A domain specific health-related quality of life of omani patients living with chronic wounds.

AIM: Chronic wounds, defined as wounds that do not heal in a logical set of stages, impact patients' quality of life by disrupting their self-esteem, sleep, social interaction, work capacity, and psychological well-being. Chronic wounds are a prevalent problem in Oman due to the high number of patients with diabetes, sickle cell disease, road traffic accidents, and decubitus ulcer. Therefore, it is paramount to analyse the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of these patients with chronic wounds. MATERIAL AND METHODS: An observational, cross-sectional, descriptive study with a quantitative approach was conducted among 275 adult patients with chronic wounds in three tertiary hospitals of Muscat from June to December 2021 using a self-reported Cardiff life wound impact questionnaire and the Bates-Jensen wound assessment tool. Data were analysed with IBM SPSS version 23 using inferential statistics and chi-square test. RESULTS: We found that the majority of participants were men (178; 64.7 %), aged between 41 and 60 years (107; 38.9 %), predominantly with diabetic wounds (80; 29.1 %). Respondents reported poor HRQOL across all domains: well-being (63.24 ± 18.092), physical (53.24 ± 18.387), and social (59.54 ± 19.025). Statistically significant poorer HRQOL was observed among the elderly above 60 years, illiterates, those with traumatic wounds, and those receiving medication and dressing as treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that Omani patients with chronic wounds experience low HRQOL. It is imperative for healthcare providers to offer comprehensive care to these patients. To enhance their quality of life and alleviate suffering, evaluating both the wounds and HRQOL is essential. Such assessments will enable the optimisation of treatment and coping strategies for patients.

Effects of Twitter use on academic performance and satisfaction in a pathophysiology course among Omani nursing students: a quasi-experimental study.

BACKGROUND: Nursing students often find bioscience courses, such as pathophysiology, challenging. Utilizing Twitter to provide concise course content and answer students' questions before exams may be beneficial. The objective of this study was to determine if using Twitter can improve nursing students' academic performance and satisfaction with pathophysiology courses. METHODS: A post-test, two-group quasi-experimental research design was employed in this study. It involved second-year Bachelor of Nursing students participating in a pathophysiology course at the College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University, in Muscat, Oman. Seventy-three second-year Bachelor of Nursing students participated in the pathophysiology course; 50 students opted to use Twitter, forming the experimental group, while the remaining 23, who chose not to use Twitter, formed the control group. We used Twitter to provide concise course content for the pathophysiology course and conduct one-hour question-and-answer sessions the night before exams. Academic performance was assessed through examination scores, and student satisfaction levels with Twitter was measured using five-point Likert scale questionnaires. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney and t-tests. RESULTS: Although there was no significant difference in final exam scores between the experimental and control groups, survey results showed that students were generally satisfied with the incorporation of Twitter in the pathophysiology course, including the question-and-answer sessions. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that Twitter can serve as a valuable tool for enhancing nursing student satisfaction with the pathophysiology course.

The Impact of the 2021 Cyclone Shaheen on the Mental Health of Affected Omanis.

Objectives: Nine strong cyclones have been recorded in Oman in the last 50 years, the last being tropical cyclone Shaheen in October 2021, in the northern Oman area. The aim of our study was to determine the relationship between property loss and the mental health of residents after cyclone Shaheen. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among Omani citizens living in areas affected by cyclone Shaheen three to six months post-cyclone. In an online, self-reported questionnaire, we assessed the loss of participants' properties due to the cyclone and the impact on their perceived mental health. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and associations between demographics, loss of properties, and mental health were performed. Results: Of 440 participants, 79.3% had their houses directly damaged by the cyclone and 90.7% had their outside properties damaged. Most of the respondents reported that they suffered from mental health symptoms in the months following the cyclone. Women, people with a lower socioeconomic status, the unemployed, and those without a university degree were associated with poorer mental health outcomes. Mental health was significantly lower for respondents whose properties were mostly affected by the cyclone. Conclusions: With scant knowledge about how cyclones directly affect Omanis' mental health, the results of this study are paramount for the planning of psychological care services to improve the country's response to extreme weather events.

A comparison of students' satisfaction, performance, and preferences regarding PowerPoint and PechaKucha presentations: A quasi-experimental study.

