Do Knowledge and Cultural Perceptions of Modern Female Contraceptives Predict Male Involvement In Ayete, Nigeria?

Male involvement is crucial to female contraceptive use. This study examined how male knowledge and cultural perceptions of modern female contraceptives influence involvement in contraceptive use. A cross-sectional survey of 389 men from Ayete, Nigeria was used to regress a continuous male involvement score on demographic variables, knowledge of at least one method of modern female contraception and a scored male perception variable using Ordinary Least Squares regression. Controlling for perception, the knowledge of at least one method of modern female contraception was not significantly associated with a change in male involvement (p=0.264). Increasing positive perception was associated with higher male involvement scores (p=0.001). Higher educated males, those with a current desire to have children and males whose partners were currently using a method had greater male involvement scores (p<0.05). Policy and intervention efforts should be focused on changing cultural perceptions, in addition to providing in-depth knowledge of contraceptive methods. Keywords: Partner involvement, Family Planning, Nigeria, Contraception, CultureCette étude a examiné comment la connaissance par les hommes des méthodes contraceptives féminines modernes et leurs perceptions culturelles influencent la participation à la contraception féminine. Une enquête transversale de 389 hommes de Ayete, l'État d'Oyo, au Nigeria a été utilisé pour régresser un score continu de participation des hommes, sur les variables démographiques, la connaissance d'au moins une méthode de contraception féminine moderne et une variable de la perception masculine classée par les modèles de la régression ordinaire des moindres carrés. Le contrôle pour la perception, la connaissance d'au moins une méthode de la contraception féminine moderne n’était pas significativement associé à un changement dans la participation des hommes (p = 0,264). L’accroissement de la perception positive a été associé à des scores plus élevés de la participation des hommes (p = 0,001). Les hommes hautement instruits, ceux qui ont un désir actuel d'avoir des enfants et les hommes dont les partenaires actuellement se servaient d’une méthode avaient plus des scores masculins de participation (p <0,05). La politique et les efforts d'intervention devraient être axés sur l'évolution des perceptions culturelles, en plus de fournir une connaissance approfondie des méthodes contraceptives. Mots-clés: participation des hommes, contraception féminine, perception culturelle, planification familiale, Nigeri

Intensive Care Management of Organophosphate Poisoned Patient: A Test of Critical Care Services in Nigeria

The management of organophosphate poisoning is challenging, more so in the setting of poor critical care facilities. The management requires the administration of atropine, an antidote (oxime) and supportive care often provided in the ICU. We report a 35year old male who presented with a history of ingestion of an organophosphate insecticide and features of cholinergic and central nervous system affectation. The patient was managed with intravenous atropine, pralidoxime, ventilator support and other supportive care. This paper highlights those challenges associated with the management of organophosphate poisoning in our environment.Keywords: Poisoning; organophosphate; ICU; Developing countries

Relationship between the standing vegetation, soil properties and soil seed bank of an industrially degraded vegetation of Iron Smelting Factory

This study assessed the floristic composition, soil properties and the soil seedbank of the vegetation around the Iron smelting factory. This was with a view to determining the functional role played by soil chemical composition and the seed bank in the modifications of vegetation patterns. Five 100 m × 5 m plots were selected from the study site; vegetation, soil seed bank and some soil chemical parameters were assessed. One-way Analysis of Variance and Duncan multiple  range tests were employed for data analysis. The results showed that the soil samples collected were slightly basic (or neutral) with the total Nitrogen in all the five plots ranged from 0.22 to 0.33%. There was a little contribution by woody species to the floristic composition of both the standing vegetation and soil seed  bank. There was very low similarity (10.6% - 28.57%) between the standing vegetation and the soil seed bank species composition in the study site. The results of seedling emergence showed that herbaceous species dominated the soil seed bank compared to other life forms. Our result revealed a shift between seed-bank and vegetation composition which could be a consequence of the soil chemical properties and also as a result of different level of disturbance occurring due to the citing of industry in the area.Keywords: Emergence, nutrient cycling, regeneration, soil properties, soil seed bank, standing vegetation

Prevalence of end-digit preference in recorded blood pressure by nurses: a comparison of measurements taken by mercury and electronic blood pressure-measuring devices

