Tập 5 Số 02 (2021): Tập 5, số 2-2021 (số Tiếng Anh)

Objective: Smoking behavior among adults still exists in Vietnam. This paper aims to describe smoking behavior among people aged 15 and above, specifically those monitored by the demographic surveillance system – CHILILAB, in order to determine the association between smoking behavior and the tobacco outlets density and proximity. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with a total of 5,076 households, with one 15-and-over member in each household selected randomly to answer the questionnaire. Coordinate data of households and tobacco outlets was collected. Smoking status was the main dependent variable. Distance from household to nearest tobacco outlet, and number of tobacco outlets in different radius were calculated using ArcGIS 10.4.1. Results: The prevalence of current smoking status was 17.1% (36.6% among male and 1.0% among female). The average distance to nearest tobacco outlet was 170.7 meters and an average of 3.1 tobacco outlets in radius of 100 – 200 meters around participants’ households. Both density and proximity of tobacco outlets showed associations with smoking prevalence. To reduce smoking prevalence among community, policymakers should consider applying a range of no-tobacco-outlet, as well as reduce the number of existed tobacco retailers. Conclusion: The density and proximity of tobacco outlets should be considered an important factor to be controlled in analysis related to tobacco smoking.

Objective : This study aimed to examine the psychological work environments and associated factors among clinical nurses in a provincial tertiary hospital in the North of Vietnam in 2020. Methods : A cross-sectional survey was conducted among all nurses of 22 clinical wards who directly provided care to patients. 261/318 eligible nurses returned the self-reported survey questionnaires that consisted of the Vietnamese version of the Job Content Questionnaire 22 items and originally developed questions on personal characteristics and work conditions. Descriptive analysis, t-test, ANOVA, and multivariate linear regressions were applied to describe the current job demand, job control, and related factors at the significant level p less than 0.05. Results : The response rate of the current study was 82.1%. Nurses reported moderate job demand (29.39±3.64) and job control (66.86±5.79). Increased job control was significantly associated with more frequency of receiving support from superiors (p<0.001), a self-perceived opportunity of promotion (p = 0.011), and more night shifts per week (p=0.004). Less support from co-workers and more night shifts were associated with a higher job demand score among study participants (p = 0.041 and 0.002, respectively). Conclusions : Several nurses in the provincial hospital work in unfavorable work environments with high job demand and low job control, which could adversely affect nurses’ well-being. It is essential to promote social support at work to improve the psychological working conditions and performance of study participants.  

Objectives: Sleep is a normal physiological process of the body. Sleep impacts on many aspects of health and quality of life at all ages. There are many risk factors associated with sleep deprivation or poor sleep quality: physical health problems such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease; mental health issues like depression; traffic and occupational accident. The study was conducted with the aims of understanding the sleep quality situation of youngster aged 16-30 years in Da Nang City, Vietnam, and determining the factors related to the sleep quality of the study participants. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on adolescents living in Da Nang City, Vietnam. The information was collected by using a structured questionnaire.  Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the risk factors associated with the sleep quality among adolescents. Results: The proportion of the adolescents who suffered from poor sleep quality was 31.1%. The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that there were the relationships between sleep quality and living in Hoa Vang District; occupations were student, worker, or officer; finishing working/studying time after 7 pm; regularly use and dependent on the internet; having stress; having pressure on study/work, overeating before going to bed, rarely or sometimes staying up late, lying postures were laying up, lie on the left side and other postures; hand posture when sleeping. Conclusion: The proportion of adolescents living in Da Nang City with good sleep quality was not high. The government needs to propagandize and mobilize people, especially young people in terms of the impacts of sleep quality on health, thereby improving sleep quality to help young people in good condition, helping the country and defending the country.

