Self-assessed health among Thai elderly

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ageing of the population is rapidly progressing in Thailand. Self-assessed health status can provide a holistic view of the health of the elderly. This study aims to identify the determinants of self-assessed health among older Thai people.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data for this study were drawn from a national survey of older persons conducted in 2007. Stratified two-stage random sampling was used for data collection. The analysis was restricted to the population aged 60 and above. The study used univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis procedures to analyze the data. Bivariate analysis was used to identify the factors associated with self assessment of health status. After controlling for other variables, the variables were further examined using multivariate analysis (binary logistic regression) in order to identify the significant predictors of the likelihood of reporting poor health.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall, 30,427 elderly people were interviewed in this study. More than half of the sampled respondents (53%) were aged 60-69 years and about one out of seven (13%) were aged 80 years or above. About three in five respondents (56%) reported that their health was either fair or very bad/bad. Logistic regression analysis found that age, education, marital status, working status, income, functional status, number of chronic diseases, and number of psychosocial symptoms are significant predictors in determining health status. Respondents who faced more difficulty in daily life were more likely to rate their health as poor compared to those who faced less such difficulty. For instance, respondents who could not perform 3 or more activities of daily living (ADLs) were 3.3 times more likely to assess their health as poor compared to those who could perform all the ADLs. Similarly, respondents who had 1, 2, or 3 or more chronic diseases were 1.8 times, 2.4 times, and 3.7 times, respectively, more likely to report their health as poor compared to those who had no chronic disease at all. Moreover, respondents who had 1-2, 3-4, or 5 or more psychosocial symptoms in the previous months were 1.6 times, 2.2 times, and 2.7 times, respectively, more likely to report poor health compared to those who did not have any psychosocial symptoms during the same period.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Self-assessed poor health is not uncommon among older people in Thailand. No single factor accounts for the self-assessed poor health. The study has found that chronic disease, functional status, and psychosocial symptoms are the strongest determinants of self-assessed poor health of elderly people living in Thailand. Therefore, health-related programs should focus on all the factors identified in this paper to improve the overall well-being of the ageing population of Thailand.</p

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

A comprehensive review on the sustainable treatment of textile wastewater: zero liquid discharge and resource recovery perspectives

Clothing, one of the basic needs, demands the growth of textile industries worldwide, resulting in higher consumption and pollution of water. Consequently, it requires extensive treatment of textile effluent for environmental protection as well as reuse purposes. Primary treatment, secondary treatment, and tertiary treatment are the three major phases of textile wastewater treatment. Secondary treatment under aerobic and anaerobic circumstances is carried out to decrease BOD, COD, phenol, residual oil, and color, whereas primary treatment is utilized to remove suspended particles, oil, grease, and gritty materials. However, biological treatment is not fully capable of treating water according to discharge/reuse standards. Hence, tertiary treatment is used to remove final contaminants from the wastewater. Adsorption is regarded as one of the most feasible processes for dye and metal removal in consideration of cost and variation in the adsorbent. Though membrane filtration is an efficient process, the cost of operation limits its application. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a universally applicable treatment solution for textile effluents. Therefore, the only flexible strategy is to combine several therapy modalities. Treatment of complicated, high-strength textile wastewater depending on pollutant load will be more successful if physical, chemical, and biological approaches are used in tandem. Enforcement of stringent environmental regulation policies, increasing costs and demand for freshwater, and the rising costs and difficulties associated with wastewater disposal are accelerating efforts toward achieving ZLD. Additionally, research into methods for extracting useful materials from wastewater has blossomed in recent years. As such, the purpose of this analysis is to give a holistic overview of textile wastewater treatment systems, with a focus on zero liquid discharge (ZLD) and efficient resource recovery, both of which may hasten the transition to more sustainable water management

Prevalence of bovine viral diarrhea virus persistency in 12 Holstein cattle dairy herds of Charlottetown, Canada

abstract: The prevalence of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) persistency was examined in 12 Holstein dairy herds in Charlottetown, Canada, from Feb. 2009 to Oct. 2009. A total of 469 serum and ear notch biopsy pairs were collected. Depending upon the age and vaccination status, the sampled animals were divided into three groups, A, B1 and B2. Group A consisted of 146 animals originating from 4 herds (≤6 month of age, FN1, FN2, FN3, FN4), group Bl comprised 267 animals representing 5 vaccinated herds against BVDV (≥6 months of age, FV1, FV2, FV3, FV4, FV5), whereas, 56 samples were taken from 3 BVDV non-vaccinated herds of group B2 (≥6 months of age, FN5, FN6, FN7). All the animals were pre-screened through serum neutralization test (SNT), whereas, all ear notch biopsies of group A (n=146) and only of those animals of group B1 (n=15) and B2 (n=37) which had SN titer ≤1:64 were processed to confirm the BVDV persistent infection. Only five animals were found positive originating from group A (n=3) and B1 (n=2) during first sampling. Upon follow up testing, two animals from each of group A and Bl remained positive confirming persistent infection (PI). A prevalence of 0.85% and 2.03% was observed in all the collected and pre screened animals, respectively. The results obtained in this study, demonstrates that the prevalence of PI animals in dairy herds of Prince Edward Island is similar to that, reported from other surveys carried out in other countries. This prevalence PI animals with BVDV in Holstein dairy herds of Charlottetown, Canada, reveal the necessity of further studying BVDV infection in the area

Refinement of the ISO 9126 model for evaluating software product quality in e-Book

Despite the widespread use of e-Book in education, there is yet a standard framework for evaluating the quality of software products in e-Book.Research efforts mainly focus on technological breakthroughs and limited to attention has been given to the evaluation of software product quality.As such, this paper aims to propose a refinement of the ISO 9126 model for evaluating software product quality in e-Book.Popular Software Quality Models are reviewed including McCall, Boehm, FURPS, Dromey and ISO 9126.Refinements to ISO 9126 resulted in the identification of five quality characteristics (Functionality, Reliability, Usability, Efficiency,Portability) and 16 sub -characteristics (Suitability, Accurateness, Security, Interoperability, Maturity, Fault Tolerance, Recoverability, Understandability, Learnability, Operability, Attractiveness, Time Behavior, Adaptability, Installability, Coexistence, Replaceability).There are two contributions of this work: a Software Quality Model for e-Book; and the identification of quality metrics to support the evaluation of software product. The refined model provides a formal method for evaluating software product quality in e- Book and the quality metrics serves as a foundation for the development of survey instruments and computer support system. It is hoped that this work would spark interest for the development of better e- Book applications