Child labour: a public health issue

Child labour is a global practice and has many negative outcomes. According to International Labour Organization, child labour is the important source of child exploitation and child abuse in the world today. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has estimated the number of Pakistani working children to be around 11-12 millions, out of which, at least, half the children are under the age of ten years. It portrays the society\u27s attitude towards child care. It is therefore, essential to break this vicious cycle and hence, enable the society to produce healthy citizens. This article analyzes the determinants of child labour in the Pakistani context and its implications for child\u27s life, in specific, and for the nation, in general, utilizing the model developed by Clemen-stone & McGuire (1991). Since this practice has complex web of causation, a multidisciplinary approach is required to combat this issue through proposed recommendations

Promoting motivation towards community health care: A qualitative study from nurses in Pakistan

Based on the extensive health care needs of Pakistani population, the idea of Community Health Nursing was introduced in 1985. The educational nursing institutes adopted nursing curriculum in order to produce competent nurses to meet the rising demands of society. However, very few numbers of nurses choose community health nursing as their career pathway in Pakistan. Based on the current observation, enhancing motivation among graduate nurses has always been viewed as a great challenge for the academic nursing institutions. This study was intended to explore motivating and de motivating factors in nurses towards community Health Nursing. By utilizing self concept based model of motivation, semi structured interviews were conducted with newly graduated nurses, nurse educators and nursing students. The findings revealed that certain traits, values and competencies are required to motivate nurses as well as to build their capacity towards working effectively in the community setting. Moreover, through this study several realistic recommendations by the participants are highlighted that could foster motivation among future nurses towards this field

Role of community health nurse in earthquake affected areas

The role of Community Health Nurses (CHNs) outside the traditional hospital setting is meant to provide and promote the health care needs of the community. Such nurses can play a substantial role in the community setting including emergencies like disasters. This became evident after the earthquake of October 8, 2005 in Pakistan. The objective was to address the issues, faced by primary healthcare providers working in earthquake-affected areas focusing on participatory approach. The experience of the interventions done by CHN by a guided frame work (assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation components) is described. Issues identified by CHN included: lack of training of health care providers, lack of collaboration, communication between the medical and management staff due to poor infrastructure of the healthcare facilities. The interventions were carried out, utilizing existing resources. Efforts were directed to build capacity of health care providers at grass root level to fill in gaps of health care delivery system for sustainable change. Overall, working in the earthquake affected areas is challenging. Health leadership should foresee role of CHN in emergencies where quality healthcare interventions are essential

Menstrual hygiene amongst school Girls: Still a messy business

Background: Menstruation has become a taboo topic among adolescent females, affecting their reproductive health, particularly in more traditional South Asian nations such as Pakistan. The study highlights the societal silence surrounds menstruation, which leads to detrimental practices and attitudes among school-age females. The study reveals the sociocultural, psychological, and educational challenges that teenagers encounter. The presence of myths and misconceptions adds to unsanitary habits, which undermine education and reproductive health.Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in urban Karachi. The participants were 850 unmarried school-going female adolescents aged 13 to 19. The data were collected using a pre-coded questionnaire. SPSS version 10.0 was used for descriptive and inferential analysis. The significance level was set at a p-value of 0.05 for all analyses. Normal distribution was assessed using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test.Results: The mean age was 15.39 (±3.266) years, with an average of 7.67 (±2.119) years of schooling. Only 59 %( n=501) received Information before menarche, and 94% (n=797) did not own a TV. Good menstrual knowledge was demonstrated by 72.4 %( n=614). Unhealthy practices were prevalent in 49.8 %( n=422) of participants. There was a significant difference in practices based on educational background.Associations were found between prior Information and menstrual knowledge (χ² = 6.058, p = 0.012) but not between school type and TV ownership. Multivariate analysis revealed that prior Information significantly influenced knowledge (OR: 1.481, 95% CI: 1.082-2.027). Meanwhile, schooling positively influenced practices (Adjusted OR: 1.106, 95% CI: 1.036-1.182), while school type exhibited a reverse association (Adjusted OR: 0.636, 95% CI: 0.483-0.836).Conclusion: There exist intricate challenges surrounding menstruation in urban Karachi, reflecting the absence of sex education in Pakistan. This study advocates for comprehensive strategies to enhance reproductive health education and practices among young women. The study advocates for sex education at the secondary level to help empower adolescent girls. The two potential sources that should be targeted are the midwives who have access to the childbearing mother and their families, and other female members in the community, and the schools where females feel comfortable asking questions that help to mitigate local myths. Community midwives can play a significant role in deciphering what knowledge is being communicated to adolescents

The influence of psychosocial factors on academic performance of adolescents: a quality assurance project

