METHOD: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 362 mothers and mothers-to-be (mean age: 31.9 ± 4.9 years, range: 20-48 years old) recruited from Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur and two health clinics in Lenggeng, Negeri Sembilan and Beranang, Selangor representing the urban and rural areas respectively. All participants were interviewed in person using a newly developed and reliable questionnaire that tested their knowledge and attitude on childhood hearing loss.
RESULTS: Generally, the majority of mothers had a moderate level of knowledge and positive attitude towards childhood hearing loss. Urban mothers had a significantly higher knowledge than those of the rural area (p
METHOD: The study utilized a semi-structured interview with open-ended questions to obtain information about parents' experiences during the diagnosis period and their challenges when going through that process. In this study, a total of 16 parents of children who were diagnosed with moderate to profound sensorineural hearing loss and received intervention within three years at the time of the study participated. Ten of the children were cochlear implant users, and six were hearing aid users.
RESULTS: Thematic analysis was used to analyse themes generated from the data according to the study objective. Four main themes and 17 subthemes were identified from this study. The four main themes were 1) Parents' emotion; 2) Parental knowledge; 3) Others; 4) Profesional services. Challenges that parents faced often include emotional behaviours such as feeling guilty and devastated during the diagnosis, lack of information-sharing from healthcare givers, lack of knowledge on childhood hearing loss among parents, support from families, seek for a second opinion, worry about others' acceptance, longer time for diagnosis to confirm, late referral to other related profesionals and no priority for the appointment.
CONCLUSION: Emotion is identified as the biggest challenge faced by parents in the process of diagnosis for their children with hearing loss. Hence, management of parental emotion needs to be emphasized by health profesionals as it influences the acceptance of parents towards their child's diagnosis.
METHODS: A total of 229 community-dwelling older adults aged 60 years or older participated in this study. Variables were measured using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), Revised University of California at Los Angeles Loneliness Scale (R-UCLA), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).
RESULTS: There was an independent association between DSI and quality of life (P < .05) and between DSI and hearing loss alone and cognitive function (P < .05) in older adults. In addition, higher education was associated with better quality of life and cognitive function.
CONCLUSIONS: DSI is a significant factor affecting the quality of life and cognitive function in older adults. Sociodemographic factors such as education play an important role in improving quality of life and cognitive function. Thus, increasing the awareness of this disability is important to ensure that older adults receive the necessary support services and rehabilitation to improve their level of independence.
METHODS: Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. A questionnaire was completed by 179 undergraduates (34 males and 145 females) aged between 18 to 25 years old. This was followed by an online, in-depth, one-to-one interview among 10 female undergraduates who reported severe musculoskeletal pain. The two sets of findings were integrated using a triangulation protocol.
RESULT: The three most common musculoskeletal pains experienced by undergraduates due to online learning were low back (73.2%), followed by neck (68.7%) and shoulder (58.7%) pain. The six main themes identified from the interviews were: (1) Musculoskeletal pain characteristics; (2) academic issues; (3) difficulties faced by undergraduates due to teaching and learning; (4) emotions towards work/study; (5) work environment; and (6) time spent working at a workstation. Upper back pain was identified to be associated with personal (p < 0.05) and most environmental factors (p < 0.05). From the triangulation model, it was shown that personal, academic stressors and environmental factors were mainly from the workstation, uncomfortable environment, working posture and time spent at the workstation, which all contributed to musculoskeletal pain.
CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that exercise, academic stressors, and environmental factors were associated with musculoskeletal pain among undergraduates due to online teaching and learning sessions. There may be a need to integrate an online prevention of musculoskeletal pain education package based on a biopsychosocial model with online teaching and learning for undergraduates.