METHODS: This study employed cross-sectional, self-reported survey methodology. We used the 6-item Kessler screening scale (K6) to assess psychological distress (cutoff score ≥ 13, range 0-24, with higher scores indicating greater psychological distress). Participants self-reported their perceptions of whether they had been bullied at work and how frequently this occurred. A multivariate logistic regression was conducted with ever bullying and never bullying as dichotomous categories.
RESULTS: There were a total of 5235 participants (62.3% female). Participant ages ranged from 18 to 85, mean ± standard deviation (M ± SD): 33.88 ± 8.83. A total of 2045 (39.1%) participants reported ever being bullied. Of these, 731 (14.0%) reported being subject to at least occasional bullying, while another 194 (3.7%) reported it as a common occurrence. Across all income strata, mean scores for psychological distress were significantly higher for ever bullied employees (M ± SD: 8.69 ± 4.83) compared to those never bullied (M ± SD: 5.75 ± 4.49). Regression analysis indicated significant associations (p
METHODS: University and secondary school students from low-income households (N = 202) were involved in this cross-sectional study. Participants completed the Depression Literacy Questionnaire (D-Lit), General Help Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ), Mental Help Seeking Attitudes Scale (MHSAS), Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale (SSOSH), and Beliefs toward Mental Illness (BMI).
RESULTS: Mental help-seeking attitude had a significant relationship with self-stigma on seeking help (r = -.258, p
METHODS: A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted in a cohort of 469 consecutively recruited patients (aged ≥18 years) with various cancer types within 1 month of diagnosis at a single oncology referral center. Only patients who had significant psychological distress (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale total cutoff score ≥16) underwent the PTSD module of the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (SCID) at at 6-months follow-up. All patients completed the SCID at the 4-year follow-up assessment regardless of their initial Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale score.
RESULTS: In an analysis combining patients who had both full and subsyndromal PTSD, there was a 21.7% incidence of PTSD at the 6-month follow-up assessment (n = 44 of 203 SCID-interviewed patients), with rates dropping to 6.1% at the 4-year follow-up assessment (n = 15 of 245 SCID-interviewed patients). Patients with breast cancer (compared with those who had other types of cancer) were 3.68 times less likely to develop PTSD at 6-months, but not at 4-years follow-up.
CONCLUSIONS: The overall rates of PTSD decreased with time, but one-third of patients (34.1%) who were initially diagnosed had persistent or worsening PTSD 4 years later. There is a need for early identification of this subset of patients who have cancer with PTSD to design risk-targeted interventions. Cancer 2018;124:406-16. © 2017 American Cancer Society.
AIMS: This study aims to explore qualitatively the influence of religious/spiritual beliefs on healthcare workers' attitudes towards suicide and suicidal patients in the culturally heterogeneous Malaysian population.
METHODS: Thirty-one healthcare workers from diverse religious backgrounds, professions and medical disciplines were interviewed. Thematic analysis revealed the centrality of religion in determining healthcare workers' acceptability of suicide, specific religious beliefs that influenced their views on the right-to-die issue, perceptions of the suicidal patient's religiousness/spirituality, and the aspects and extent of religious relevance in professional philosophy and practice.
RESULTS: Healthcare workers who could perceive the multifactorial nature of suicide causation had a more empathetic response. There were high levels of paternalism in the care of suicidal patients, involving unsolicited religious/spiritual advice practised as a form of suicide deterrent and social support.
CONCLUSIONS: The formal integration of religious/spiritual practices into the professional care of suicidal patients was indicated.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to review and appraise the evidence for the effectiveness of different types of nurse-led interventions on fatigue in patients with cancer and survivors.
METHODS: Electronic databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect were searched to identify studies published from January 2013 to October 2023. The studies that described nurse-led interventions in patients with cancer or survivors regardless of treatment duration, modes of intervention delivery, and any based intervention were included. The studies were excluded if no fatigue was an outcome measure.
RESULTS: Twelve studies from 2013 to 2023 were included and eligible for the review. Nine studies obtained a Jadad score of 3 or more, indicating high quality for the quality assessment. Eleven of the included studies reported a significant effect of the nurse-led interventions in reducing fatigue in patients with cancer or survivors.
CONCLUSIONS: Nurse-led interventions that focus on multidisciplinary, exercise, psychological, and behavioral approaches appear promising in the management of CRF. More research is needed in order to determine the most acceptable forms of intervention.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The development of evidence-based interventions for managing CRF is significant to nursing practice.
METHODS: An online health survey was conducted between May to July 2017 among employees from 47 private companies located in urban Malaysia. A total of 5235 respondents completed the 20-min online employee health survey on a voluntary basis. Chi-Square or Fisher's exact tests were used to determine association between income with demographic and categorical factors of absenteeism and presenteeism. Multivariate linear regression was used to identify factors predicting absenteeism and presenteeism.
RESULTS: More than one third of respondents' monthly income were less than RM4,000 (35.4%), 29.6% between RM4,000-RM7,999 and 35.0% earned RM8,000 and above. The mean age was 33.8 years (sd ± 8.8) and 49.1% were married. A majority were degree holders (74.4%) and 43.6% were very concerned about their financial status. Mean years of working was 6.2 years (sd ± 6.9) with 68.9% satisfied with their job. More than half reported good general physical health (54.5%) (p = 0.065) and mental health (53.5%) (p = 0.019). The mean hours of sleep were 6.4 h (sd ± 1.1) with 63.2% reporting being unwell due to stress for the past 12 months. Mean work time missed due to ill-health (absenteeism) was 3.1% (sd ± 9.1), 2.8% (sd ± 9.1) and 1.8% (sd ± 6.5) among employees whose monthly income was less than RM4,000, RM4,000-RM7,999 and over RM8,000 respectively (p = 0.0066). Mean impairment while working due to ill-health (presenteeism) was 28.2% (sd ± 25.3), 24.9% (sd ± 25.5) and 20.3% (sd ± 22.9) among employees whose monthly income was less than RM4,000, RM4,000-RM7,999 and over RM8,000 respectively (p
METHODS: This two-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial was implemented between January 2018 and November 2018. Six schools were selected using stratified random sampling, whereby students were purposively selected and invited. The criteria of inclusion to the programme were secondary school students (aged 13 years old-17 years old) who smoked conventional cigarettes (CC) and electronic cigarettes (EC).
