A longitudinal assessment of appetite loss and nutritional care among postoperative patients in Vietnam.

Background: Post-operative appetite loss is an important complication affecting surgical outcomes. It has been estimated that nearly 60% of patients having gastrointestinal or major elective surgeries suffer from malnutrition. Appetite refers to the physical desire for food appetite, and losing appetite after surgery may result in a decrease in body weight, impairment of intestinal absorption and eventually, malnutrition among postoperative patients. This study aims to assess appetite status and other relevant factors among abdominal postoperative patients in Vietnam. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 169 abdominal postoperative patients from June 1st to August 30th, 2016 at Hanoi Medical University Hospital, Hanoi, Vietnam. Appetite score was computed by using the Council on Nutrition Appetite Questionnaire (CNAQ). This study used GEE to account for the potential correlation of outcomes of the longitudinal assessment, assuming an independent correlation structure. Results: The primary and secondary outcome measures: highest average appetite score was recorded in the preoperative day and the score declined throughout seven-day duration. Patients who were female, under general anesthetics and being under open surgery tended to get lower appetite scores. The majority of patients had moderate to good appetite in both the preoperative day and seven days post-operation. Conclusion: Women should receive more care and help in regaining their appetite after surgery. Treatment for appetite loss through non-pharmaceutical measures should be prioritized. Interventions that increase the appetite of patients after abdominal surgery should be targeted on patients being under general anesthetic as well as open surgery and be undertaken with caution.

Corrigendum: Interdisciplinary Assessment of Hygiene Practices in Multiple Locations: Implications for COVID-19 Pandemic Preparedness in Vietnam.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.589183.].

COVID-19 Preparedness and Response: Validation of a Rapid Assessment Tool to Evaluate Priorities of Health Workers at the Grassroots Level.

Since the initial phases of the COVID-19 outbreak, international recommendations for disease control have been readily available. However, blind implementation of these recommendations without grassroot-level support could result in public distrust and low adherence. This study evaluated the use of a public health priorities survey to rapidly assess perceptions of local health workers. A cross-sectional study using a web-based survey was conducted among 5,847 health workers and medical students from January to February 2020 to evaluate the level of prioritization of various public health measures. Measures with the highest levels of prioritization were "Early prevention, environmental sanitation, and improvement of population health" and "Mobilization of community participation in disease control," which were concordant with policies implemented by the Vietnamese government. This study also demonstrated a high level of internal validity among survey items and shared ranking of priorities among all occupational groups. The use of this public health priorities survey was found to be effective in identifying priorities as identified by grassroots health workers to provide real-time feedback to the national government. However, future iterations of this survey should consider limiting the use of each prioritization score to ensure that responses represent the reality of source limitations and consider focusing on medical professionals and community workers due medical students' limited experience with Vietnam's healthcare infrastructure.

Interdisciplinary Assessment of Hygiene Practices in Multiple Locations: Implications for COVID-19 Pandemic Preparedness in Vietnam.

Due to the shared border with China, Vietnam faced risks from the COVID-19 pandemic at the early stages of the outbreak. Good hygiene practices were considered an effective prevention method, but there were only minimal data on the effectiveness of hygiene practices against the pandemic at the community level. Thus, this study aims to assess hygiene practices in society by using a community-based survey. A cross-sectional study using survey monkey was conducted from December 2019 to February 2020. The Snowball sampling technique was used to recruit participants and exploratory factor analysis was applied to scrutinize the construct validity of the measurement. We used the Tobit regression model to assess the association. Hygiene in a high-risk environment and hygiene in the social and educational environment were two main factors after applying the EFA method. Participants grade community sanitation quite low (around 6 out of 10). Furthermore, the mean score of hygiene practice at a local level in a high-risk environment was slightly low at 6.0. The score of sanitation in the Central region (5.3) was quite low compared to the North (5.8) and the South (6.2). The most high-risk environment was construction, industrial zone and food safety. Moreover, younger respondents were more likely to report poorer hygiene practices in high-risk environments (Coefficient = -1.67; 95% CI = -3.03; -0.32) and social and educational environment (Coefficient = -1.29; 95% CI = -2.54; -0.04). Our study gives an insight into pandemic preparedness at the grassroots level. The findings suggest the necessity of specific communication education for society to improve the compliance of hygiene practices to prevent the spreading of COVID-19.

Global Evolution of Obesity Research in Children and Youths: Setting Priorities for Interventions and Policies.

BACKGROUND: Childhood obesity has become a major global epidemic that causes substantial social and health burdens worldwide. The effectiveness of childhood obesity control and prevention depends largely on understanding the issue, including its current development and associated factors in a contextualized perspective. OBJECTIVES: Our study aimed to gauge this kind of understanding. METHODS: We systematically searched the Web of Science database for studies concerning child obesity published up to 2017 and analyzed the volume of publications, growth rates, impact scores, collaborations, authors, affiliations, and journals. A total of 57,444 research papers were included. RESULTS: The three subject categories with the highest number of papers (over 3,000) were (1) nutrition and dietetics, (2) pediatrics, and (3) public, environmental, and occupational health. We found a dramatic increase in the amount of scientific literature on childhood obesity in the past one or two decades, led by scholars from the USA - ranking at the top regarding the total number of papers (23,965 papers; 30.8%) and total number of citations (859,793 citations) - and multiple Western countries where the obesity epidemic is prevalent. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight the need for improving international and local research capacities and collaboration to accelerate knowledge production and translation into contextualized and effective childhood obesity prevention.