Toward sustainable development goals in gender inequality: an analysis of gender preferences among urban pregnant women in a Southeast Asian country.

BACKGROUND: Gender-biased discrimination and preferences are global phenomena, particularly son preferences. However, updated evidence about this issue in Vietnam has not yet been provided. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the gender preferences among pregnant women and identify associated factors of such preferences. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in two hospitals in Vietnam with 732 pregnant women. Gender preferences for their child were asked, along with socio-demographic (e.g., education, occupation) and pregnancy characteristics (e.g., pressure to have a son, gender of first child, the importance to have a son of family members, and information sources on pregnancy care) by using face-to-face interviews and a structured questionnaire. Multinomial logistic regression was performed to determine factors associated with gender preferences. RESULTS: About 51.9% of the participants had no gender preference, while, among those who had a gender preference, 26.5% preferred sons, and 21.6% preferred daughters. Only 6.2% had pressure to have a son. Having the first child who was female (OR = 4.16, 95%CI = 1.54-11.25), having the pressure to have a son (OR = 6.77, 95%CI = 2.06-22.26), and higher self-perceived importance to have a son (OR = 3.05, 95%CI = 1.85-5.02) were positively associated with son preference. Otherwise, women having partners with high school education or above (OR = 2.04, 95%CI = 1.06-3.91), living with parents-in-law (OR = 2.33; 95%CI = 1.25-4.34), the higher number of pregnancies, and a higher degree of importance in having a son regarding parents-in-law (OR = 2.15, 95%CI = 1.38-3.35) associated with higher odds of preferring daughter. CONCLUSION: This study showed that gender preference was common among pregnant women, but the pressure to have a son was low. Further education programs and legal institutions should be implemented to improve gender inequality and gender preference in society.

Changes in Quality of life Outcomes of Patients with HIV/AIDS Under a Theory-based Mobile Health Intervention.

This study examined the effectiveness of a theory-based mHealth intervention on the quality of life (QOL) of people living with HIV. A randomized controlled trial was performed at two outpatient clinics in Hanoi, Vietnam. There were 428 patients with HIV/AIDs in selected clinics and were divided into the intervention arm (receiving HIV-assisted smartphone application and usual care) and the control arm (receiving only usual care). The WHOQOLHIV-BREF instrument was utilized to measure QOL. An intention-to-treat approach using Generalized Linear Mixed Model analysis was performed. The trial showed significant improvements in Physical health, Psychological health, and Level of Dependence among patients in the intervention arm compared to the control arm. However, the Environment and Spirituality/Personal beliefs improvements would require additional interventions, both individual, organizational, or governmental. This study explored the utility of a smartphone mobile application for individuals with HIV, and how the resultant application could improve the overall QOL.

Efficacy of a Mobile Phone-Based Intervention on Health Behaviors and HIV/AIDS Treatment Management: Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is considered the most important intervention for HIV-positive patients; thus, encouraging the use of and adherence to ART are vital to HIV treatment outcomes. Advances in web and mobile technologies hold potential in supporting HIV treatment management. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a theory-based mobile health (mHealth) intervention on health behaviors and HIV treatment adherence among patients with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam. METHODS: We performed a randomized controlled trial on 425 HIV patients in two of the largest HIV clinics in Hanoi, Vietnam. Both the intervention group (238 patients) and the control group (187 patients) received regular consultations with doctors and then participated in 1-month and 3-month follow-up visits. Patients in the intervention group received a theory-driven smartphone app to facilitate medication adherence and self-efficacy in HIV patients. Measurements were developed based on the Health Belief Model, which included the visual analog scale of ART Adherence, HIV Treatment Adherence Self-Efficacy Scale, and HIV Symptom Management Self-Efficacy Scale. We also included the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to assess patients' mental health throughout treatment. RESULTS: In the intervention group, the adherence score increased significantly (ß=1.07, 95% CI .24-1.90) after 1 month, whereas the HIV adherence self-efficacy was significantly higher after 3 months (ß=2.17, 95% CI 2.07-2.27) compared to the control group. There was a positive but low level of change in risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and drug use. Factors related to positive change in adherence were being employed and having stable mental well-being (lower PHQ-9 scores). Factors associated with self-efficacy in treatment adherence and symptom management were gender, occupation, younger age, and having no other underlying conditions. A longer duration of ART increased treatment adherence but decreased self-efficacy in symptom management. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that the mHealth app could improve the overall ART adherence self-efficacy of patients. Further studies with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up periods are needed to support our findings. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Thai Clinical Trials Registry TCTR20220928003; https://www.thaiclinicaltrials.org/show/TCTR20220928003.

