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Background and Aim: The COVID-19 pandemic has plagued our lives for more than 2 years, and the preference for convalescent plasma (CP) as a life-saving treatment since CP has proven as a potential therapeutic option for acute COVID-19 patients who were suffering from severe disease. It is important to identify which factors are associated with plasma donation. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the associated factors for CP donation to COVID-19 patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted online from December 21, 2021 to February 15, 2022 to identify different socio-demographic factors and knowledge related to CP donation. People who recovered from the COVID-19 infections and those who are willing to participate were included in the study. A total of 60 participants were included in the study. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation matrix, and factor analysis. Results: The analysis results confirm that 41.67% (n = 25) of the participants aged 26-30 years; among the recovered patients, only about 23% (n = 14) of the participants donated plasma. Though 97% (n = 58) of the participants agreed to donate plasma when it will be needed, however, when someone asked to donate plasma then 76.67% (n = 46) of the patients declined it. Findings depict that gender had a weak positive relationship with ever decline in plasma donation at 5% level of significance and the age of the participants inversely related to plasma donation. Conclusion: Almost all the recovered participants were willing to donate plasma, however, due to a lack of knowledge and misconception, relatively few people actually did. This study reemphasizes the importance of health education to overcome the misconception about plasma donation, which is crucial for the treatment of COVID-19 infection.
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Aim: The COVID-19 pandemic drove the Government of Bangladesh to shut down educational institutions, which had an enormous effect on the psychological health of students. This study aimed to assess the mental health status of Bangladeshi university students during the lockdown period. Subject and methods: Through an online-based questionnaire, information was collected from 509 university students of Bangladesh from June 19, 2020, to June 28, 2020, using convenient sampling. K-means clustering was applied to organize students according to their psychological health score, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was also conducted to determine the association among the student's activities and their mental health during the pandemic. In addition, these associations were examined through chi-square test and ordinal logistic regression. Results: Students were categorized into four categories where 4.32% had mild, 72.7% had moderate, 12.57% had moderately severe, and 10.41% suffered from severe mental health imbalance. The results showed that having family members affected by the coronavirus, facing insecurity, using social media, and smoking habits increased the mental health imbalances of students; in contrast, being worried about studying, future career, spending more time with family members, and participation in household chores reduced the mental health disturbances of students. On the other hand, the results of the ordinal logistic regression indicated that sleeping time and participation in household chores were preventive factors for students. Conclusion: This study reveals that a large proportion of University students of Bangladesh suffered from mental health disturbances during the lockdown period. Implementing mental health plans and providing job security, improved communication approaches toward family members, not flattening illusive news, and preoccupation in household activities may assist to enhance the mental health status of the university students. The authors believe that this study's findings will be helpful to expedite the rate of attaining the sustainable development goal associated with health status in Bangladesh.
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Despite the pandemic, the Government of Bangladesh decided to keep the banks open to a limited extent to keep the country's economy afloat. The aim of this study is to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19 among the bankers who are usually more exposed to random people that put them at great risk to be affected. A total of 248 bankers willingly answered our questionnaire consisting of DASS-21 and relevant questions. Cronbach's reliability coefficient for the DASS-21 scale ranges from 0.84 to 0.90 which advocates that DASS-21 scales are highly reliable measures for this study. Results show that among participants, 11.1% were severe to extremely stressed, 10.6% of bankers were severe to extremely anxious, and 12.1% of them were severe to extremely depressed. The study illustrated, among the Bankers whose colleagues were infected (B=2.251, 95% CI: - 1.473, 3.029), who smoking more (B= 1.505, 95% CI: 0.411, 2.599), who wake up from sleep having a bad dreams (B = 1.018, 95% CI: 0.057, 1.979), their fear of getting infected (B = 1.717, 95% CI: 0.392, 3.04), who use public transportation (B = 1.378, 95% CI: 0.430, 2.236), who misbehave with family members (B = 1.033, 95% CI: 0.071, 1.995) and who beaten children (B = 1.210, 95% CI: 0.141, 2.279) were responsible for higher stress, depression and anxiety scores respectively. Whereas, taking nutritious food (B = -0.229, 95% CI: -0.30, 1.763), doing physical exercises (B = -0.325, 95% CI: -1.158, 0.508) reduced depression, stress and anxiety scores. The authors believed that the result of the study will be beneficial for the government and its policymakers to take psychological intervention strategies and to make certain sufficient corporal settlement of the banking professionals.
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People living in urban areas are usually more aware of their health issues due to the availability and accessibility of health care facilities. Several studies have illustrated anxiousness, attitudes, and perceptions among urban people during COVID-19. This research attempted to assess how worriedness among rural adults may promote COVID-19 related awareness in Bangladesh. A cross-sectional online survey of 311 respondents aged 18 or greater was conducted through Facebook focusing only on the people living in rural areas. The survey included a consent form and requested demographic as well as pandemic related information in a three-section questionnaire from the respondents. We used the chi-square test statistic for bivariate analysis and the binary logistic regression model along with some tools to validate the model to analyze the impact of worriedness on awareness. The bivariate result showed a significant association among regular hand washing ( p = . 007 ) , knowledge about the proper amount of time for washing one's hands effectively ( p = . 004 ) , rules of social distancing ( p = . 00 ) , and education level ( p = . 046 ) with our outcome variable worriedness. From our binary logistic regression model fitting, it emerged that the females ( p = .032, OR = .729) who regularly wash their hands (0R = .393, p = .023), know the rules of social distancing for "yes" (0R = 14.525, p < .01), and "no" groups (0R = 5.518, p < .01), and age groups (18-27, 28 to 37, 38 to 47) were more worried. Results from our modeling justify an accuracy of 73.08%, a sensitivity of 93.71%, and a specificity of 29.33% with Cohen's kappa statistic = .2716, suggesting a fair model fitting. This study shows that the current COVID-19 situation created awareness among females and adults aged between 18 to 47 years in rural Bangladesh.
