Assessment of the use of complementary and alternative medicine with respect to illness perception among individuals with chronic diseases

This study aims to assess the use of complementary and alternative medicine with respect to illness perception, among individuals with chronic diseases. The sample of this descriptive and cross-sectional study comprises 350 patients with chronic diseases, who have applied to a governmental hospital in Giresun province of Turkey. Questionnaire form and illness perception questionnaires have been used for data collection. During the analysis of the data; frequency, percentage, t test and Kruskal Wallis variance analysis have been utilized. The mean age of the patients is 6016.09. 47.1% of the patients declared that they use complementary and alternative medicine methods. It is found that the patients who use complementary and alternative medicine have significantly higher illness duration, personal control, and treatment control subscale scores (P0.05) where these are the subscales of the illness perception. According to the results of the study; knowing that the illness is of long duration, the will to have personal control over health and to control this long treatment period; complementary and alternative medicine methods are used by the patient

Assessment of the problematic internet use of university students and their opinions about its effects on their health

Amaç: Bu çalışmada, üniversite öğrencilerinde problemli internet kullanımı ve sağlıklarına olan etkilerinin değerlendirilmesi amaçlanmıştır.Yöntem: Çalışma, Sağlık Bilimleri Fakültesinde öğrenim gören öğrencilere uygulanmıştır. Veriler sosyodemografik özellikler, internet kullanımı ve sağlığa etkileri ile ilgili sorulardan oluşan anket formu ve genelleştirilmiş problemli internet kullanım ölçeği 2 (GPİKÖ 2) ile elde edilmiştir.Bulgular: Öğrencilerin GPİKÖ 2 puan ortalaması 50,619,6 olarak belirlenmiştir. Günde 2 saat ve üzerinde internet kullananların toplam GPİKÖ 2 puanı, öz denetim yoksunluğu puanı (P0,001), duygu durumu düzenleme puanı (P0,05) ve olumsuz sonuçlar puanı (P0,05) anlamlı olarak yüksek bulunmuştur. Öğrenciler internet kullanımının en çok göz problemleri yaşamalarına neden olduğunu ve psikolojik olarak da olumsuz etkilerinin olduğunu belirtmişlerdir.Sonuç: İnternetin yaşamın kaçınılmaz bir parçası olduğu günümüzde sağlık üzerine olan etkileri ve bilinçli internet kullanımı ile ilgili çalışmalar yararlı olacaktırObjective: The aim of this study is to assess the problematic internet use among university students and its effects on their health.Methods: The study is applied to students who are receiving their university education at the Faculty of Health Sciences. The data are collected using a questionnaire which includes questions on socio-demographic characteristics, internet use, and its effects on health, together with the generalized problematic internet use scale 2 (GPIUS 2). Results: The mean GPIUS 2 score of the students was determined to be 50.619.6 points. For those students who were using the internet daily for 2 hours or more; the total GPIUS 2 score, deficient self-control score (P0.001), mood regulation score (P0.05) and negative outcomes score (P0.05) were significantly higher. The students Alındığı tarih: 09.01.2017 indicated that internet use had mostly affected their eyes and had negative psychological effects.Kabul tarihi: 03.03.2017 Conclusion: Since nowadays internet is an indispensable part of our daily lives, it will be useful to conduct studies about its effects on health and conscious use of the interne

Psychological resilience and health perception among adolescents and related factors

This study aims to analyze the psychological resilience and health perception among adolescents together with the affecting factors. The sample of this crosssectional study includes 561 adolescents who are 7th and 8th grade students attending secondary schools in Giresun province of Turkey, during 25 May - 5 June in 2015. During data collection, a questionnaire form comprising questions on socio-demographic characteristics and health perception is used in addition to the Adolescent Psychological Resilience Scale (APRS). During the analysis of the data; frequency, percentage, independent samples t test, and MannWhitney U test have been utilized. The APRS score of the participating students is found as 97.411.0. The psychological resilience score of the students who perceive their health as moderate is significantly lower than that of the students who perceive their health as good (p0.001). For the students who perceive their health as moderate; the family support (p0.001), school support (p0.001), peer support (p0.001), adaptation (p0.001), determination to struggle (p0.001) and empathy (p0.001) scores, which are the subscales of APRS, are also found to be significantly lower. Carrying out studies with the purpose of increasing the psychological resilience of the adolescents will help adolescents in being affected less from the negative circumstances and in the protection of their healt

Life Satisfaction and Psychological Status of Mothers with Disabled Children: A Descriptive Study

WOS: 000419462100013PubMed: 28364299The purpose of this study is to determine the life satisfaction, general health conditions, and depression levels of mothers with disabled children and the problems they experienced. This descriptive study was conducted between 1 and 30 December 2014 in a rehabilitation center that renders services for totally 254 physically and mentally-disabled children in Turkey. 184 mothers participated in the study. The data were collected by using an information form, the life satisfaction scale, the general health questionnaire, and the Beck depression inventory. General Health Questionnaire scores of the mothers who had another disabled child and Beck Depression Inventory scores of the working mothers were significantly high. In addition, a significant difference was found between the scores of Life Satisfaction Scale, General Health Questionnaire, and Beck Depression Inventory by mothers who had difficulties regarding care of their children, were worried for their children, and experienced uncertainty with regard to the future