Evidence of internal structure of the transactional eHealth literacy among Vietnamese youth: An instrument validation study.

Background: The progression into the Digital Age has brought an array of novel skill requirements. Unlike traditional literacy, there are currently few measures that can reliably measure eHealth literacy. The Transactional Model of eHealth Literacy and subsequent Transactional eHealth Literacy Instrument may provide a feasible option for measuring eHealth literacy. Objective: This instrument has yet to be validated, which is the aim of this study. In particular, this article was conducted to validate the TeHLI to see which components of the tool (how many and which components included) would be the best fit statistically and whether the tool applies to groups of different characteristics. Methods: We conducted an online cross-sectional study among 236 Vietnamese young people. A exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the best fit model of the Transactional eHealth Literacy Instrument. A confirmatory factor analysis tested measurement invariance at four levels: configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance. Only metric invariance was partially invariant, while the rest tested fully invariant. Even with partial metric invariance, there is reason to assume that functional, communicative, critical, and translational eHealth literacy (the four levels according to the transactional model) are consistently measured when deploying the Transactional eHealth Literacy Instrument across groups. Results: The study findings substantiate that the most optimal composition of the TeHLI consists of four factors: functional, communicative, critical, and translational eHealth literacy, with RMSEA = 0.116; CFI = 0.907, and the highest internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.91, 0.92, 0.88, and 0.92 for each factor respectively). After using measurement invariance, that gender, education, marital status, age, location, and household economy do not influence the way participants to respond to the TeHLI to the point that would introduce measurement bias. In other word, using TeHLI across population groups should not produce error margins that substantially differ from each other. Conclusions: This study suggests the instrument can be used for comparisons across groups and has the potential to generate high-quality data usable for informing change agents as to whether a particular population is proficient enough to adopt novel eHealth innovations.

Scholarly literature in HIV-related lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies: A bibliometric analysis.

Introduction: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people are marginalized and understudied. Analyzing research activity worldwide is vital to better understand their needs in confronting the HIV epidemic. This study aimed to evaluate the global literature to identify the research collaboration, content, and tendency in HIV-related issues among the LGBT populations. Methods: Peer-reviewed original articles and reviews were achieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Country's collaborations and co-occurrence of most frequent terms were illustrated by VOSviewer software. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and the linear regression model were utilized to uncover the hidden topics and examine the research trend. Results: From 1990 to 2019, a total of 13,096 publications were found. Stigma, sexual risk behaviors and HIV testing were the major topics in the LGBT research during the study period. Among 15 topics, topics about HIV/Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) prevalence, Outcomes of HIV/AIDS care and treatment, and Opportunistic infections in HIV-positive LGBT people showed decreasing attention over years, while other topics had a slight to moderate increase. Discussion: Our study underlined the exponential growth of publications on the LGBT population in HIV research, and suggested the importance of performing regional collaborations in improving research capacity. Moreover, further research should focus on examining the manner to increase the coverage of HIV testing and treatment, as well as implement HIV-interventions with low cost and easy to scale-up.

