474 research outputs found
Quality of Life of Sardinian Immigrants in Buenos Aires and of People Living in Italy and Sardinia: Does the Kind of Care have a Role for People with Depression?
Background / Objectives: The aim of the study was to compare the Quality of Life (QoL) of Sardinian immigrants to Argentina with Sardinians residing in Sardinia. The hypothesis was that a different availability of effective treatments for mood disorders may impact the well being of persons with these disorders. Methods: One out of five families of Sardinian origin was randomly selected. An Italian study (including Sardinia) was adopted as the control. The Mood Disorder Questionnaire was used for screening mania/hypomania; the diagnosis of Current Major Depressive Disorder was conducted by means of the Patient Health Questionnaire in immigrants and by means of a clinical interview in the control study and in an immigrant subsample (to verify comparability); the Short-Form Health Survey-12 was applied to measure QoL. Results: The Sardinian immigrants showed a higher QoL than Italians in Italy (but not with Sardinians residing in Sardinia). On the contrary, the attributable burden worsening QoL due to lifetime manic/hypomanic episodes, as well as to current depressive episodes, was found higher among Sardinian immigrants with respect to both Sardinian residents in Sardinia and the total Italian sample. The use of effective treatment for mood disorder was higher in Italy. Conclusion: The study found that in a sample of Sardinian immigrants in Buenos Aires the impact of a mood disorder affects QoL more incisively than in Sardinians residing in Sardinia. The suggested hypothesis of a possible role of beliefs guiding the search for treatments will be verified in future studies
The perception of professionals and users of the quality of care and respect for human rights in four outpatient care facilities of an Italian hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic
Background: During the Covid-19 pandemic, delays in providing medical services, dissatisfaction, criticism toward health workers (HW) and the risk of burnout of HW in Italy have been documented. No studies have contrasted the point of view of HW and users on the quality of care and respect for human rights in health facilities. Objective: To compare the perception of users of their satisfaction with the care provided with the perception of HW of their satisfaction with work as well as the perception of the respect of HW âs and usersâ human rights. Methods: The âWell-Being at work and respect for human rights questionnaireâ (WWRR) was administered on a sample of users (142) and HW (154) in four outpatient health care facilities of a hospital in Sardinia, Italy. Results: Users showed higher scores than HW on their satisfaction with the care received (p < 0.0001), the perception of respect for their human rights (p < 0.0001), and availability of resources for care (p < 0.0001). The HW scores were higher than 50% of the maximum in all items, but a relatively low score was reported on the HWâs satisfaction of the resources and the respect for their rights. Conclusion: The satisfaction for care and respect for human rights in the outpatient health services was higher than expected. The relatively low score by the HWs in relation to the satisfaction with the resources and perception of respect for their human rights could be a wake-up call. The study does not involve emergency rooms, wards, or Covid units
Advanced x-ray imaging techniques in tissue engineering: a new construct assessment platform for enabling the regeneration of personalised organs
Tissue engineering (TE) holds promise for generating lab-grown patient specific organs which can provide: (1) effective treatment for conditions that require volumetric tissue transplantation and (2) new platforms for drug testing. Even though volumetric structural information is essential for confirming successful organ maturation, TE protocol designs are currently informed through destructive and 2D construct assessment tools (e.g. histology). X-ray phase-contrast computed-tomography (PC-CT) can generate non-destructive, high resolution, 3D density maps of organ architecture. In this work, PC-CT is used as new imaging tool for guiding two TE protocols currently at the in-vitro testing stage. The first (1) involves cell-repopulation of an oesophageal scaffold, with the aim of using the regenerated construct for treating long-gap oesophageal atresia, whilst for the second (2) a lung-derived scaffold is populated with islets for regenerating a pancreas, with the ârepurposedâ lung offering a platform for diabetes drug testing. By combing 3D images and quantitative information, we were able to perform comprehensive construct evaluation. Specifically, we assessed volumetrically: (1) the cell-distribution within the regenerated oesophagi and (2) islet integration with the vascular tree of the lung-derived scaffold. This new information was proven to be essential for establishing corresponding TE protocols and enabled their progression to more advanced scale-up models. We are confident that PC-CT will provide the novel insights necessary to further progress TE protocols, with the next step being in-vivo testing. Crucially, the non-destructive nature of PC-CT will allow in-vivo assessments of TE constructs following their implantation into animal hosts, to investigate their successful integration
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A nationwide evaluation study of the quality of care and respect of human rights in mental health facilities in Ghana: results from the World Health Organization QualityRights initiative
Background
In 2012, Ghana ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and enacted a Mental Health Act to improve the quality of mental health care and stop human rights violations against people with mental health conditions. In line with these objectives, Ghanaian stakeholders collected data on the quality of mental health services and respect for human rights in psychiatric facilities to identify challenges and gather useful information for the development of plans aimed to improve the quality of the services offered. This study aimed to assess psychiatric facilities from different Ghanaian regions and provide evidence on the quality of care and respect of human rights in mental health services.
Methods
Assessments were conducted by independent visiting committees that collected data through observation, review of documentation, and interviews with service users, staff, and carers, and provided scores using the World Health Organization QualityRights Toolkit methodology.
Results
This study revealed significant key challenges in the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities principles in Ghanaian psychiatric services. The rights to an adequate standard of living and enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health were not fully promoted. Only initial steps had been taken to guarantee the right to exercise legal capacity and the right to personal liberty and security. Significant gaps in the promotion of the right to live independently and be included in the community were identified.
Conclusions
This study identifies shortcomings and critical areas that the Ghanaian government and facilities need to target for implementing a human rights-based approach in mental health and improve the quality of mental health care throughout the country
Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in -tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV
Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton
collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against
a boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and
transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 GeV and in the pseudorapidity range . The
data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy
of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb. Triple
differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum
fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also
measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent
fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the
measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into
the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any
supplementary material and additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb
public pages
Study of the decay
The decay is studied
in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of TeV
using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5
collected by the LHCb experiment. In the system, the
state observed at the BaBar and Belle experiments is
resolved into two narrower states, and ,
whose masses and widths are measured to be where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second
systematic. The results are consistent with a previous LHCb measurement using a
prompt sample. Evidence of a new
state is found with a local significance of , whose mass and width
are measured to be and , respectively. In addition, evidence of a new decay mode
is found with a significance of
. The relative branching fraction of with respect to the
decay is measured to be , where the first
uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from
the branching fractions of charm hadron decays.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-028.html (LHCb
public pages
Measurement of the ratios of branching fractions and
The ratios of branching fractions
and are measured, assuming isospin symmetry, using a
sample of proton-proton collision data corresponding to 3.0 fb of
integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment during 2011 and 2012. The
tau lepton is identified in the decay mode
. The measured values are
and
, where the first uncertainty is
statistical and the second is systematic. The correlation between these
measurements is . Results are consistent with the current average
of these quantities and are at a combined 1.9 standard deviations from the
predictions based on lepton flavor universality in the Standard Model.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-039.html (LHCb
public pages
Introduzione
Il volume racchiude parte dei contributi presentati durante il Seminario di Studi Confronti in
Cittadella: la Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici di Cagliari incontra la Scuola di
Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici di Matera, tenutosi nei giorni 5-6 aprile 2019 presso la
Cittadella dei Musei âG. Lilliuâ di Cagliari, luogo che, oltre ad ospitare il principale polo
museale della cittĂ , costituisce la âbellaâ sede staccata del Dipartimento di Lettere, Lingue e
Beni Culturali della facoltĂ di Studi Umanistici dellâUniversitĂ cagliaritana
- âŠ