Adolescence is a time of rapid psychological and physiological changes and is associated with anxiety and mental distress. This project looks at the potential of school-based programs to reduce these negative effects of academic performance in both the short- and long-term. This study was conducted in a private school in Karachi, Pakistan between October 1998 and December 2006 on 305 students with low academic performance. Results show that students scoring low grades had a mean of 55 + 2.8 and postintervention score of 56 + 2.6. The intervention package significantly created a difference in reducing the number of students receiving low grades. Qualitative analysis showed that study participants had enhanced self-esteem, confidence levels, positive attitudes towards learning, improved time management and decision-making skills. This suggests that in an academic institution, the presence of a professional support system enhances learning and coping mechanisms

Biomass expansion factors of Olea ferruginea (Royle) in sub tropical forests of Pakistan

Wood biomass gives information about total productivity of the forest as well as individual tree. Olea ferruginea (Royle) which is small and evergreen is widely distributed in native sub tropical forests of Pakistan and extensively used as fuelwood domestically. This study was carried out in the sub tropical forests of Pakistan at 33° 38’ north and 73° 00’ east latitude and longitude, respectively, and at an elevation of 917 m. Trees with exploitable diameter were selected randomly from the entire forest.Destructive sampling techniques were used for measuring biomass (kgm-3) in all the tree components. For this purpose, 5 trees were felled and the biomass of each component of the tree including main stem, branches, leaves, twigs and roots were estimated separately using volume, weight and density. The generic data of wood density (kgm-3) was used to determine the biomass (kg). The study showed that average contribution of stem portion of the tree was 49.01% of the total tree biomass, and branches showed 31.17%, leaves 1.98%, twigs 1.05% and roots 16.65% of the total tree biomass. So, it was found that the major part of the total tree biomass was present in the stem portion of O. ferruginea. Totalvolume of the tree was also found to be dependent on the diameter of the tree. Mean volume of the tree was 0.475 ± 0.07 m3. The prepared  biomass expansion factor will be helpful in estimating productivity, carbon stocks and yield of the forest.Key words: Biomass, biomass expansion factor, tree volume, Olea ferruginea

Supporting the provision of pharmacy medication reviews to marginalised (medically underserved) groups: a before/ after questionnaire study investigating the impact of a patient-professional co-produced digital educational intervention.

Objectives People who are marginalised (medically underserved) experience significant health disparities and their voices are often ‘seldom heard’. Interventions to improve professional awareness and engagement with these groups are urgently needed. This study uses a co-production approach to develop an online digital educational intervention in order to improve pharmacy staffs’ intention to offer a community pharmacy medication review service to medically underserved groups. Design Before/after (3 months) self-completion online questionnaire. Setting Community pharmacies in the Nottinghamshire (England) geographical area. Participants Community pharmacy staff. Intervention Online digital educational intervention. Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome measure was ‘behaviour change intention’ using a validated 12-item survey measure. The secondary outcome measure was pharmacist self-reported recruitment of underserved groups to the medication review service. Results All pharmacies in the Nottinghamshire area (n=237) were approached in June 2017 and responses were received from 149 staff (from 122 pharmacies). At 3 months (after completing the baseline questionnaire), 96 participants (from 80 pharmacies) completed a follow-up questionnaire, of which two-thirds (n=62) reported completing the e-learning. A before/after comparison analysis found an improving trend in all the five constructs of behaviour change intention (intention, social influence, beliefs about capabilities, moral norms and beliefs about consequences), with a significant increase in mean score of participants’ ‘beliefs about capabilities’ (0.44; 95% CI 0.11 to 0.76, p=0.009). In the short-term, no significant change was detected in the number of patients being offered and the patient completing a medication review. Conclusions Although increases in the numbers of patients being offered a medication review was not detected, the intervention has the potential to significantly improve pharmacy professionals’ 'beliefs about capabilities' in the short-term. Wider organisational and policy barriers to engagement with marginasied groups may need to be addressed. Future research should focus on the interplay between digital learning and practice to better identify and understand effective practice change pathways

On Zygmund-Type Inequalities Concerning Polar Derivative of Polynomials

Let P(z) be a polynomial of degree n, then concerning the estimate for maximum of |P′(z)| on the unit circle, it was proved by S. Bernstein that ∥P′∥∞≤n∥P∥∞. Later, Zygmund obtained an Lp-norm extension of this inequality. The polar derivative Dα[P](z) of P(z), with respect to a point α∈C, generalizes the ordinary derivative in the sense that limα→∞Dα[P](z)/α=P′(z). Recently, for polynomials of the form P(z)=a0+∑nj=μajzj, 1≤μ≤n and having no zero in |z|1, the following Zygmund-type inequality for polar derivative of P(z) was obtained: ∥Dα[P]∥p≤n(|α|+kμ∥kμ+z∥p)∥P∥p,where|α|≥1,p>0. In this paper, we obtained a refinement of this inequality by involving minimum modulus of |P(z)| on |z|=k, which also includes improvements of some inequalities, for the derivative of a polynomial with restricted zeros as well.We are thankful to the referee for useful comments and suggestions