Objective:  This study was conducted to answer the three questions: 1- What intervention with no caregiver to increase cost-effectiveness in patients with dementia have been implemented? 2- How has disease progression changed in these interventions? 3- How has cost effectiveness changed in these interventions? Methods:  The databases were searched from PubMed, Cochrane and Science Direct. Studies on cost-effectiveness of interventions for people with dementia without caregiver published from 2010 to 2020 have been filtered. Systematic review was carried out according to the Cochrane Collaboration methodology. Search for documents based on PICOTS standards: Population - Patients with dementia, regardless of disease severity; Intervention - Intervention with no-caregiver for dementia patients; Comparison - The intervention group and the control group; Outcome measure - Disease progression and Cost effectiveness; Time - Studies published from January to January 2020. Study design: A randomized controlled trial. Study subjects are not age restricted. Results:  2163 documents were found, of which, there are 15 documents satisfy the criteria. (1) Modes of intervention: There are 3 studies on exercise interventions, 2 studies on drug treatment, the rest are different treatment programs. In which, the START program has done the most studies with 3 studies. (2) Disease progression: Out of the 15 studies, 14 found the difference between the intervention group and the control group. The intervention group mostly had higher QALYs and had better disease progression. (3) Cost-effectiveness: There are 11 out of 15 studies showing the cost-effectiveness of the intervention group compared with the usual care group. 4 remaining studies did not show a cost-effectiveness and there is no evidence of cost-effectiveness unless the service user is willing to pay certain amount for that intervention. Conclusion:  This study shows evidence of no-caregiver interventions that improve dementia and increase the cost-effectiveness of treatment.

Objectives: The elimination of key breeding sites of dengue vector is applied worldwide to control the vector density under the critical epidemic threshold. This study aimed to identify key breeding sites of Aedes mosquitos and associated factors in Huaylau village, Pakse city, Champasack province in Laos in 2019. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, combining of immature stage survey of Aedes mosquitoes in all water and discarded containers and the community’s knowledge and practices on the prevention of dengue fever in all 240 households in Huaylau village. Multivariate logistic regression was applied to identify factors associated with the absence of Aedes larvae and pupae in the village. Statistical significance was set at a p-value less than 0.05. Results: Among the 720 water and discarded containers surveyed, the study found 654 Aedes larvae and pupae; of which 94.6% were immature Aedes aegypti. Key breeding sites of Aedes aegypti included water jars (34.2%), plastic drums (30.7%), tanks < 500 litter (14.7%), and discarded containers (12.6%), while that of all Aedes albopictus was discarded containers. The community’s better practices on the prevention of dengue fever contributed to the increased odds of the absence of Aedes larvae ad pupae by 1.612 (95%CI: 1.218-2.134, p<0.01), and the cleanliness of the house were associated with the increased odds of 4.072 of the absent Aedes larvae and pupae in the participated households (95%CI: 1.589-10.434, p<0.01). Conclusions: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the Huaylau village laid their eggs in various breeding sites, including water containers and discarded containers while discarded containers were the only key breeding site of Aedes albopictus. Better practices on dengue prevention and better hygiene conditions of the houses contributed to the absence of Aedes larvae and pupae. Special attention should be paid to the clearance of all discarded containers and education of the community people to cover water containers in the village.

Objectives : the study is to investigate health care seeking behaviour and to identify factors associated those behaviour among elderly living in Hue city, Vietnam. Methods: 400 old persons who suffered from health problem in the past one month were interviewed directly at their house by a structured questionnaire to survey health care seeking behaviour. Multivariate logistic regression models were applied to identify factors affecting health care seeking behaviour among participants. Results : 72.5% of respondents sought treatment services for their acute illness in the past one month and 68% of them used prevention services in the past one year before the interview. In general, source of income, educational level and severe level of disease influenced health care seeking behaviour among participants. Conclusions: The findings revealed limitation of the elderly to access health care services, especially health preventive services in Hue city. The identified associated factors can help formulate effective public health programs to improve health status among the elderly in Hue city as well as in the country in general.

Objective: This study aims to describe the COVID-19 related information searching behaviors and the relationship between those behaviors and the satisfaction with the COVID-19 related information searched on the Internet among university students during first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by a web-based survey from April 25, 2020 to May 9, 2020. Convenient sample with the method of snowball sampling was applied, 1003 students were obtained totally. Multivariable logistic regression model was used to identify the associations between those behaviors and the satisfaction with the COVID-19 related information searched on the Internet. Results: Search engines were the most popular sources used for online COVID-19 information seeking (95.3%), followed by Social media (92.4%) and News portals (91.6%). About 90% of participants searched the information related to the current spread of the coronavirus, followed by symptoms of the COVID-19 (81.8%) and individual measures to protect against infection (81.9%). Vietnamese remains the main language of the sources with 70.3% of participants used. There’s 45.8% of participant satisfied about the COVID-19 related information. The group of participants who sought information about prevention was 0.47 times less dissatisfied than the group that did not search. Conclusion: There are significant associations between searching topics related to prevention and the COVID-19 related information satisfaction searched on the Internet. These results highlight the need for providing efficient information related to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as seriously consider focusing more on social media to better bring official information to the public.

