. Class 1 comprised individuals with moderate emergency department use and low use of other health services; mostly young, economically disadvantaged males with substance use disorders. Class 2 comprised individuals with high emergency department and specialized health service use, with multiple mental and substance use disorders. Class 3 comprised middle-aged, economically advantaged females with common mental disorders, who made moderate use of emergency departments but consulted general practitioners. Class 4 comprised older individuals with multiple chronic physical illnesses co-occurring with mental disorders, who made moderate use of the emergency department, but mainly consulted general practitioners.

The study found heterogeneity in emergency department use for mental health reasons, as each of the four classes represented distinct needs, predisposing and enabling factors. As such, interventions should be tailored to different classes of patients who use emergency departments, based on their characteristics.