Health-related quality of life associated with different cervical cancer therapies received by patients in two Nigerian tertiary hospitals.

Background: There are important consequences from cervical cancer (CC) disease and its treatment among survivors, especially the impact on quality of life (QoL). Objective: To evaluate the health-related QoL associated with different CC therapies received by patients in two Nigerian tertiary hospitals. Methods: This study employed a prospective longitudinal design. It was conducted at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto and Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria, North-Western Nigeria. Data of all the 157 eligible CC patients were collected at baseline and after therapy. Data analysis was done with appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS V. 20 for windows. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Chemotherapy (CT) was the major therapy option received by 78(49.7%) of the patients. Patients who received chemoradiation therapy (CRT) and adjuvant chemotherapy (CTS) had the highest increase in mean overall health-related QoL of 0.138 (t=8.456, p<0.001) and 0.138 (t=6.489, p<0.001) higher than their respective baseline scores. Patients who received CT had the least increase in mean overall health-related QoL of 0.095 (t=4.574, p<0.001) from baseline. Conclusion: Chemoradiation therapy and adjuvant chemotherapy were associated with highest increase in mean overall health-related QoL. Chemotherapy was associated with the least increase in mean overall health-related QoL.

Development and reliability testing of a cervical cancer patients knowledge and practice of self-care management of treatment-related adverse events questionnaire.

INTRODUCTION: Cervical cancer (CC) treatment-related adverse events (AEs) were found to be among the major reasons for treatments delays and medication non-adherence. Knowledge and practice of self-care management of these AEs are therefore needed to complement the pharmacotherapeutic interventions. Instruments for assessing CC patients' knowledge and practice of self-care management of treatment-related Adverse Events (AEs) are lacking. Hence, the rational for this study. METHODS: A prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on CC patients receiving chemotherapy, radiotherapy or both, with or without surgery in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) Sokoto, a tertiary hospital in North-Western Nigeria. A panel of 14 experts judged the content validity of the items initially selected. Purposive sampling technique was used, 31 CC patients were recruited and interviewed for the questionnaire pre-testing. Descriptive statistics and psychometric analysis were conducted using SPSS Version 20.0 for Windows. A Cronbach's alpha coefficient ≥0.70 was considered acceptable. RESULTS: A 12-domain questionnaire instrument was developed. Eight (57.1%) of the expert panelists rated the questions' items as "Very good for the study" and none of them rated any of the content "not relevant for the study". The reliability studies showed that the overall knowledge and practice questions response rates were 71.0% and 77.4% and Cronbach's alpha (α) values were 0.956 and 0.913, respectively. CONCLUSION: A reliable, 12-domain cervical cancer patients' knowledge and practice of self-care management of treatment-related adverse events questionnaire was developed. Further research on the psychometric qualities of the instrument is needed.

The role of electricity consumption, capital, labor force, carbon emissions on economic growth: implication for environmental sustainability targets in Nigeria.

Despite consistent investments, grants, and other concessions in the power sector, nationwide power outages still remain an issue, even in 2020, disrupting business operations, contributing to huge recurrent expenses on generators and alternative sources of electricity in homes, businesses, and institutions. In this paper, we examine the role of electricity consumption on economic growth, while controlling for labor, capital, and carbon emissions, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and the novel dynamic ARDL (DYNARDL) simulation analysis over the periods 1981-2019. Empirical results show that electricity consumption, capital, and labor exert positive inelastic impacts, while carbon emissions exert negative inelastic significant impact on economic growth within the period under investigation. From policy standpoint, we are of the opinion that stable supply and consumption of electricity can possibly boost economic growth and engender social stability in Nigeria. Thus, there is a need to strengthen the effectiveness of power sector and its energy generating agencies by ensuring periodic replacement of worn-out equipment in terms of adequately financed and efficient labor in order to enhance the contribution of the sector on economic growth, while in terms of environmental degradation, policy makers should work towards promotion of green economy for a sustainable economic growth and environment in Nigeria.

Appraising the oil-stock nexus during the COVID-19 pandemic shock: a panel threshold analysis.

We examine the oil-stock nexus in 24 countries amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and test for threshold effects on oil prices using Hansen (1999) panel dynamic threshold model and recent extensions of Kremer et al. (2013) and Seo and Shin (2016). We find evidence of nonlinearities and threshold effects in oil prices. As an addition to literature, our estimated model shows that stock market prices react in a regime-style manner, when the joint effects of oil prices, exchange rate changes, number of reported cases, and the number of death due to COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed. This is in support of the theoretical model of investor sentiment by Barberis et al. (1998). Therefore, we are of the opinion that policymakers, governments, and investors in their business decision-making process should put into consideration and also observe changes in the global reported cases alongside the number of deaths and how oil prices are evolving, as the global economy is further affected by the COVID-19 pandemic shock.

The persistence of precious metals and oil during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a fractional integration and cointegration approach.

In this paper, the behavior of precious metals and oil is examined using a fractionally integrated and cointegrated modeling approach. Using daily data from January 2015 to December 2020 and using both endogenous and exogenous structural breaks, we examine the behavior of the related series before and during the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim of investigating whether the degree of persistence has changed since the onset of COVID-19. We found that precious metals and oil exhibit long memory and are mean reverting regardless of the sample considered as the fractional parameter d < 0.5. However, when structural breaks are taken into consideration, an increase in persistence is found during the COVID-19 as compared to the period before it. In addition, the fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive (FCVAR) model of Johansen and Nielsen (2010, 2012) is used to examine the existence of long-run relationship among precious metals and oil price. We find the integrated parameters at d < 0.5 for all samples except for the pre-COVID-19 sample. This highlights that the FCVAR is a better fit for the full sample and the COVID-19 and the COVID-19 pandemic period sub-samples, as the fractional parameter is d < 0.5 while the CVAR model is better fit for the pre-COVID-19 period where d> 0.5. Both cointegration techniques alongside the parameter stability tests lend support to the existence of a persistence and stable long-run relationships among the series irrespective of the sample period considered. Attendant policy recommendations for investors and policymakers are recommended.

Does interaction between technological innovation and natural resource rent impact environmental degradation in newly industrialized countries? New evidence from method of moments quantile regression.

As a contribution to the technological innovation-natural resource rent-environment literature, this study examines the technological innovation and natural resource rent in an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) multivariate framework. We employed reliable, robust, and efficient novel panel estimations methods on a sample of 10 newly industrialized countries (NICs) over the periods 1990 and 2018. To achieve our study objective, we employ the method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) approach to analyze the effects of the exogenous variables over the range of diverse quantiles of carbon emissions. Results generated from the MMQR mimic that of the three heterogeneous linear panel estimations (fully modified ordinary least square, the dynamic ordinary least square, and the fixed effects ordinary least square) in terms of the sign and magnitude. The result affirms the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in NICs across all quantiles (0.1-0.95). In addition, technological innovation and renewable energy consumption improve environmental quality in NICs across quantiles (0.1-0.95), while the joint impact of technological and natural resource rent mitigates environmental degradation from lower to higher quantiles (0.1-0.90). Moreover, technological innovation is found to exert an indirect favorable impact on the environment through the pathway of natural resources. Thus, technological innovation can be anticipated to enhance sustainable natural resources exploration in the NICs. In line with these crucial outcomes, this research proposes that the NICs should promote technological innovation, promote sustainable natural resource exploitation, and expedite economic expansion rates via the sustainable transformation of their production and consumption processes.