Willingness to Embrace COVID-19 Vaccination Amongst Residents in a Low-Income Nation: Insights From a Cross-Sectional Study on a Limited Cohort.

The global pandemic had a significant impact on countries around the world, both politically and socioeconomically. It is crucial that swift decisions and actions need to be taken to prevent negative outcomes. The development of vaccines has emerged as a potential necessity for countries worldwide. Ethiopia began vaccinating health professionals and high-risk individuals in March 2021, according to a report from the World Health Organization citing the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health. This study aimed to assess the determinants of willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine among Debre Markos city administration residents. A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed to recruit 845 individuals as a sample. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used as statistical analysis techniques. Among the total 845 samples, the overall response rate was 98.34%. Two hundred forty-two participants showed their willingness to receive vaccines. Age (AOR = 2.56; 95%CI = [1.87-3.23]), sex (Female) (AOR = 3.45; 95% CI = [2.07-5.26]), having children (AOR = 1.21; 95% CI = [1.02-1.90]), and Chronic Disease (AOR = 2.98; 95% CI = [1.67-3.50]) were significantly and positively associated with willingness to receive COVID 19 vaccines at 95% CI. Although most of the participants were aware of the possibility of COVID-19 to cause fever; and its transmission, only a small percentage of the total participants showed their willingness to receive the vaccine if it was available to them. Elderly and individuals with chronic diseases need to get a priority of taking those vaccinations.

Treatment outcomes and associated factors among chronic ambulatory heart failure patients at Jimma Medical Center, South West Ethiopia: prospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: Heart failure has been one of the major causes of hospitalization across the world. Focusing on the treatment outcomes of ambulatory heart failure patients will reduce the burden of heart failure such as hospitalization and improve patient quality of life. Even if research is conducted on acute heart failure patients, there is limited data about treatment outcomes of chronic ambulatory heart failure patients. Therefore, this study aimed to assess treatment outcomes and associated factors of chronic ambulatory heart failure patients at Jimma Medical Center, South West Ethiopia. METHODS: A hospital-based prospective observational study was conducted on 242 chronic ambulatory heart failure patients at Jimma Medical Center from November 2020 to June 2021. The data were collected with pretested data collection format, and analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 23. Both univariate and multivariate logistic regression model were used to identify factors associated with treatment outcomes of outpatient heart failure, and with a reported p value < 0.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) was considered statistical significance. RESULT: From 242 patients, 126 (52.1%) were males and 121 (50.0%) patients were aged between 45 and 65 years. Regarding treatment outcomes, 51 (21.1%) of patients were hospitalized, and 58 (24.0%) and 28 (11.6%) of patients had worsened and improved clinical states respectively. Clinical inertia [AOR = 2.820; 95% CI (1.301, 6.110), p = 0.009], out-of-pocket payment [AOR = 2.790; 95% CI (1.261, 6.172), p = 0.011] and New York Heart Association class II [AOR = 2.534; 95% CI (1.170, 5.488), p = 0.018] were independent predictors of hospitalization. CONCLUSION: Hospitalization of ambulatory heart failure patients was relatively high. More than half of the patients had clinical inertia. And also, this study showed most ambulatory HF patients had inadequate self-care. Clinical inertia, out-of-pocket payment, and New York Heart Association class II were independent predictors of hospitalization in ambulatory heart failure patients. Therefore, it is better to give more attention to ambulatory heart failure patients to prevent hospitalization and the burden of heart failure.