Objectives: When compared with the use of a mercury  sphygmomanometer, the use of a validated digital blood pressure (BP) measuring device eliminates the risk of exposure to mercury. Digital devices are also associated with a lesser degree of end-digit preference (EDP). EDP refers to the occurrence of a particular end digit more frequently than would be expected through chance alone. There have been only a few reports from Africa on the occurrence of EDP in BP measurement. This study examined EDP in BP taken by nurses before and after the introduction of a digital BP-measuring device. Design: The design was a retrospective study. Settings and subjects: We reviewed the BP readings of 58 patients who presented at the dedicated clinic for people living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Nigeria, before and after the introduction of the digital BP-measuring device. Outcome measures: The prevalence of end-digit zero of systolic and diastolic BP readings before and after the introduction of the digital device was compared using McNemar’s test. Results: There was a large and significant fall in end-digit zero when BP readings that were taken using the mercury and digital devices were compared (systolic 98.1% vs. 10.9%, p-value < 0.001; diastolic 97.1% vs. 14.9%, p-value < 0.001 (McNemar’s test). Conclusion: There was a significant reduction in the frequency of end-digit zero when BP was taken with the digital devicerather than the mercury device. Regular training and certification of healthcare workers in BP measurement is recommended to ensure a high quality BP measurement standard.Keywords: blood pressure measurement, mercury sphygmomanometer, digital blood pressure-measuring devices, end-digit preferenc

Ecological and Structural Characteristics of Riparian Forest in Omo Biosphere Reserve

An investigation on the structural characteristics of the riparian forest in Omo Biosphere Reserve was carried out. The structure was analyzed through diameter class distribution, basal area and breast height. Riparian forest showed a major characteristic in the physiognomy of forests along major river, streams and Upland vegetation and the Core, Buffer and Transition zones that is highly variable in the diameter class distribution (reserve J type), Mean basal area per hectare for major river is 294,089.30/cm2/ ha, Stream 613.027/cm2/ha, and Upland 205,648 cm3/ha. Mean basal area for core is 507,399.50 cm2/ha, buffer had 340,699 cm2/ha and transition 264,656 cm2/ha. While mean volume per hectare for core is 7955.2 m3/ha, buffer 7260 m3/ha and Transition 6254.4 m3/ha. Maximum dbh of 246 cm was obtained in the core species. Many stands of riparian forests are facing various levels of structural and floristic simplification, which include fundamental transformations in vegetation physiognomy from dense stands to riparian scrub or bare land

Boosting Non-oil Export Revenue in Nigeria Through Non-traditional Agricultural Export Commodities: How Feasible?

Available data indicated that, some traditional agricultural export commodities like cocoa and rubber have remained on Nigeria’s agricultural export list, while others like groundnut and coffee have almost disappeared from the export list. In the same vein, non-traditional agricultural export commodities like sesame seed and cashew nuts have started featuring prominently on the export list. In line with theory, the econometric analysis carried out confirmed that a major policy change, which can provide a boost for agricultural exports, is the depreciation of the real exchange rate. For all the agricultural export commodities analyzed in the study, the coefficient of the exchange rate was positive and highly significant

Access to Land and Food Security: Analysis of ‘Priority Crops’ Production in Ogun State, Nigeria

Using Ogun State located in south-western Nigeria, this chapter draws attention to the increase in output productivity of priority crops in the State from 2003 to 2015 due to the acquisitions of over 47,334 hectares of agricultural land across 28 communities in different Local Government Areas (LGAs). From Ogun State Agriculture Data, eight priority crops are analyzed: cassava, maize, rice, melon, yam, cocoyam, potato and cowpea. Statistics reveal that the cultivation of cassava gives the highest average output of 4,515,620 metric tonnes and yield per hectare of 16.41 relative to other produce which affirms that Ogun State has the most comparative advantage in the cultivation of cassava followed by maize. The chapter further explores other pro-poor programmes directed at ensuring food security in the State

Echocardiographic partition values and prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy in hypertensive Nigerians

BACKGROUND: Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a well known independent risk factor for cardiovascular events. It has been shown that combination of left ventricular mass (LVM) and relative wall thickness (RWT) can be used to identify different forms of left ventricular (LV) geometry. Prospective studies have shown that LV geometric patterns have prognostic implications, with the worst prognosis associated with concentric hypertrophy. The methods for the normalization or indexation of LVM have also recently been shown to confer some prognostic value especially in obese population. We sought to determine the prevalence of echocardiographic lLVH using eight different and published cut-off or threshold values in hypertensive subjects seen in a developing country's tertiary centre. METHODS: Echocardiography was performed in four hundred and eighty consecutive hypertensive subjects attending the cardiology clinic of the University college Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria over a two-year period. RESULTS: Complete data was obtained in 457 (95.2%) of the 480 subjects (48.6% women). The prevalence of LVH ranged between 30.9–56.0%. The highest prevalence was when LVM was indexed to the power of 2.7 with a partition value of 49.2 g/ht(2.7 )in men and 46.7 g/ht(2.7 )in women. The lowest prevalence was observed when LVM was indexed to body surface area (BSA) and a partition value of 125 g/m(2 )was used for both sexes. Abnormal LV geometry was present in 61.1%–74.0% of our subjects and commoner in women. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of LVH hypertensive patients is strongly dependent on the cut-off value used to define it. Large-scale prospective study will be needed to determine the prognostic implications of the different LV geometry in native Africans

Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. Background A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from 1990 to 2016. Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We transformed each cause to a scale of 0-100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and 100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values, providing an overall score of 0-100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita. Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97·1 (95% UI 95·8-98·1) in Iceland, followed by 96·6 (94·9-97·9) in Norway and 96·1 (94·5-97·3) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18·6 (13·1-24·4) in the Central African Republic, 19·0 (14·3-23·7) in Somalia, and 23·4 (20·2-26·8) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and 2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000. Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged from 91·5 (89·1-93·6) in Beijing to 48·0 (43·4-53·2) in Tibet (a 43·5-point difference), while India saw a 30·8-point disparity, from 64·8 (59·6-68·8) in Goa to 34·0 (30·3-38·1) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4·8-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20·9-point to 17·0-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17·2-point to 20·4-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases. Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from 2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries. Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle- SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive view - and subsequent provision - of quality health care for all populations

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality and life expectancy, 1950-2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used population estimates from UNPOP, which were not derived in a way that was internally consistent with the estimates of the numbers of deaths in the GBD. The present iteration of the GBD, GBD 2017, improves on previous assessments and provides timely estimates of the mortality experience of populations globally. Methods The GBD uses all available data to produce estimates of mortality rates between 1950 and 2017 for 23 age groups, both sexes, and 918 locations, including 195 countries and territories and subnational locations for 16 countries. Data used include vital registration systetns, sample registration systetns, household surveys (complete birth histories, summary birth histories, sibling histories), censuses (summary birth histories, household deaths), and Demographic Surveillance Sites. In total, this analysis used 8259 data sources. Estimates of the probability of death between birth and the age of 5 years and between ages 15 and 60 years are generated and then input into a model life table system to produce complete life tables for all locations and years. Fatal discontinuities and mortality due to HIV/AIDS are analysed separately and then incorporated into the estimation. We analyse the relationship between age-specific mortality and development status using the Socio-demographic Index, a composite measure based on fertility under the age of 25 years, education, and income. There are four main methodological improvements in GBD 2017 compared with GBD 2016: 622 additional data sources have been incorporated; new estimates of population, generated by the GBD study, are used; statistical methods used in different components of the analysis have been further standardised and improved; and the analysis has been extended backwards in time by two decades to start in 1950. Findings Globally, 18.7% (95% uncertainty interval 18.4-19.0) of deaths were registered in 1950 and that proportion has been steadily increasing since, with 58.8% (58.2-59.3) of all deaths being registered in 2015. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48.1 years (46.5-49.6) to 70.5 years (70.1-70.8) for men and from 52.9 years (51.7-54.0) to 75.6 years (75.3-75.9) for women. Despite this overall progress, there remains substantial variation in life expectancy at birth in 2017, which ranges from 49.1 years (46.5-51.7) for men in the Central African Republic to 87.6 years (86.9-88.1) among women in Singapore. The greatest progress across age groups was for children younger than 5 years; under-5 mortality dropped from 216.0 deaths (196.3-238.1) per 1000 livebirths in 1950 to 38.9 deaths (35.6-42.83) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, with huge reductions across countries. Nevertheless, there were still 5.4 million (5.2-5.6) deaths among children younger than 5 years in the world in 2017. Progress has been less pronounced and more variable for adults, especially for adult tnales, who had stagnant or increasing mortality rates in several countries. The gap between male and female life expectancy between 1950 and 2017, while relatively stable at the global level, shows distinctive patterns across super-regions and has consistently been the largest in central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia, and smallest in south Asia. Performance was also variable across countries and time in observed mortality rates compared with those expected on the basis of development. Interpretation This analysis of age-sex-specific mortality shows that there are remarkably complex patterns in population mortality across countries. The findings of this study highlight global successes, such as the large decline in under-5 mortality, which reflects significant local, national, and global commitment and investment over several decades. However, they also bring attention to mortality patterns that are a cause for concern, particularly among adult men and, to a lesser extent, wotnen, whose mortality rates have stagnated in many countries over the time period of this study, and in some cases are increasing. Copyright C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe