Association between Affiliate Stigma and Psychological Well-being among Caregivers of Patients with Dementia: A Quantitative Report

Background: The psychological health of caregivers can have a significant impact on the health of individuals with disabilities. People with disabilities whose caregivers experience depression or lack effective coping mechanisms are likely to experience psychological stress. As a result, the health of caregivers is one of the most significant risk factors for placing a caregiver in an institution. Aim: This study investigates the relationship between affiliate stigma and psychological well-being among caregivers of patients with dementia. Methods: Consecutive caregivers were recruited from a clinic at a teaching hospital and a dementia care centre. Affiliate stigma was measured using the 21-item Affiliate Stigma Scale, and caregivers' psychological well-being was measured using the Scale of Psychological Well-Being. A linear regression model with affiliate stigma was used to estimate the associations. Results: Among the 178 recruited caregivers, income and gender were significantly associated with affiliate stigma, while gender, caregiving duration, and dementia stage were significantly associated with psychological well-being. Affiliate stigma showed a significant negative relationship with psychological well-being. Affiliate stigma was identified as the strongest predictor, which explains 54.3% of the variance in psychological well-being. Conclusion: The negative association between affiliate stigma and psychological well-being reinforces the need for awareness programs aimed at decreasing public stigma towards caregivers of people living with dementia

Psychometric properties of the acceptance and action questionnaire (AAQ II) Malay version in cancer patients

Psychological inflexibility has been found as one of the predictor to psychopathology in cancer patient. Cancer patients tend to experience psychological inflexibility as a reaction to cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Therefore, there is a need to identify psychological inflexibility due to its impact on quality of life among cancer patients. Objectives Acceptance and action questionnaire (AAQ II) is a scale used to assess psychological inflexibility. The aim of this study is to translate AAQ II into Malay language and evaluate the psychometric properties of AAQ II Malay version. Methods The AAQ II which has been translated into Malay language via back translation procedure was distributed to 101 cancer patients and 100 non-cancer patients. The evaluation of psychometric properties in this study included content validity index, internal consistency, parallel reliability, exploratory factor analysis, concurrent validity, sensitivity and specificity of AAQ II Malay version. Results AAQ II Malay version has established good content validity index, acceptable internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.91, excellent parallel reliability and adequate concurrent validity. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results demonstrated AAQ II Malay version is a unidimensional factor instrument. The result of sensitivity and specificity of AAQ II Malay version indicated cancer patients who scored more than 17.5 were having significant psychological inflexibility. Conclusion AAQ II Malay version is a reliable and valid instrument to measure psychological inflexibility among cancer patient in Malaysia. © 2019 Shari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Effects of Self-Care Education Intervention Program (SCEIP) on Activation Level, Psychological Distress, and Treatment-Related Information

Self-care education can direct patients to manage their side effects during treatment, reduce psychological distress, and improve self-care information. In this study, the effectiveness of the Self-Care Education Intervention Program (SCEIP) on patient activation levels, psychological distress, and treatment-related concerns in women with breast cancer was assessed by adopting a longitudinal quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test design. The data for 246 women with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy were collected. Pre- and post-interventional assessments were conducted at baseline (T1) and the second (T2), fourth (T3), and sixth (T4) cycles using the 13-item Patient Activation Measure, 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and 25-item Cancer Treatment Survey. It was found that the SCEIP significantly improved the activation level (p ≤ 0.001), psychological distress (anxiety level (p ≤ 0.001), the depression level (p ≤ 0.001)), and treatment-related concerns (sensory/psychological concerns (p = 0.05); procedural concerns (p ≤ 0.001)). Therefore, the SCEIP could potentially improve patients’ activation level, psychological distress, and treatment-related concerns regarding symptom management during chemotherapy, specifically for Malaysian women with breast cancer

The COVID-19 Global Pandemic and Its Impact on the Mental Health of Nurses in Malaysia

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic since its onset has had a dramatic and often devastating impact, both physical and psychological, on all healthcare workers. This study aimed to assess the impact of psychological distress that COVID-19 has on nurses, as well as the coping strategies that they employed. This is a cross-sectional national online survey. A total of 859 nurses actively involved in caring for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 in Malaysia participated in the study. More than three-quarters of the nurses experienced stress (77.2%). A total of 88.7% and 7.2% of nurses revealed a moderate and high stress level, respectively. Approximately one in eight (12.1%) nurses reported feeling depressed. Nurses working in the outpatient departments reported significantly higher stress levels than nurses working in inpatient care departments. Nurses having chronic health problems reported significantly higher depression levels than nurses with no chronic health problem. Highly stressed or depressed nurses tend to adopt avoidance coping strategies while religion and emotional support were used regardless of the stress or depression levels experienced. The findings of the study provide insight into the mental health and coping strategies of nurses actively involved in caring for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 in Malaysia. This would be of tremendous help to nursing administrators in implementing mental health services for nurses during and following the COVID-19 global pandemic