Delay in seeking healthcare for pneumonia and associated factors among mothers/caregivers of children aged 2-59 months in public health facilities in Nekemte town, Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Pneumonia is the most significant infectious disease and the predominant cause of death among under-five children (U5C) in low- and middle-income countries. It is the second leading cause of death in Ethiopia. Delay in seeking healthcare is one of the contributing factors to pneumonia-associated mortality. There is a limitation to the study aimed at identifying health-seeking behavior and risk factors in the western part of Ethiopia. The study aimed to determine the level of delay in seeking healthcare for pneumonia and associated factors among caregivers of U5C in public health facilities in Nekemte town, Ethiopia. METHODS: A health facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 1st March to 5thApril, 2022 using a structured interviewer-administered questionnaire to collect data from 410 caregivers of children aged 2-59 months. We used a systematic sampling technique for collecting the data. For analysis, data were entered into Epi Data version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 25. Binary logistic regression was used to identify the associated factors of delay in seeking healthcare for pneumonia at a p-value < 0.05 using a 95% confidence interval (CI) in multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: A proportion of delays in seeking healthcare for pneumonia among children aged 2-59 months is 62.2%. Rural residence (AOR = 2.77, CI:2.48-5.17), child aged ≥12 months (AOR = 5.4,95%CI:4.17-7.20), monthly income < 1000 Ethiopian birr (AOR = 6.11,95%CI:2.16-17.26,), not using health insurance (AOR = 8.93,95%CI:5.43-14.68), use of self-medication (AOR = 10.97,95%CI:1.85-65.3), poor knowledge (AOR = 4.63,95%CI: 1.35-15.9), perceiving illness due to pneumonia as mild (AOR = 14.97,95%CI:9.76-22.9) and no previous admission history (AOR = 2.85,95%CI:1.77-4.56) were significant factors for delay in seeking healthcare for pneumonia among children aged 2-59 months. CONCLUSION: The study emphasizes that caregivers' delay in seeking healthcare for pneumonia is high. Creating caregivers' awareness or providing adequate health education to develop early healthcare-seeking behavior and encouraging caregivers to use health insurance is essential.

Knowledge and Practice of Nurses and Associated Factors in Managing Neonatal Pain at Selected Public Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2020.

INTRODUCTION: Hospitalized neonates experience moderate to severe, acute or chronic pain. Recent study indicates that health care providers especially in developing countries have a knowledge and skills gap related to neonatal pain management. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the neonatal ICU nurses' knowledge and practice and factors associated with neonatal pain management at selected public hospital of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. METHODS: Facility-based cross-sectional study design was employed at four selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa, from April to May 2020. A simple random sampling method was used to recruit study participants using a semi-structured and self-administered questionnaire. The logistic regression model was used to identify the association, and odds ratio was used to test the strength of the associations between outcome and predictor variables. RESULTS: This study was conducted with 119 nursing staffs working in the neonatal intensive care unit with a 96.6% response rate. The study reveals that 68.7% of nurses had adequate knowledge and only 32.2% of them had good practice of neonatal pain management. There was a significant relationship between nurses' knowledge scores and receiving in-service training on neonatal pain management. Having an infant pain management policy in place, getting training on neonatal pain management and knowledge category were factors significantly associated with practice of nurses in neonatal pain management. DISCUSSION: According to the results of the current research, the majority (85.2%) of participants knew that the vital signs of new-borns can be affected by pain. However, only 60.9% of nurses considered pain as one of the vital signs in new-borns. This indicates that neonatal pain may not be assessed as frequently as a vital sign. And the finding reveals that nurses had poor practice but had adequate knowledge in managing neonatal pain. The respective hospitals and Ethiopian Ministry of Health should provide gap-filling training on neonatal pain management to the nurses.

Perceived Stress, Depression, and Associated Factors among Undergraduate Health Science Students at Arsi University in 2019 in Oromia, Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: A mental health problem is a significant cause of overall disease burden globally. Among this problem, stress and depression are the central problems observed among university students due to the transitional nature. Consequently, the problem has an adverse effect on the wellbeing and academic performance of students. OBJECTIVE: To assess perceived stress, depression, and associated factors among undergraduate health science students at Arsi University in 2019 in Oromia, Ethiopia. METHODS: An institutional-based cross-sectional study design on undergraduate health science students was employed for the study from February 25 to April 15, 2019. Data were collected by using a self-administered questionnaire of the perceived stress scale (PSS-14) item and Beck depression inventory 21 items. RESULT: All of the study subjects were between ages 18 and 30 with a mean age of 20.9 ± 1.83 standard deviation years. The current prevalence of perceived stress among study subjects was 63.5%. Age category, study year, pressure to maintain a good grade, practical attachment, lack of dormitory safety, and the financial problem were identified as significantly associated factors of perceived stress. In addition to this study, results also revealed that the prevalence of depression among students was 4.4% in which thinking about career future prospects was a significantly associated factor. CONCLUSION: Stress was a significant problem among study participants where a small proportion of study subjects presented with depression. Comprehensive counseling and guidance aligned with training on awareness creation were recommended.

Assessment of knowledge and practices of healthcare workers towards infection prevention and associated factors in healthcare facilities of West Arsi District, Southeast Ethiopia: a facility-based cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The prevention of healthcare associated infections is central to the provision of safe, high quality healthcare. Infections acquired in healthcare facilities are a major public health concern, contributing to increased morbidity, mortality, and cost in both developed and developing countries. Although most of these infections can be prevented with relatively inexpensive infection prevention and control measures in many developing countries, in sub-Saharan African healthcare facilities have no effective infection prevention programs. Additionally, there is limited information on healthcare worker infection prevention knowledge and practice in countries such as Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and practices of healthcare workers with respect to infection prevention and associated factors in healthcare facilities in southeast Ethiopia. METHODS: A facility-based cross-sectional study design was used to study healthcare workers in the southeast, Ethiopia. Multi-stage sampling was employed to select 680 healthcare workers from 30 randomly selected healthcare facilities. Data was collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were computed. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to identify factors associated with healthcare workers infection prevention knowledge and practice. RESULTS: A total of 648 healthcare workers participated in this study, for a response rate of 95.3%. Of these, 53.7% (95% CI: 49.8, 57.4%) and 36.3% (95% CI: 32.4, 40.1%) of the respondents were assessed as knowledgeable and reported safe infection prevention practices respectively. The likelihood of self-reporting safe infection prevention practice significantly increased if healthcare workers had received training (AOR = 5.31; 95% CI: 2.42,11.63) and had infection prevention guidelines available (AOR = 3.34; 95% CI: 1.65, 6.76). Healthcare workers were more likely to have infection prevention knowledge if they worked longer ten years or more (AOR = 3.41; 95% CI: 1.22, 9.55); worked in facilities with infection prevention committees (AOR = 1.78; 95% CI: 1.01, 3.13), had infection prevention guidelines available (AOR = 2.44; 95% CI: 1.45, 4.12); had training (AOR = 5.02; 95% CI: 1.45, 8.59). CONCLUSIONS: Inadequate infection prevention knowledge and unsafe practices were frequent among study participants, reflecting a potentially common problem at public healthcare facilities in southeast Ethiopia. Healthcare workers have better knowledge and safer practices if they had received infection prevention training and had infection prevention guidelines in their workplace. Interventions should be designed to consider these identified factors.