Automatic identification of public health related Turkish tweets

Kucuk, Dilek/0000-0003-2656-1300WOS: 000398600404013Background People started to instantly share news/opinions through social media platforms like Twitter. Public health related concerns/news are also shared, especially on Twitter, so there is an increasing research attention on tweet analysis to track public health events. This study presents a software application that automatically detects public health related Turkish tweets, together with its performance evaluation result on a genuine tweet set

Comparison of nutritional status of boarders and day-students who study at the regional boarding-schools in Giresun, Turkey

WOS: 000283675900706

Comparison of the life quality of boarders and day-students studying in the regional boarding-schools in Turkey

WOS: 000283675900467

Ontology-based automatic identification of public health-related Turkish tweets

Kucuk, Dilek/0000-0003-2656-1300;WOS: 000399862200001PubMed: 28187367Social media analysis, such as the analysis of tweets, is a promising research topic for tracking public health concerns including epidemics. In this paper, we present an ontology-based approach to automatically identify public health-related Turkish tweets. The system is based on a public health ontology that we have constructed through a semi-automated procedure. The ontology concepts are expanded through a linguistically motivated relaxation scheme as the last stage of ontology development, before being integrated into our system to increase its coverage. The ultimate lexical resource which includes the terms corresponding to the ontology concepts is used to filter the Twitter stream so that a plausible tweet subset, including mostly public-health related tweets, can be obtained. Experiments are carried out on two million genuine tweets and promising precision rates are obtained. Also implemented within the course of the current study is a Web-based interface, to track the results of this identification system, to be used by the related public health staff. Hence, the current social media analysis study has both technical and practical contributions to the significant domain of public health

Health-related behaviors and nutritional status of adolescents who study as boarders and day-students

WOS: 000378646700003PubMed: 27513390Background/aim: Boarders and day-students study together in regional boarding schools. This study was carried out to compare the health and nutritional status of boarders and day-students who study at regional boarding schools in Turkey. Materials and methods: A total 634 boarders and 492 day-students in the 4th-8th years of nine boarding schools in Giresun Province of Turkey were included. A questionnaire including 49 questions about sociodemographic characteristics and health and nutritional status was completed by the students. Height and weight measurements of the students were also taken. The chi-square test was used for statistical analyses. Results: The boarders evaluated their health status as worse than the day-students. The proportion of the students having three meals a day was higher among the boarders than the day-students. According to BMI values, 11% of the boarders were evaluated as underweight, 77% as normal, 9.5% as overweight, and 2.5% as obese. These proportions were respectively 15.5%, 67.3%, 12.8%. and 4.5% for the day-students. Conclusion: The boarders have more regular diets and the proportion of normal-weighed boarders was higher than that of the day-students. However, they perceived their health as worse than the day-tudents.Research Projects Coordination Unit of Erciyes UniversityErciyes University [TSD-09-1142]The Research Projects Coordination Unit of Erciyes University supported this research financially with project number TSD-09-1142. We thank the governorship of Giresun Province for administrative permission, and the managers and teachers of the boarding schools for their support during data collection

Pediatric flexible bronchoscopy in the intensive care unit: A multicenter study

Introduction Flexible bronchoscopy (FB) is frequently used for assessment and treatment of patients with respiratory diseases. Our aim was to investigate the contribution of FB to diagnosis and therapy in children admitted to the intensive care units (ICU) and to evaluate the safety of FB in this vulnerable population. Methods Children less than 18 years of age who underwent FB in the five neonatal and pediatric ICUs in Istanbul between July 1st, 2015 and July 1st, 2020 were included to the study. Demographic and clinical data including bronchoscopy indications, findings, complications, and the contribution of bronchoscopy to the management were retrospectively reviewed. Results One hundred and ninety-six patients were included to the study. The median age was 5 months (range 0.3-205 months). The most common indication of FB was extubation failure (38.3%), followed by suspected airway disease. Bronchoscopic assessments revealed at least one abnormality in 90.8% patients. The most common findings were airway malacia and the presence of excessive airway secretions (47.4% and 35.7%, respectively). Positive contribution of FB was identified in 87.2% of the patients. FB had greater than 1 positive contribution in 138 patients and 80.6% of the patients received a new diagnosis. Medical therapy was modified after the procedure in 39.8% and surgical interventions were pursued in 40% of the patients. Therapeutic lavage was achieved in 18.9%. There were no major complications. Conclusion Flexible bronchoscopy is a valuable diagnostic and therapeutic tool in neonatal and pediatric ICUs and is not associated with major complications