Since the coronavirus outbreak in January, many schools and universities in Vietnam have almost entirely closed for nearly three months as a means of social distancing. The Ministry of Education has requested institutions to shift to online teaching to ensure students are kept up with their study progress while staying at home, and millions of students have been using different digital online learning approaches to satisfy their home-based learning needs. This paper is to comment on the change and challenges of students and lecturers in adapting training strategies response to Covid 19. Although the social distancing lasted only 3 months and there were some concerns regarding the disadvantages of digital and online way of studying, the training strategies in the Universities have changed significantly. Covid -19 also brings an opportunity in rebuild our education system carefully and adaptably in this sensitive world.

Objective: HIV testing is the only method to confirm people infected with HIV. There are many models providing HIV testing services. HIV testing cost is an important component for the investment and strategic direction of policies and programs on HIV. This paper describes HIV testing costs of HIV confirmatory testing by using three rapid diagnostic tests at district level (POCT- Point of Care testing). Methods: cross-sectional study design was employed, costs are calculated using the cost-allocation method based on the proportion of resources used for the personnel, investment such as infrastructure and equipments, routine operational costs including test kits and consumable supplies, administration and training, fuel costs using for HIV testing in the laboratory, transporting the sample to province for HIV positived confirmation and HIV confirmatory test at the province. Five district health centers (DHC) thực hiện mô hình can thiệp POCT HIV were studied, HIV tests were conducted for 4,636 clients in 2016. Results : 201 HIV positive cases were detected; after implementing the POCT model to confirm HIV status at these five DHCs, the cost per HIV screening test case is 7,4 USD on average; and cost per an HIV comfirmatory test is 206,8 USD. Conclusion: Applying the POCT model of HIV helps reducethe cost of HIV testing because of saving cost for sample transportion and implementing confirm HIV detected more in provincal standard laboratory. It should be expanded to use especially limitted resource settings in Vietnam

Objective: Establishes a relationship between T-CD4 recovery and patient’s HIV disclosure status. Methods: Cross-section and clinical record review study on 151 HIV-infected patients who were 18 years old or above on first-line antiretroviral therapy (1) for 18 to 36 months at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh city (HCMC) in 2019. Participants are selected by convenient method. Research conducted face-to-face interviewing participants by structured questionnaire and collected data directly from each participant's respective medical record, including duration of ART, number of T-CD4 at the beginning of ART, number of current T-CD4. Results: The results showed that within patients who revealed HIV infection to other people, the patients who revealed to their brothers and sisters recovered T-CD4 were 1.45 times more effective (95% CI: 1.09 – 1.93) compared with patients who did not disclose to siblings (p = 0.010). Conclusion: Family members, especially siblings need to care and share so that HIV-infected patients can disclose their status. In particular, wife, husband or partners need to help and motivate patients more to make the patient's treatment better.

Objective: The study was conducted to examine the mental effects of COVID-19 quarantine on students in secondary and high schools in the North of Vietnam. Methods: The cross-sectional study was 5752 students in secondary-and-high schools involved in this study. Results: Based on stress levels, there was 25.9% of students having stress (n=1487), 10.4% of them had Mild stress level; 9.4% of them had Moderate stress level; 4.5% of them had Severe stress level and 1.6% of them had Extremely Severe stress level. Females students, students in high schools, students with divorced parents, domestic violence/fight had high risk of stress. Additionally, students, who feel isolated, usually contacted to their friends and wanted to go back to schools, were reported high risk of stress. Conclusion: Stress is one of the most common mental health which may causes suicide in young generation. During COVID-19 quarantine, the rate of stress among students increased but parents/guardians did not pay attention on it.