RESULTS: A total of 422 students from six schools participated in this study. Three schools were designated as intervention (n = 250) and the other three as control schools (n = 172). Formative evaluation of participants in the FSSCP using the logic model showed that participants were satisfied with the overall programme (91.5%), were motivated to stop smoking (90.4%) and were prevented from relapse (89.2%). The quit rate at a 3-month follow-up was 41.8%.
CONCLUSION: The logic model supported the development of the programme, with details on the processes, dissemination activities, identification of barriers, evaluation criteria and outcomes provided.
DESIGN: Two-arm cluster-randomized controlled effectiveness trial across 19 sites with follow-up at 4-week, 3-month, and 6-month.
SETTING: Stop smoking services operating in public hospitals in Malaysia.
PARTICIPANTS: Five hundred and two smokers [mean ± standard deviation (SD), age 45.6 (13.4) years; 97.4% male] attending stop smoking services in hospital settings in Malaysia: 330 in 10 hospitals in the intervention condition and 172 in nine hospitals in the control condition.
INTERVENTION AND COMPARATOR: The intervention consisted of training stop-smoking practitioners to deliver support and follow-up according to the NCSCT Standard Treatment Programme. The comparator was usual care (brief support and follow-up).
MEASUREMENTS: The primary outcome was continuous tobacco smoking abstinence up to 6 months in smokers who received smoking cessation treatment, verified by expired-air carbon monoxide (CO) concentration. Secondary outcomes were continuous CO-verified tobacco smoking abstinence up to 4 weeks and 3 months.
RESULTS: Follow-up rates at 4 weeks, 3 months and 6 months were 80.0, 70.6 and 53.3%, respectively, in the intervention group and 48.8, 30.8 and 23.3%, respectively, in the control group. At 6-month follow-up, 93 participants in the intervention group and 19 participants in the control group were abstinent from smoking, representing 28.2 versus 11.0% in an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis assuming that participants with missing data had resumed smoking, and 52.8 versus 47.5% in a follow-up-only (FUO) analysis. Unadjusted odds ratios (accounting for clustering) were 5.04, (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.22-20.77, P = 0.025) and 1.70, (95% CI = 0.25-11.53, P = 0.589) in the ITT and FUO analyses, respectively. Abstinence rates at 4 week and 3 month follow-ups were significantly higher in the intervention versus control group in the ITT but not the FUO analysis.
CONCLUSIONS: On an intention-to-treat analysis with missing-equals-smoking imputation, training Malaysian stop smoking service providers in the UK National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training standard treatment programme appeared to increase 6 month continuous abstinence rates in smokers seeking help with stopping compared with usual care. However, the effect may have been due to increasing follow-up rates.
METHOD: This is a multi-site cross-sectional study. The authors conducted a survey based on a translated self-administered questionnaire to participants from seven core hospital departments.
RESULTS: While most health-care workers regardless of department and specialty took their duty to prevent suicide seriously, a large majority of them expressed negative attitudes such as finding suicidal behavior irritating, and more than half believed suicidal attempts were a way of making others sorry. However, psychiatric workers were less likely to have judgmental attitudes that included believing suicide attempters as being selfish or trying to get sympathy from others.
CONCLUSIONS: As there were more similarities than differences in health-care workers' attitudes toward suicide, recommendations on basic and continuous suicide prevention and management training among hospital workers were made. The interventions focused on improving knowledge, affective, and skill-based areas that were aimed to correct the wrongful understanding of and to minimize the negative attitudes toward suicidal individuals indicated by the study results.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey conducted in 2019-2020.
SETTING: Multistage cluster sampling conducted in Central, Northern, Southern, and East Coast regions of Peninsular Malaysia.
PARTICIPANTS: 2989 children aged 0.5-12.9 years.
RESULTS: Prevalences of stunting, thinness, overweight, and obesity among children aged 0.5-12.9 years were 8.9%, 6.7%, 9.2%, and 8.8%, respectively. Among children below 5 years old, 11.4% were underweight, 13.8% had stunting, and 6.2% wasting. Data on nutritional biomarkers showed a small proportion of children aged 4-12 years had iron (2.9%) and vitamin A deficiencies (3.1%). Prevalence of anaemia was distinctly different between children below 4 years old (40.3%) and those aged 4 years and above (3.0%). One-fourth of children (25.1%) had vitamin D insufficiency, which was twice as prevalent in girls (35.2% vs. boys: 15.6%). The majority of children did not meet the recommended dietary intake for calcium (79.4%) and vitamin D (94.8%).
CONCLUSIONS: Data from SEANUTS II Malaysia confirmed that triple burden of malnutrition co-exists among children in Peninsular Malaysia, with higher prevalence of overnutrition than undernutrition. Anaemia is highly prevalent among children below 4 years old, while vitamin D insufficiency is more prevalent among girls. Low intakes of dietary calcium and vitamin D are also of concern. These findings provide policymakers with useful and evidence-based data to formulate strategies that address the nutritional issues of Malaysian children.