METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted in three districts in Selangor, from 11th June to 30th December 2012. The sampling frame was obtained from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOS) in May 2012, using the National Population and Housing Census 2010. Adults aged 18 years and above, living in the selected living quarters were approached to participate in the study and requested to complete a set of questionnaires.
RESULTS: A total of 1,556 out of 2,152 participants participated in this study, giving an overall study response rate of 61.90%. Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) was used to determine the presence of depression. The prevalence of depression was 10.3%, based on the PHQ-9 cut off point of 10 and above. Based on multiple logistic regression analysis, the predictors of depression were presence of anxiety, serious problems at work, unhappy relationship with children, high perceived stress, domestic violence, unhappy relationship with spouse, low self-esteem, unhappy relationship with family, serious financial constraint and presence of chronic diseases. When reanalyzed after removing anxiety, high perceived stress and low self-esteem, additional predictors of depression were found to be serious marital problems and religiosity.
CONCLUSION: The prevalence of depression in this study is similar to that found in other studies. Findings from this study are being used as baseline data to develop an effective program to assist in the management of common mental health disorders in the community, in particular depression. The identification of predictors of depression in the community is important to identify the target population for the program.
Objectives: We aimed to systematically produce empirical evidence on the WPV against health care workers in Africa through the review of relevant literature.
Method: We sourced for evidence through the following databases: PubMed, Science direct and Scopus from 30th November to 31st December 2019 as well as the reference list of the studies included. A total of 22 peer reviewed articles were included in the review (8065 respondents). Quality appraisal of the included studies was assessed using critical appraisal tools for cross-sectional studies.
Result: Across the studies, diverse but high prevalence of WPV ranging from 9% to 100% was reported with the highest in South Africa (54%-100%) and Egypt (59.7%-86.1%). The common types were verbal, physical, sexual harassment and psychological violence. The correlates of WPV reported were gender, age, shift duty, emergency unit, psychiatric unit, nursing, marital status and others. Various impacts were reported including psychological impacts and desire to quit nursing. Patients and their relatives, the coworkers and supervisors were the mostly reported perpetrators of violence. Doctors were mostly implicated in the sexual violence against nurses. Policy on violence and management strategies were non-existent across the studies.
Conclusion: High prevalence of WPV against healthcare workers exists in Africa but there is still paucity of research on the subject matter. However, urgent measures like policy formulation and others must be taken to address the WPV as to avert the impact on the healthcare system.
Methods: We searched Google Scholar, PubMed, and Web of Science for reports, reviews and journal articles published in English between 1st Jan 1990 and 31st August 2016.
Results: Forty-one reports, reviews and journal papers were identified and included in the final review. The current drinking levels and prevalence among young people are markedly different between eight included Asian countries, ranging from 4.2% in Malaysia to 49.3% in China. In a majority of the selected Asian countries, over 15% of total deaths among young men and 6% among young women aged 15-29 years are attributable to alcohol use. Alcohol use among young people is associated with a number of harms, including stress, family violence, injuries, suicide, and sexual and other risky behaviours. Alcohol policies, such as controlling sales, social supply and marketing, setting up/raising a legal drinking age, adding health warning labels on alcohol containers, and developing a surveillance system to monitor drinking pattern and risky drinking behaviour, could be potential means to reduce harmful use of alcohol and related harm among young people in Asia.
Conclusions: The review reveals that drinking patterns and behaviours vary across eight selected Asian countries due to culture, policies and regional variations. The research evidence holds substantial policy implications for harm reduction on alcohol drinking among young people in Asian countries -- especially for China, which has almost no alcohol control policies at present.