Understanding Job Stress among Healthcare Staff

Introduction: Job life is an important part of a person’s daily life. There are many aspects of a job. A person may be satisfied with one or more aspects of his/her job but at the same time may be unhappy with other things related to the job. Objective: To evaluate the sources of job stress (stressful aspects of work) among the staff of a super specialty hospital & to suggest measures to decrease level of job stress. Methodology: Descriptive study employing 381 staff members of a super specialty hospital using a structured personal interview questionnaire consisting of 21 sources of stress. The hospital staff was asked to rate each item according to the extent to which it had contributed to their stress as experienced in their jobs in the past few months on a scale of 0 (not at all),1(a little), 2(quite a bit), 3 (a lot). A global rating of stress was also obtained. Result: The prime sources of stress were found to be underpayment (76%), excessive workload (70.3%), inadequate staff (48.6), & being involved in the emotional distress of patients (46.7%). Conclusion: The staffs of the hospital were in moderate stress due to the prime stressors so adequate measures should be taken to alleviate these stressors. This could be achieved through workload management, job redesign, & by offering occupational health education

Association of prior depressive symptoms and suicide attempts with subsequent victimisation - analysis of population-based data from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey

Background: Symptoms of mental disorder, particularly schizophrenia, predispose to victimisation. Much less is known about the relationship between depressive symptoms and later victimisation in the general population, the influence of these symptoms on types of subsequent victimisation, or the role of symptom severity. We investigated this in nationally representative data from the UK. Methods: Data were from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2007. Multivariable logistic regressions estimated association between: a. prior depressive symptoms, and b. prior depressive symptoms with suicide attempt, and types of more recent victimisation. Gender-specific associations were estimated using multiplicative interactions. Results: Prior depressive symptoms were associated with greater odds of any recent intimate partner violence (IPV), emotional IPV, sexual victimisation, workplace victimisation, any victimisation, and cumulative victimisation (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for increasing types of recent victimisation: 1.47, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.14, 1.89). Prior depressive symptoms with suicide attempt were associated with any recent IPV, emotional IPV, any victimisation, and cumulative victimisation (aOR for increasing types of recent victimisation: 2.33, 95%: 1.22, 4.44). Limitations: Self-reported recalled data on previous depressive symptoms, may have limited accuracy. Small numbers of outcomes for some comparisons resulted in imprecision of these estimates. Conclusion: Aside from severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, previous depressive symptoms in the general population are associated with greater subsequent victimisation. Men and women with prior depressive symptoms may be vulnerable to a range of types of victimisation, and may benefit from interventions to reduce this vulnerability

Ceramic Waste Powder as a Partial Substitute of Fly Ash for Geopolymer Concrete Cured at Ambient Temperature

The growth of the construction industry has expanded the demand for ceramic building products such as ceramic tiles, which constitute essential building materials. Nonetheless, a huge quantity of waste powder is produced during the polishing of ceramic tiles. The disposal of ceramic waste powder is a key environmental concern that needs to be properly addressed. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the potential of recycling ceramic waste powder as a geopolymer binder. The main objective consists of exploring the impacts of two types of ceramic waste powder (vitrified tiles and wall tiles) on the partial substitution of fly ash in geopolymer concrete. For this, concrete was prepared under ambient conditions without oven curing. Slump, compressive strength, split tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity tests were performed to measure the workability and the mechanical properties of the geopolymer concrete. Its durability was evaluated through water absorption and sorptivity tests. The microstructural behavior was investigated using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements. The investigation revealed that a 15% partial replacement of fly ash by wall-tile ceramic waste powder in geopolymer concrete gave similar compressive strength, a 3% increase in tensile strength, and a 7% improvement in the modulus of elasticity. Partial replacement of fly ash with 15% vitrified ceramic waste powder reduced sorptivity and improved the microstructure of geopolymer concrete. The findings revealed that ceramic waste powder can be used to replace 10–15% of the fly ash in M35 grade structural geopolymer concrete, which can be cured under ambient conditions. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-07-05 Full Text: PD

Development of dithizone based fibre optic evanescent wave sensor for heavy metal ion detection in aqueous environments.