BACKGROUND: A deep understanding of pathophysiology is required to provide high-quality nursing care; however, many undergraduate nursing students have difficulty understanding concepts in this field. New pedagogical approaches are required to engage undergraduate nursing students in better methods to understanding pathophysiological concepts. Therefore, we incorporated oral presentation assignments into a bioscience course in which students were instructed to create PechaKucha and PowerPoint presentations to promote learning of diseases. OBJECTIVES: To assess and compare the satisfaction, academic performance, and preference of nursing students regarding the use of PechaKucha and PowerPoint in a pathophysiology course. DESIGN: A quasi-experimental design was used. The setting was a College of Nursing at a public university in Oman. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 109 second-year undergraduate nursing students in a convenience sample participated in this study. METHODS: As part of a graded individual assignment, students had to create two presentations about sickle cell disease and thalassemia, with one using PechaKucha and the other PowerPoint presentation formats. Students' satisfaction level with both methods was assessed using a Visual Analogue Scale, and their academic performance was evaluated using post-quizzes. A self-reported questionnaire was utilized to investigate students' preference for PowerPoint versus PechaKucha. RESULTS: The satisfaction level of the students was higher for PowerPoint than for PechaKucha (t(108) = 2.076, p = 0.040). However, students' performance was similar regardless of whether they had used PowerPoint or PechaKucha to prepare their presentations (t(108) = -0.323, p = 0.748). Finally, students who preferred PechaKucha indicated that it helps them to organize content and present concise information, while those who preferred PowerPoint expressed that it helps them apply their creativity. CONCLUSIONS: The PechaKucha presentation format might be engaging and pleasurable for the audience. However, nursing students were more satisfied with the traditional PowerPoint format when preparing their presentations. Therefore, nursing educators should be cautious when using PechaKucha for students' assignments.

Health-related Quality of Life of People with Multiple Sclerosis in Oman.

OBJECTIVES: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disabling neurological disorder with significant adverse effects on patients' quality of life (QoL). Despite the increased prevalence of MS in Arabian Gulf countries in recent years, no study has assessed the impact of MS on the health-related QoL (HRQoL) of Omani patients. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the impact of MS on HRQoL of Omani patients using the validated disease-specific self-administered MS International QoL (MusiQoL) instrument. METHODS: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional survey between April and December 2019 on 177 Omani patients with MS attending Sultan Qaboos University Hospital and Khoula Hospital in Oman using the MusiQoL instrument. RESULTS: The majority (51.4%) of patients had poor HRQoL, and 48.6% had moderate HRQoL. We found that being > 30 years, female, married, separated, widowed, or divorced, and having visual and sleep problems resulted in poorer HRQoL scores. Among the different HRQoL components, relationships with the healthcare system and relationships with family and friends were the most affected by the disease process. Our results also showed that psychological wellbeing and coping domains of MusiQoL questionnaires are significantly reduced in females compared to males. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the HRQoL of Omanis with MS provides valuable knowledge that could help optimize the management of this disease.

Using digital badges to enhance nursing students' attendance and motivation.

Absenteeism is an emerging issue in nursing education. Most nursing schools adopt a punitive rather than a motivational approach to its mitigation. Digital badges have recently been used to increase motivation in the classroom. This study reports on the effectiveness of digital badges in increasing attendance and motivation among Omani undergraduate nursing students. A descriptive comparative design was used to compare two groups during two consecutive semesters. The control group was subjected to the standard university penalties for unsatisfactory attendance, and the experimental group was rewarded with digital badges for satisfactory attendance. Findings demonstrated that the use of digital badges as a reward system improves undergraduate nursing students' attendance (X2 (1, N = 191) = 6.481, p = 0.011) and increases their motivation and satisfaction. Awarding digital badges is a simple and positive way to combat nursing student absenteeism, increase attendance-related motivation, and showcase regular class attendance.

Flipped classroom improves Omani nursing students performance and satisfaction in anatomy and physiology.

