Professional caregiver qualification training worldwide

Нарастващите потребности от подкрепящи грижи изискват високо качество на обслужване на пациентите в болничната и извънболничната помощ, поради което е необходимо те да се изпълняват от добре обучени професионалисти. За тази цел са разработени програми за обучението на болногледачи/здравни асистенти в различни държави по света, които са представени в настоящата статия. Институциите, които предоставят необходимата професионална подготовка, медицински знания и сертификат за легално упражняване на тази професия, са специализирани медицински учреждения и частни фирми. Обучението в медицинските училища се осъществява от висококвалифициран медицински персонал и гарантира отлична подготовка и практика в екип с други здравни специалисти. Фирмите, които предоставят обучение за болногледачи, също допринасят за придобиването на знания, но поради липса или недостатъчна академична подготовка на преподавателите и недостатъчна работа в болнична среда обучението се осъществява за по-кратък период от време и невинаги гарантира придобиване на достатъчно специализирани умения.The increasing need of supporting care of patients in hospitals and of outpatient care requires high quality of services. Therefore, it is necessary for it to be performed by well-trained professionals. For this purpose, as discussed in this article, programmes have been developed to train caregivers and health assistants in different countries around the world. The institutions providing the necessary professional training, medical knowledge and certificates for authorized practice of this profession are specialized medical schools and private companies. Medical school training is carried out by highly qualified medical staff who guarantee the excellence of training and practice in a team with other health professionals. Private companies providing training for caregivers also contribute to the acquisition of knowledge, but due to lack of sufficient academic preparation and inadequate work in hospital environment, the training is performed in a short period of time and does not always guarantee the gain of sufficient specialized skills

Informal payments - definitions and concepts

Informal payments became an interesting issue in the context of healthcare reforms and a very widespreadphenomenon in the healthcare sector that has been observed in many transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Some studies have been conducted to clearly identify informal payments to overcome this complex problem with many „faces`. The latter includes a variety of names to denote the phenomenon: gratuities, gratitude payments, under-the-counter payments, unofficial payments and etc. The concepts mentioned in the current article such as illegality, informality, and corruption have a negative impact inthe understanding of the informal payment. The main strategies of the world literature to deal with this phenomenon are summarized

Types of caregivers

Поради голямото многообразие от извършвани дейности, място на работа и квалификация, болногледачите са известни с различни наименования по света. Общото, което ги свързва, е полагането на подкрепящи грижи за болен или недееспособен човек. Те подпомагат работата на медицинския персонал и освен това са източник на подкрепа както за нуждаещите се лица, така и за техните семейства. Болногледачите изпълняват своите задължения с непрестанна всеотдайност и съпричастие към физическото и емоционално състояние на пациента. Работата им в домашни условия често е гаранция за поддържане на добрите взаимоотношения в семействата. Изпълнителите на подкрепящи грижи придобиват все по-голяма актуалност поради нарастващата необходимост от надежден човек, който да полага грижи за болен роднина, инвалид или дете в семейството. Настоящата статия разглежда разновидностите на тези здравни професионалисти и техните специфични задължения.Caregivers have been defined differently because of the variety of activities they perform, the place where they work, and the qualifications they have. The thing they have in common is the support they provide for ill or incapacitated people. They facilitate the work of the medical staff and are also a source of support for people in need and their families. Caregivers perform their duties with constant dedication and empathy to the physical and emotional condition of the patient. Their work at patients` homes is often a guarantee of maintaining good relationships with the members of the family. Provision of caregiving support is becoming vital because of the growing need of a reliable person who could take care of a sick relative or a disabled child in the family. The present article examined different types of health professionals and their specific duties

Work overload of nurses and midwives in Bulgarian hospitals and the need for provision of supporting care by health assistants

INTRODUCTION: Medical professionals face big problems in providing supporting care. Currently it is delivered by nurses and midwives, a huge challenge in terms of the constant work overload this kind of med­ical professionals face in Bulgaria.AIM: The aim is to explore the work overload among nurses and midwives in Bulgarian hospitals and the need for the recruitment of a separate group of additional staff - health assistants for the delivery of sup­porting care.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted among the medical staff in nine hospitals in five cities of Northeastern Bulgaria. The total number of respondents was 463 including physicians, nurses and midwives. Data about the work overload of nurses and midwives, as well as the need for additional per­sonnel for supporting care was collected by a semi-structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed with IBM SPSS v. 19 - descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests (the Chi-square test was used for analyzing the independence of two categorical data).RESULTS: Results show that according to the medical staff, nurses and midwives are `permanently` and `frequently` overloaded with work due to the provision of supporting care for patients. There was no statistically significant relationship between `profession` and `work overload` (χ2=9.188, p=0.163), i.e. - both nurses and midwives are considered as overloaded with work. Almost all respondents notify that med­ical orderlies also take part in delivering supporting care. Two thirds of the respondents acknowledge the need for hiring health assistants.CONCLUSION: There is an essential need for health assistants in Bulgarian health care. The new health professionals would be fully involved in providing supporting care which would improve quality of care and reduce the work overload of nurses and midwives

Sociology of health and disease: Problems discussed by Master students in Public Health and Healthcare Management

This article describes many interesting problems from the field of health care sociology, which are part of diploma works of Master students of Public Health and Healthcare Management in Russian. These problems are current not only in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, but they are considered to be of interest in Bulgaria. They include the access of transgender people to treatment and prophylaxis services of HIV-infections; the attitude of politics, journalists and cultural workers to the HIV/AIDS problem; socio-psychological phenomena related to HIV/AIDS; the anthropology contribution to development of health policy; social advertisement as an informational resource of healthy life; the crisis of teenage age and prophylaxis of deviant behavior among teenagers; social phenomena associated with conscious denial of child-bearing, etc. The above problems will be represented in more detail from Russian students in many articles, which will be published in the scientific journal `Health Economics and Management` in 2018