Preference and Willingness to Pay for the Regular COVID-19 Booster Shot in the Vietnamese Population: Theory-Driven Discrete Choice Experiment.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 booster vaccination rate has declined despite the wide availability of vaccines. As COVID-19 is becoming endemic and charges for regular booster vaccination are being introduced, measuring public acceptance and the willingness to pay for regular COVID-19 boosters is ever more crucial. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to (1) investigate public acceptance for regular COVID-19 boosters, (2) assess the willingness to pay for a COVID-19 booster shot, and (3) identify factors associated with vaccine hesitancy. Our results will provide crucial insights into and implications for policy response as well as the development of a feasible and effective vaccination campaign during Vietnam's waning vaccine immunity period. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 871 Vietnamese online participants from April to August 2022. An online questionnaire based on the discrete choice experiment (DCE) design was developed, distributed using the snowball sampling method, and subsequently conjointly analyzed on the Qualtrics platform. A history of COVID-19 infection and vaccination, health status, willingness to vaccinate, willingness to pay, and other factors were examined. RESULTS: Among the participants, 761 (87.4%) had received or were waiting for a COVID-19 booster shot. However, the willingness to pay was low at US $8.02, and most participants indicated an unwillingness to pay (n=225, 25.8%) or a willingness to pay for only half of the vaccine costs (n=222, 25.4%). Although information insufficiency and a wariness toward vaccines were factors most associated with the unwillingness to pay, long-term side effects, immunity duration, and mortality rate were the attributes the participants were most concerned with during the vaccine decision-making period. Participants who had children less than 18 years old in their homes infected with COVID-19 had a lower willingness to pay (odds ratio [OR] 0.54, 95% CI 0.39-0.74). Respondents who had children under 12 years old in their family who received at least 1 vaccine dose had a higher willingness to pay (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.12-3.66). The burden of medical expenses (OR 0.33, 95% CI 0.25-0.45) and fear of the vaccine (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.86-1.00) were negative factors associated with the level of willingness to pay. CONCLUSIONS: A significant inconsistency between high acceptance and a low willingness to pay underscores the role of vaccine information and public trust. In addition to raising awareness about the most concerning characteristics of the COVID-19 booster, social media and social listening should be used in collaboration with health professionals to establish a 2-way information exchange. Work incentives and suitable mandates should continue to encourage workforce participation. Most importantly, all interventions should be conducted with informational transparency to strengthen trust between the public and authorities.

Global Mapping of Interventions to Improve Quality of Life of Patients with Cancer: A Protocol for Literature Mining and Meta-Analysis.

Cancer led to nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). Consequently, both biomedical therapeutics and psychological interventions have been implemented to decrease the burden of this non-communicable disease. However, the research conducted so far has only described some aspects of these interventions, which may increase the health-related quality of life of cancer patients. Therefore, a systematic review is necessary to depict an overall picture of the cancer interventions globally. Then, the impact of these interventions on the preference-based health-related quality of life of cancer patients may be synthesized. The protocol is developed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. The Web of Science database is used to retrieve the literature using four keyword terms: quality of life (QoL), cancer, interventions, and health utility. Then, we draw the global mapping diagram and conduct the meta-analysis for this research. Additionally, longitudinal measurements are used to estimate the changes in the health utility of patients during the interventions. Thus, this systematic review can provide insight into the impact of interventions on increasing the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of cancer patients.

Determinants of mental health among youths and adolescents in the digital era: Roles of cyber and traditional bullying, violence, loneliness, and environment factors.

Introduction: Although the pathogenesis of depressive disorders is not fully elucidated, untreated adolescent depression can lead to serious sequelae such as impaired academic performance and social functioning, substance use disorders, poor self-esteem, and increased risk for suicidal ideation and attempts. Literature on adolescent mental health in Vietnam is limited, despite increased international awareness of this critical issue. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and associations of depressive symptoms in Vietnamese adolescents. Methods: A cross-sectional, self-administered survey was conducted in five provinces of Vietnam among adolescents aged 14 to 24 years. In addition to collecting participants' demographics, a structured questionnaire was developed to examine depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, loneliness, and cyberbullying victimization. Depressive symptoms and loneliness were assessed via the PHQ-9 and UCLA Loneliness Scale, respectively. Two-tailed Chi-squared, Mann-Whitney, and Kruskal-Wallis tests were performed to examine associations between variables. Multivariate Logistic regression models were conducted to examine the associations between prior-defined variables and positive depressive symptoms. Results: Among 1,600 respondents, 31.8% of participants reported having mild-moderate or severe depressive symptoms. Participants within the moderate-severe depressive symptom group had significantly lower community cohesion scores than those of participants in normal and mild depressive symptom groups (p < 0.05). Youths living alone were more likely to have moderate-severe depressive symptoms (OR 2.16; 95% CI: 1.09-4.25). Cyberbullying had significant associations with depressive severity (OR 1.93; 95% CI 1.38-2.70). Conclusion: The findings of this study characterize various risk and protective factors for depression in Vietnamese youths and adolescents. The results highlight the importance of raising awareness and increasing access to educational resources for depression and other mental health illnesses. With the rising prevalence of depression, parents, teachers, and community leaders play a vital role in addressing mental health problems in adolescents.

A Review of the Effectiveness, Feasibility, and Acceptability of Art Therapy for Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Art therapy has been widely offered to reduce symptoms of psychological disturbance. Pooled evidence about its effectiveness in epidemic contexts, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, has not been yet established. This study reviewed the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of art therapy on children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic and past epidemics. We searched PubMed/Medline, PsycINFO, CENTRAL (Cochrane Library), and CINAHL for articles on art therapy during COVID-19. Included studies reported improvements in measures of mental health, sleep quality, and psychological well-being in children with or without disabilities in the epidemic context. Results also showed that art therapy was highly feasible and accepted by children and adolescents as well as their families during epidemics in reviewed studies. Art therapy can be effective at improving various aspects of mental health, sleep quality, and psychological well-being. More empirical evidence is needed with larger sample sizes and longer duration of interventions.

Evolution of Interdisciplinary Approaches Among Research-Oriented Universities in Vietnam Toward a Modern Industrial Economy: Exploratory Study.

BACKGROUND: Vietnam's 2045 development plan requires thorough reforms in science and technology, which underlines the role of research-oriented universities in generating and transforming knowledge. Understanding the current research performance and productivity in Vietnam is important for exploiting future agendas. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the growth patterns and collaborations in the scientific publications of Vietnam. METHODS: Data on documents in the Web of Science Core Collection database were searched and extracted to examine the research performance in Vietnam. Publication growth patterns in both quantity and quality were examined. The evolution of research disciplines and collaboration networks were also analyzed. Trends in the growth in the number of publications, citations, and average citations per publication between 1966 and 2020 were presented. Temporal tendencies of the 10 most productive research areas in each period were illustrated. VOSviewer software was used to analyze the discipline network, country network, and institution networks. The trends and the geographical distribution of the number of publications and citations were analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 62,752 documents in 8354 different sources from 1966 to 2020 were retrieved. A substantial growth was observed in the Vietnamese scientific output during this period, which was mainly research with international collaboration. Natural sciences such as mathematics, materials science, and physics were the top 3 most productive research fields during 1966-2020 in Vietnam, followed by experimental research fields such as multidisciplinary sciences, plant sciences, public, environmental, and occupational health. In 1966-2020, there was the emergence of multidisciplinary research-oriented universities in both public and private sectors along with a significant increase in the number of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary publications. Although the scientific quality has improved, these publications are still of mostly medium quality as they are concentrated in middle-ranking journals. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the notable growth in research performance in terms of both quality and quantity in Vietnam from 1966 to 2020. Building multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research agenda, developing networks of local and international researchers for addressing specific local issues, improving the participation of private sectors, and developing science and technology mechanisms are critical for boosting the research productivity in Vietnam.

Factor Structures of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Instruments in Exploring Depressive Symptoms of Suburban Population.

Background: This study aims to examine the psychometric properties of the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and assess the relationship between the PHQ-9 domain and demographics and health behaviors in Vietnamese people. Materials and Methods: The PHQ9 was administered to 899 participants. Exploratory factor and reliability analyses were performed. Tobit regression and Ordered logistic regression were further performed to determine factors associated with the PHQ-9 score and characteristics of depression. Results: The 2-factor model of PHQ-9, including factor 1 "Somatic" and factor 2 "Cognitive/Affective," showed good psychometric properties. The Cronbach's alpha value showed high internal consistency in two factors (0.84 and 0.80, respectively). Gender, health behavior exercising, drinking, and health status had associations with both factors of the PHQ-9 model. Conclusion: The PHQ-9 scale is a valid and reliable instrument to assess depression in the Vietnam population. This scale can be a useful screening tool for depression; however, further validation studies in other populations are required.