BACKGROUND: Nursing students struggle with anatomy and physiology course because of the complicated terminology and the difficulty in handling large amounts of information. New, innovative instructional strategies must be integrated into nursing education to improve nursing students' performance in this challenging bioscience course. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of an innovative teaching strategy, the flipped classroom, on the performance and satisfaction of Omani nursing students in an anatomy and physiology course. METHODS: A quasi-experimental design was used with two classes of 112 first-year nursing students at the College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Online videos and active-learning activities about the respiratory system were developed and implemented in an anatomy and physiology course with 53 first-semester nursing students. The control group consisted of a previous cohort of 59 students enrolled in the same course but taught with a traditional lecture approach. The impact of the flipped classroom strategy was measured by students' performance on the final examination and students' self-reported satisfaction. Wilcoxon signed-rank and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to compare students' academic performance. RESULTS: Our results showed that the performance of the flipped classroom group was better than that of the traditional lecture group. The mean scores of students instructed with the flipped classroom method on the respiratory system items in the final examination were significantly higher than those of the control group, U = 1089.00, z = - 2.789, p < .005. Moreover, the results of a survey showed that nursing students were satisfied with the flipped classroom method. Overall, 68 to 78% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the flipped classroom method improved their learning and increased their interest in the course. CONCLUSION: Compared with the didactic lecture format, flipped classroom strategy improved Omani nursing students' performance in and satisfaction with an anatomy and physiology course. These results show that the flipped classroom is an important teaching strategy in nursing education.

The Lived Experiences of Mothers Who Are Parenting Children With Leukemia.

BACKGROUND: Mothers parenting children with leukemia face innumerable challenges in meeting their own personal needs, as well as the needs of their ill child. OBJECTIVE: To explore the lived experiences of Omani mothers who are parenting children with leukemia, using interpretative phenomenological analysis design. METHODS: Data were collected from 10 mothers who were parenting children with leukemia who shared their experiences through a face-to-face recorded interview. Data were analyzed using the interpretative phenomenological analysis approach methods. RESULTS: Three main themes emerged from the mothers' experiences: (1) unexpected shocking diagnosis; (2) life is not the same anymore; and (3) viable support systems. Mothers found their child's diagnosis to be shocking and terrifying. The diagnosis and treatment cast a shadow on the mothers' lives. Mothers abandoned their work and left their healthy children to their spouses. Mothers relied on other mothers also parenting children with cancer and on the support of the extended family and health team members to cope and prayed to God to help them overcome the calamity. CONCLUSION: The mothers perceived their life as changing immediately upon hearing their child's cancer diagnosis as they experienced a plethora of emotions. They sought support at various points during their child's illness to cope and overcome the challenges during the cancer treatment journey. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Pediatric oncology nurses can support mothers during their transition to caring for a child with leukemia and can provide the needed support to reduce maternal distress and increase effective coping with the challenges.

Long-term effects of interference on short-term memory performance in the rat.

A distinction has always been made between long-term and short-term memory (also now called working memory, WM). The obvious difference between these two kinds of memory concerns the duration of information storage: information is supposedly transiently stored in WM while it is considered durably consolidated into long-term memory. It is well acknowledged that the content of WM is erased and reset after a short time, to prevent irrelevant information from proactively interfering with newly stored information. In the present study, we used typical WM radial maze tasks to question the brief lifespan of spatial WM content in rodents. Groups of rats were submitted to one of two different WM tasks in a radial maze: a WM task involving the repetitive presentation of a same pair of arms expected to induce a high level of proactive interference (PI) (HIWM task), or a task using a different pair in each trial expected to induce a low level of PI (LIWM task). Performance was effectively lower in the HIWM group than in LIWM in the final trial of each training session, indicative of a "within-session/short-term" PI effect. However, we also observed a different "between-session/long-term" PI effect between the two groups: while performance of LIWM trained rats remained stable over days, the performance of HIWM rats dropped after 10 days of training, and this impairment was visible from the very first trial of the day, hence not attributable to within-session PI. We also showed that a 24 hour-gap across training sessions known to allow consolidation processes to unfold, was a necessary and sufficient condition for the long-term PI effect to occur. These findings suggest that in the HIWM task, WM content was not entirely reset between training sessions and that, in specific conditions, WM content can outlast its purpose by being stored more permanently, generating a long-term deleterious effect of PI. The alternative explanation is that WM content could be transferred and stored more permanently in an intermediary form or memory between WM and long-term memory.

Differential changes in hippocampal CaMKII and GluA1 activity after memory training involving different levels of adaptive forgetting.

