Suchergebnisse

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among cancer patients and to assess the nutritional and functional status of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at the Oncology unit of Beit Jala Governmental Hospital in Palestine. METHODS: During the data collection period, all patients who received chemotherapy at the hospital's chemotherapy unit were included in this cross-sectional analysis. Anthropometric measurements and biochemical data from the patients' files were used to determine nutritional status. The Nutrition Risk Screening (NRS) 2002 was used to assess the risk of malnutrition. The Functional Assessment of Anorexia/Cachexia Therapy (FAACT) was used to determine functional status. A three-day diet recall was used to determine dietary intake. RESULTS: A total of 153 patients were included in the final analysis. The results revealed that 23.8% of the patients were at risk of malnutrition. Those who were not at risk of malnutrition had a marginally improved functional position. Furthermore, patients aged ≥65 years, males, smokers or former smokers, and those with four or more comorbidities had a significantly higher prevalence of malnutrition. In the logistic model, age >60 years was the only indicator of malnutrition. CONCLUSION: Malnutrition has a considerable prevalence in the study sample. However, the functional status of patients who were not at risk of malnutrition was marginally better than that of those with malnutrition risk.

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is a usually observed condition among patients on hemodialysis and is considered one of sturdiest indicators of mortality and morbidity. OBJECTIVES: The current study was performed to assess the prevalence of malnutrition, to verify whether functional status is associated with malnutrition, and to explore the probable factors related to malnutrition among a sample of hemodialysis patients at Hebron Governmental Hospital in West Bank, Palestine. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on hemodialysis patients in Hebron Governmental Hospital at Hebron city/Palestine. An interview-based questionnaire was used to obtain information related to socio-demographics, dialysis, medical history, lifestyle, anthropometric measurements, dietary data, and functional status. Renal inpatient screening tool (renal iNUT) was also utilized to screen hemodialysis patients for malnutrition. Furthermore, biochemical tests were obtained during the study period from medical files of the studied patients. RESULTS: A total of 153 patients, having a mean age of 50.1 ± 16.6 years, were involved in the final analysis. The results indicated that the prevalence of high risk of malnutrition (45.4 %). Moreover, high risk of malnutrition was significantly associated with occupation, and walking. It was further found that patients with high risk of malnutrition are more likely to had osteoporosis, unable to ambulate, didn't feel that the amount of food they eat is enough. Our findings also figured out that some complications during hemodialysis session (e.g., headache, nausea, hypotension) and some hemodialysis side effects (e.g., itching, access site complication) were significantly correlated to malnutrition. CONCLUSIONS: A high prevalence of malnutrition was revealed among hemodialysis using renal iNUT screening tool. Improving nutritional assessment methods for patients on hemodialysis is highly needed. Findings reveals that risk of malnutrition is associated with multiple factors such as osteoporosis, ...

Background: The majority of research attention has been devoted to the link between religiosity and suicide risk, and a considerable amount of studies has been carried out on how stigma impacts individuals with mental health problems of different kinds. However, the interplay between religiosity, suicide literacy and suicide stigma has seldom been empirically researched, especially quantitatively. We sought through this study to redress the imbalance of research attention by examining the relationship between religiosity and suicide stigma; and the indirect and moderating effects of suicide literacy on this relationship. Method: A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted among Arab-Muslim adults originating from four Arab countries (Egypt: N = 1029, Kuwait: N = 2182, Lebanon N = 781, Tunisia N = 2343; Total sample: N = 6335). The outcome measures included the Arabic Religiosity Scale which taps into variation in the degree of religiosity, the Stigma of Suicide Scale-short form to the solicit degree of stigma related to suicide, and the Literacy of Suicide Scale explores knowledge and understanding of suicide. Results: Our Mediation analyses findings showed that literacy of suicide partially mediated the association between religiosity and stigmatizing attitude toward suicide. Higher religiosity was significantly associated with less literacy of suicide; higher literacy of suicide was significantly associated with less stigma of suicide. Finally, higher religiosity was directly and significantly associated with more stigmatization attitude toward suicide. Conclusion: We contribute the literature by showing, for the first time, that suicide literacy plays a mediating role in the association between religiosity and suicide stigma in a sample of Arab-Muslim community adults. This preliminarily suggests that the effects of religiosity on suicide stigma can be modifiable through improving suicide literacy. This implies that interventions targeting highly religious individuals should pay dual attention to increasing suicide literacy and lowering suicide stigma.