'Restoring the person's life': a qualitative study to inform development of care for people with severe mental disorders in rural Ethiopia.

AIMS: In low-income countries, care for people with severe mental disorders (SMDs) who manage to access treatment is usually emergency-based, intermittent or narrowly biomedical. The aim of this study was to inform development of a scalable district-level mental health care plan to meet the long-term care needs of people with SMD in rural Ethiopia. METHODS: The present study was carried out as formative work for the Programme for Improving Mental health CarE which seeks to develop, implement and evaluate a district level model of integrating mental health care into primary care. Six focus group discussions and 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with service planners, primary care providers, traditional and religious healers, mental health service users, caregivers and community representatives. Framework analysis was used, with findings mapped onto the domains of the Innovative Care for Chronic Conditions (ICCC) framework. RESULTS: Three main themes were identified. (1) Focused on 'Restoring the person's life', including the need for interventions to address basic needs for food, shelter and livelihoods, as well as spiritual recovery and reintegration into society. All respondents considered this to be important, but service users gave particular emphasis to this aspect of care. (2) Engaging with families, addressed the essential role of families, their need for practical and emotional support, and the importance of equipping families to provide a therapeutic environment. (3) Delivering collaborative, long-term care, focused on enhancing accessibility to biomedical mental health care, utilising community-based health workers and volunteers as an untapped resource to support adherence and engagement with services, learning from experience of service models for chronic communicable diseases (HIV and tuberculosis) and integrating the role of traditional and religious healers alongside biomedical care. Biomedical approaches were more strongly endorsed by health workers, with traditional healers, religious leaders and service users more inclined to see medication as but one component of care. The salience of poverty to service planning was cross-cutting. CONCLUSIONS: Stakeholders prioritised interventions to meet basic needs for survival and endorsed a multi-faceted approach to promoting recovery from SMD, including social recovery. However, sole reliance on this over-stretched community to mobilise the necessary resources may not be feasible. An adapted form of the ICCC framework appeared highly applicable to planning an acceptable, feasible and sustainable model of care

Recycling of cotton and polyester fibers to produce nonwoven fabric for functional sound absorption material

Recycled fibers are commonly used in dissimilar applications and one of the most important applications is sound absorption. Recycled fiber nonwovens currently are in greater demands in industries because of their advantages such as low cost, biodegradability, acceptable mechanical and physical properties, and so on. Sound absorption materials, renewable, and eco-friendly nonwovens have been developed using recycled cotton and polyester fibers. This research provides a contribution to the body of knowledge on the sound absorption properties of nonwovens using recycled fibers which contain cotton and polyester by means of spun-laid technique and provides a better understanding of the effects of a number of manufacturing processes on nonwovens noise control performance and also contributes to the wider adoption of nonwovens as sound absorbers. The sound absorption coefficients were measured according to ASTM E 1050 by an impedance tube method. The results revealed that the average of the sound absorption coefficients increased with the thickness of the nonwovens, but decreased with the nonwoven fabric density

Caring for the carers in a public health district: A wellbeing initiative to support healthcare professionals

Abstract Aims and Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of the proactive organisational resource allocation in terms of a 6-week wellbeing initiative to support public healthcare professionals’ workplace engagement, wellbeing and job satisfaction. Background: Burnout of healthcare professionals can be a major cost to the Australian economy and public healthcare sector. According to the social exchange theory, when healthcare professionals perceive that their organisation proactively allocates resources to caring for its employees, then they are more likely to reciprocate and become more engaged in their work roles. Design: The study used a pre and post survey of healthcare professionals who participated in the wellbeing initiative. Methods: Between February and June 2019, 172 healthcare professionals were surveyed before and after a wellbeing initiative. The survey included questions on workplace engagement, workplace wellbeing, and job satisfaction. Paired t-tests were used to determine if the difference between before and after averages were significant. The TREND statement was utilised to ensure the quality reporting of this study. Results: The wellbeing initiative had a positive impact on the healthcare professionals involved in the initiative. Nursing staff benefitted the most from the wellbeing initiative while the full-time staff members and highly experienced demonstrated an increase in engagement. Conclusion: Wellbeing initiatives can be a targeted strategy to help alleviate burnout amongst healthcare professionals and build a mutually beneficial relationship between management and employees. Relevance to clinical practice: This study shows how implementing a staff wellbeing initiative increases workplace engagement, which benefits both the individual and the organisation. KEYWORDS self-care, stress, support, nurses, burnout, fatigue, job motivation, mindfulness, work satisfaction, psychological well-being What does this paper contribute to the wider global clinical community? • In order to promote a healthy workplace culture, public health organisations need to allocate funding proactively support employee wellbeing initiatives. • In accordance with the social exchange theory, this study provides an insight into how proactive organisational resource allocation to care for its employees can influence reciprocal response from its nursing staff resulting in enhanced engagement at work. • The ‘toolkit’ of wellbeing skills harnessed from the 6-week initiative can be easily incorporated into the daily routines and shift work schedules of healthcare professionals