Instructors` and Students` Satisfaction with the Services of the Library at the Medical University - Varna

The satisfaction of the Medical University Library`s users` information needs is achieved through state-of-theartinformation solutions that enable better and faster services. The aim of this article is to study both the students` and instructors` satisfaction with the library at the Medical University of Varna. Two separate surveys were conducted among students and instructors. The analysis of the results demonstrates that the University Library provides a high- quality service and wide access to the latest paper and digital sources. Thanks to the implementation of new technologies the role of the Library in supporting teaching and research work of instructors and students has grown significantly in recent years

Survey on the general practitioners` awareness of the problems of the intestinal parasitoses

Introduction: In the outpatient care, laboratory testing for intestinal parasites (on the clinical, epidemiological or prophylactic ground) are assigned mainly by the general practitioners. The aim of the current study is to analyze the opinion of GPs on the frequency and distribution of the intestinal parasitosis in Varna region and to evaluate their awareness of the problems associated with their diagnosis and treatment.Material and Methods: Between Sept and Dec 2016, 75 general practitioners from Varna region were interviewed with specially designed individual anonymous questionnaires.Results and Discussion: 66.67% of the respondents attend to patients from Varna and the other towns of the district and the remaining portion represent practices in rural regions. We found significant differences between these two groups regarding the number of treated patients, the range of clinical symptoms requiring testing, the amount of performed tests for intestinal parasites, on both prophylactic and clinical indications and in children and adults. As a recommendation for the improvement of the prevention of intestinal parasitosis the surveyed GPs indicated the necessity to ameliorate the socio-economic status of their patients. The identified problems requiring practical solution were the partial or complete lack of antiparasitic agents in the pharmacy network and the limitation of the number of the attainable test due to the restricted finances.Conclusion: The analysis of the survey showed an alarming tendency that GPs ignore and/or underestimate the problems of intestinal parasitoses - the variety of the causative agents, clinical manifestation of the diseases, their regional epidemiology, the treatment regiments which adversely affects the preventive, diagnostic, dispensary and control measures they themselves ought to implement

Ketogenic diet - biochemical aspects and anticonvulsant mechanisms

Въведение: Кетогенна диета представлява нисковъглехидратна диета с повишен прием на мазнини. Още от създаването си се прилага за целите на медицината, за терапия с антиконвулсивен ефект при деца с епилепсия. Последните научни доклади дават данни за благоприятното й въздействие върху няколко мета-болитни, невродегенеративни разстройства, увеличава се и интересът към използването й в психиатрията. Цел: Целта на настоящата разработка е да представи характеристика на биохимичните аспекти на кетогенната диета, както и механизмите на антиконвулсивната й ефективност. Материали и методи: За целите на литературния обзор е направена справка с 28 научни статии на английски език. Резултати и обсъждане: Въпреки почти 100-годишното си приложение в клиничната практика причината за антиконвулсивния и другите терапевтични ефекти на кетогенната диета не са напълно изяснени. Основните метаболитни и биохимични изменения, които се на блюдават по време на кетогенното хранене, са формиране на високи нива на кетони, полиненаситени мастни киселини и γ-аминомаслената киселина GABA, която е основният инхибиторен невротрансмитер в мозъка на бозайниците. В същото време поради нисковъглехидратното хранене нивата на глюкозата в организма значително се понижават. Голям брой научни доклади от създаването на диетата до днес активно проучват биохимичните аспекти на тези изменения, както и ролята им в наблюдавания терапевтичен ефект от кетогенното хранене. Заключение: Кетогенната диета се прилага като успешна алтернативна или помощна терапия при голям брой пациенти по света. Механизмите на нейната ефективност предизвикват голям научен интерес, както и оптимизирането й за повече пациенти и техните семействата.Introduction: The ketogenic diet is a low-carbohydrate diet with increased fat intake. Since its inception, it has been applied for medical purposes for anticonvulsant therapy among children with epilepsy. Recent scientific reports provide evidence of its beneficial effects on several metabolic, neurodegenerative disorders, resulting in increased interest in its use in psychiatry. Aim: The aim of the article is to present the biochemical aspects of the ketogenic diet as well as the mechanisms of its anticonvulsant efficacy. Materials and Methods: For the purposes of the literature review, 28 scientific papers were reviewed. Results and Discussion: The cause of the anticonvulsant and other therapeutic effects of the ketogenic diet has not been fully elucidated, despite it being applied for almost 100 years. The major metabolic and biochemical changes observed during ketogenic feeding are the formation of high levels of ketones, polyunsaturated fatty acids and γ-aminobutyric acid GABA, which is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain. At the same time, glucose levels in the body significantly decrease as a result of the low-carbohydrate nutrition. A large number of scientific reports from the creation of the diet to today have been actively studying the biochemical aspects of these changes as well as their role in the observed therapeutic effect as a result of ketogenic nutrition. Conclusion: Ketogenic diet has being applied as a successful alternative or adjunct therapy among large number of patients worldwide. Its effective mechanisms provoke great interest, as well as its optimization for more patients and families

Volunteering as an opportunity to support professional realization

Volunteering is a sector with great potential which aims to support public causes in different spheres as well as personal and professional development. According to public opinion, volunteering is primarily associated with free work for society, altruism, and personal development, but its role in building up valuable attitudes and qualities which are applicable to professional development is missed