Detection of highly toxic heavy metal ions requires rapid, simple, sensitive and selective detection methods in the environment. Optical fibre based sensing facilitates the remote, continuous and in-situ detection approaches in the environment. Herein, we report the development of a dithizone based fibre optic sensor with a simple procedure to detect heavy metal ions in the aqueous environment using an evanescent wave sensing approach. The chromogenic ligand dithizone and its spectral specificity with metal ions has been elaborated in this work. Paper presented at Sensors and their Applications XVII, held 16-18 September 2013 at Rixos Libertas, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Complete septate uterus with cervical duplication and longitudinal vaginal septum: an uncommon mullerian anomaly

The most commonly reported mullerian duct anomalies are septate, arcuate, didelphys, unicornuate or hypoplastic uteri. Here we describe a presentation of unusual mullerian anomaly. We report a case of 31 year old nulliparous woman with primary infertility married since 5 years with history of excision of longitudinal vaginal septum 2 years back. Clinical examination revealed two cervix. On ultrasound, she was diagnosed with single fundus with 2 uterine cavities and double cervix with complete septum within. Diagnosis was confirmed with hysterosalpingogram and MRI showing no communication between the two uterine cavities. On combined laproscopy and hysteroscopy, the septum was excised above the level of cervix transforming into a single cavity uterus with free bilateral spillage of fallopian tubes, keeping the two cervix intact. This anomaly is inconsistent with generally accepted understanding of mullerian development but fits within alternative hypothesis. Establishing an accurate diagnosis is essential for planning treatment and management strategies

Do Telemedicine Wound Care Specialist Consults Meet the Needs of the Referring Physician? A Survey of Primary Care Providers

The purpose of our study was to determine the factors that influence the use of telemedicine consultation by primary care physicians (PCPs) in the management of patients with problem wounds. A short questionnaire was administered to thirty-six PCPs who referred to our Wound Care Program within one year. Participants were asked to rate the importance of specific concerns and benefits regarding the role of wound care surgical specialist (WCSS) and the use of telemedicine consults prior to possible face-to-face consultation. Sixty percent of respondents felt comfortable with telemedicine consultation based on recommendations alone. The total number of patients referred for telemedicine consult was 230, and face-to-face consultation with a WCSS was offered and arranged for 30% of patients. The perception of shared decision making, streamlining patient care, and an opportunity for followup were all highly ranked benefits. The majority of PCPs (93%) agreed that telemedicine wound care consult is a useful tool in their practice and would continue to use the telemedicine consult service

Influence of pretreatment of agriculture residues on phytase production by Aspergillus niger NCIM 563 under submerged fermentation conditions

The extracellular phytase production by Aspergillus niger NCIM 563 was evaluated in medium containing various agriculture residues under submerged fermentation conditions. Phytase productionwas affected by inorganic phosphate content of agriculture residues which ranged from 2.8 to 8 mg/g. The agriculture residues containing less than 4 mg/g inorganic phosphate supported phytaseproduction with maximum activity of 68 IU/ml in medium containing 1% rice bran on 11th day of fermentation. Addition of glucose up to 5% in fermentation medium containing 1% rice bran, enhancedphytase production. Pretreatment of agriculture residues with water to remove excess inorganic phosphate has significantly enhanced the phytase activity in case of de-oiled rice bran, wheat bran,peanut cake (low and high oil) and coconut cake. Maximum increase of 20.3 times in phytase activity was observed in case of wheat bran as compared to de-oiled rice bran, coconut cake, peanut cake highand low oil in which the increase in phytase activity was 6.85, 6.1, 5.3 and 3.0 times, respectively. Maximum phytase activity of 68 IU/ml was produced on the 11th day of fermentation compared to earlierreported 41.47 IU/ml phytase activity on the 15th day of submerged fermentation using 5% dextrin and 2.5% glucose, thus increasing productivity

Investigations on sensitivity enhancement of SPR biosensor using tunable wavelength and graphene layers.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is a well-known, rapid and sensitive technique used for probing the biomolecular interactions in real time. Several new approaches have been suggested to improve the sensitivity of SPR sensors over the last two decades. Recently, there have been few reports on using graphene on a metal film based SPR sensor in order to improve the sensitivity. The role of incident light wavelength and graphene layers in sensitivity enhancement is unclear. This paper reports computational investigations on sensitivity enhancement of SPR biosensor using tunable wavelength and graphene layers. The reflectivity of p-polarized incident light has been calculated using the N-layer model for the most common Kretschmann configuration. Sensitivity enhancements over a conventional angular interrogated SPR sensor have been calculated within the wavelength range 600 -1600 nm and up to ten graphene layers. Results indicate that the sensitivity can be enhanced by the increasing the graphene layers on conventional gold coating based SPR biosensor. Sensitivity enhancement is highly dominated by the wavelength of interrogation used in this design. By tuning the wavelength and graphene layers sensitivity of the graphene-based SPR biosensor can be increased