Phosphorylation of CaMKII and AMPA receptor GluA1 subunit has been shown to play a major role in hippocampal-dependent long-term/reference memory (RM) and in the expression of long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP). In contrast, it has been proposed that dephosphorylation of these proteins could be involved in the opposite phenomenon of hippocampal long-term synaptic depression (LTD) and in adaptive forgetting. Adaptive forgetting allows interfering old memories to be forgotten to give new ones the opportunity to be stored in memory, and in particular in short-term/working memory (WM) that was shown to be very sensitive to proactive interference. To determine the role of CaMKII and GluA1 in adaptive forgetting, we adopted a comparative approach to assess the relative quantity and phosphorylation state of these proteins in the brain of rats trained in one of three radial maze paradigms: a RM task, a WM task involving a high level of adaptive forgetting, or a WM involving a low level of adaptive forgetting. Surprisingly, Western blot analyses revealed that training in a WM task involving a high level of adaptive forgetting specifically increased the expression of AMPA receptor GluA1 subunit and the activity of CaMKII in the dentate gyrus. These results highlight that WM with proactive interference involves mechanisms of synaptic plasticity selectively in the dentate gyrus.

Levels of Interference in Long and Short-Term Memory Differentially Modulate Non-REM and REM Sleep.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: It is commonly accepted that sleep is beneficial to memory processes, but it is still unclear if this benefit originates from improved memory consolidation or enhanced information processing. It has thus been proposed that sleep may also promote forgetting of undesirable and non-essential memories, a process required for optimization of cognitive resources. We tested the hypothesis that non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREMS) promotes forgetting of irrelevant information, more specifically when processing information in working memory (WM), while REM sleep (REMS) facilitates the consolidation of important information. METHODS: We recorded sleep patterns of rats trained in a radial maze in three different tasks engaging either the long-term or short-term storage of information, as well as a gradual level of interference. RESULTS: We observed a transient increase in REMS amount on the day the animal learned the rule of a long-term/reference memory task (RM), and, in contrast, a positive correlation between the performance of rats trained in a WM task involving an important processing of interference and the amount of NREMS or slow wave activity. Various oscillatory events were also differentially modulated by the type of training involved. Notably, NREMS spindles and REMS rapid theta increase with RM training, while sharp-wave ripples increase with all types of training. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that REMS, but also rapid oscillations occurring during NREMS would be specifically implicated in the long-term memory in RM, whereas NREMS and slow oscillations could be involved in the forgetting of irrelevant information required for WM.

REM Sleep-Dependent Bidirectional Regulation of Hippocampal-Based Emotional Memory and LTP.

Prolonged rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep deprivation has long been used to study the role of REM sleep in learning and memory processes. However, this method potentially induces stress and fatigue that may directly affect cognitive functions. Here, by using a short-term and nonstressful REM sleep deprivation (RSD) method we assessed in rats the bidirectional influence of reduced and increased REM sleep amount on hippocampal-dependent emotional memory and plasticity. Our results indicate that 4 h RSD impaired consolidation of contextual fear conditioning (CFC) and induction of long-term potentiation (LTP), while decreasing density of Egr1/Zif268-expressing neurons in the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus. LTP and Egr1 expression were not affected in ventral CA1. Conversely, an increase in REM sleep restores and further facilitates CFC consolidation and LTP induction, and also increases Egr1 expression in dorsal CA1. Moreover, CFC consolidation, Egr1 neuron density, and LTP amplitude in dorsal CA1 show a positive correlation with REM sleep amount. Altogether, these results indicate that mild changes in REM sleep amount bidirectionally affect memory and synaptic plasticity mechanisms occurring in the CA1 area of the dorsal hippocampus.

Differential Involvement of the Dentate Gyrus in Adaptive Forgetting in the Rat.

How does the brain discriminate essential information aimed to be stored permanently from information required only temporarily, and that needs to be cleared away for not saturating our precious memory space? Reference Memory (RM) refers to the long-term storage of invariable information whereas Working Memory (WM) depends on the short-term storage of trial-unique information. Previous work has revealed that WM tasks are very sensitive to proactive interference. In order to prevent such interference, irrelevant old memories must be forgotten to give new ones the opportunity to be stabilized. However, unlike memory, physiological processes underlying this adaptive form of forgetting are still poorly understood. Here, we precisely ask what specific brain structure(s) could be responsible for such process to occur. To answer this question, we trained rats in a radial maze using three paradigms, a RM task and two WM tasks involving or not the processing of interference but strictly identical in terms of locomotion or motivation. We showed that an inhibition of the expression of Zif268 and c-Fos, two indirect markers of neuronal activity and synaptic plasticity, was observed in the dentate gyrus of the dorsal hippocampus when processing such interfering previously stored information. Conversely, we showed that inactivating the dentate gyrus impairs both RM and WM, but improves the processing of interference. Altogether, these results strongly suggest for the first time that the dentate gyrus could be a key structure involved in adaptive forgetting.