Search results for " public health"

Lifestyle counseling to reduce body weight and cardiometabolic risk factors among truck and bus drivers – a randomized controlled trial

2015

Objectives We conducted a randomized trial among overweight long-distance drivers to study the effects of structured lifestyle counseling on body weight and cardiometabolic risk factors. Methods Men with waist circumference > 100 cm were randomized into a lifestyle counseling (LIFE, N=55) and a reference (REF, N=58) group. The LIFE group participated in monthly counseling on nutrition, physical activity, and sleep for 12 months aiming at 10% weight loss. After 12 months, the REF group participated in 3-month counseling. Assessments took place at 0, 12, and 24 months. Between-group differences in changes were analyzed by generalized linear modeling. Metabolic risk (Z score) was calculated fr…

Counseling intervention to improve quality of life in patients with pre-existing acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or chronic obstructive pulmonary d…

2018

In the light of diagnostic and therapeutic advances, patients with a previous myocardial infarction or with a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are vulnerable and need continuous monitoring over time. These pathological frameworks have a strong impact on the economy and on the status of the population and require effective and low-cost solutions.The objective of this clinical trial is to evaluate the efficacy in the short term of a telephone counseling intervention to modify the lifestyles of these two patient populations.In May 2015, all the patients included in the study underwent a questionnaire to evaluate their eating and smoking habits and their quality of life. After…

The execution of the Grooved Pegboard test in a Dual-Task situation: A pilot study

2020

Background Manual dexterity is an important aspect in everyday life, which is widely studied through the Grooved Pegboard Test (GPT). Since Dual-Tasks (DT) activities are widely investigated and important to simulate everyday life situations, the objectives of the present pilot study were the evaluation of the effect of a cognitive task and a motor task during the performance of the GPT and the feasibility of the GPT in a DT contest. A secondary objective was to evaluate the training effect of the GPT. Methods A total of 31 young adults (20 man and 11 woman, age (SD): 27.7 (2.5)) performed the GPT eight times to understand the presence of a training effect before performing the GPT in DT. T…

Clinical pathways for urology patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

2020

The public health emergency caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in a significant reallocation of health resources with a consequent reorganization of the clinical activities also in several urological centers. A panel of Italian urologists has agreed on a set of recommendations on pathways of pre-, intra- and post-operative care for urological patients undergoing urgent procedures or non-deferrable oncological interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Simplification of the diagnostic and staging pathway has to be prioritized in order to reduce hospital visits and consequently the risk of contagion. In absence of strict uniform regulations that impose th…

Activities related to inflammatory bowel disease management during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown in Italy: How to maintain standard…

2020

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Restructuring activities have been necessary during the lockdown phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Few data are available on the post-lockdown phase in terms of health-care procedures in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) care, and no data are available specifically from IBD units. We aimed to investigate how IBD management was restructured during the lockdown phase, the impact of the restructuring on standards of care and how Italian IBD units have managed post-lockdown activities. METHODS: A web-based online survey was conducted in two phases (April and June 2020) among the Italian Group for IBD affiliated units within the entire country. We inv…

Essential strategies in HAI prevention and control: performance assessment through the implementation of the HAI-CoSIP tool of the GISIO-SItI group. …

2018

Healthcare-Associated Infections are a great concern for worldwide healthcare systems and represent a considerable threat to patient safety, leading to adverse clinical outcomes. A defined panel of indicators represents a key element to guide Healthcare Organizations towards identification of main gaps, implementation of effective actions and continuous improvements on Healthcare-Associated Infections prevention and control activities. A review on accreditation systems conducted by the Italian Study Group of Hospital Hygiene of the Italian Society of Hygiene Preventive Medicine and Public Health revealed a substantial heterogeneity of implemented standards and led to the development of a co…

A cross‐cultural comparison of the roles of emotional intelligence, metacognition, and negative coping for health‐related quality of life in German v…

2018

Objectives Low emotional intelligence (EI) may predispose individuals to applying maladaptive coping strategies. This may maintain anxious worrying, which is highly prevalent in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and may affect mental (MCS) and physical component summaries (PCS) of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Design The current study is a cross-sectional and cross-cultural survey. Methods N = 200 outpatients with CHF were recruited at cardiology institutes in Germany and Pakistan and assessed with self-report questionnaires. Results Path analysis (χ2 (4) = 7.59, p = .11, GFI = .99) revealed that the expected associations between low EI and lower SF-36 MCS and PCS of HRQoL…

Semantics bias in cross-national comparative analyses : Is it good or bad to have "fair" health?

2016

The Health Behavior in School-aged Children is a cross-national study collecting data on social and health indicators on adolescents in 43 countries. The study provides comparable data on health behaviors and health outcomes through the use of a common protocol, which have been a back bone of the study sine its initiation in 1983. Recent years, researchers within the study have noticed a questionable comparability on the widely used item on self-rated health. One of the four response categories to the item “Would you say your health is….?” showed particular variation, as the response category “Fair” varied from 20 % in Latvia and Moldova to 3–4 % in Bulgaria and Macedonia. A qualitative min…

Health promotion curricula: cross-national comparisons of essential reading.

2000

Selecting and Retaining Friends on the Basis of Cigarette Smoking Similarity

2013

This study examines whether friend selection, deselection, and socialization differ as a function of the level of cigarette smoking in the friendship group. A total of 1419 students (median age = 16) from upper secondary and vocational schools in Finland were included as targets in the peer network. Targets in the peer network were asked to nominate friends and describe their own cigarette smoking at two time points one year apart. Network analyses revealed similarity arising from selection and deselection on the basis of smoking. Selection effects (i.e., selecting new friends based on similarity) were stronger for adolescents in low-smoking groups. Deselection effects (i.e., dropping frien…