Search

Background: Utilization of under 5 year old child health care services in Egypt is considered low, the highest proportion of well-baby visits is mainly for immunization in the first two years of age. Parents may rely upon the internet and mobile applications (apps) for support in handling day to day parenting situations. mHealth (Mobile Health) interventions have the potential to be a useful and low-cost way to disseminate information about proper nutrition, can be used to monitor children's growth using the official charts of World Health Organization, also can help in accessing vaccine-related information and recommended immunization schedules. Objectives: To assess needs and requirements for a new comprehensive well-baby clinic mobile app. Also, to develop a mobile app prototype covering all well baby clinic service com-ponents which are: Physical growth, Developmental milestones, Immunizations, Nutrition and Safety & emergency measures. Methods: This work is done over two phases. In Exploratory phase, we assessed the need for the new app by performing bibliographic review of previous mHealth interventions in childcare field, market search of the available related apps and an online survey to assess the need and expectations of the new app. In preparatory phase, we developed the novel well baby clinic app that constituted all well baby clinic services for children's health monitoring which are: Physical growth, Developmental milestones, Immunizations, Nutrition and Safety & emergency measures relying on evidence-based information and honoring data safety. Results: 13 Arabic apps were downloaded and extracted for review. All of these apps (100%~13/13) were in the form of written articles that offered no interactive features for parents. All offered general health education not tailored according to the status of the child. None of them were developed by a university or a certified health organization. Almost all of them (92.3%~12/ 13) were commercial apps as they included ads. Our online survey on 374 mothers showed that almost all of them (97.5%) reported the need of a new app to regularly follow their children's health. They also reported the need of nutrition, developmental milestones and physical growth services in the app. We developed "Sehhat Tefly" app constituting caregiver information, child sociodemographic characteristics and the 6 previously mentioned services, it also included health education videos and a conclusive report section. Conclusion: After vigorous review of literature, market search and user requirement assessment, apps reviewed didn't provide any comprehensive approach to well-baby clinic services on a scientific basis. Upon market requirement for child m-health, we developed "Sehhat Tefly" app. The full potential of this app is yet to be defined. Further studies are needed to assess accessibility and usability of the app and to explore difficulties and barriers faced by users in different services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Sentinel surveillance for severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) in Egypt began in 2006 and occurs at eight sites. Avian influenza is endemic, and human cases of influenza A (H5N1) have been reported annually since 2006. This study aimed to describe the epidemiology of SARI at a major sentinel site in the country. Methods Data included in the study were collected from a major SARI sentinel site in Egypt during three consecutive years (2013–15). Results A total of 1254 SARI patients conforming to the WHO case definition were admitted to the sentinel site, representing 5.6% of admitted patients for all causes and 36.6% of acute respiratory infection patients. A total of 99.7% of the patients were tested, and 21.04% tested positive; 48.7% of cases involved influenza A viruses, while 25% involved influenza B. The predominant age group was under 5 years of age, accounting for 443 cases. The seasonality of the influenza data conformed to the Northern Hemisphere pattern. Conclusions The present study's results show that SARI leads to substantial morbidity in Egypt. There is a great need for high-quality data from the SARI surveillance system in Egypt, especially with endemic respiratory threats such as influenza A (H5N1) in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Work related stress reduces the overall mental and physical wellbeing of employees. Workers in health industry are more prone to work stress than any other workplace. Many researches were conducted among health-care professionals, but not among hospital employees who are not involved in the direct patient's care. Objectives: This study was aiming to measure the prevalence of work related stress among employees of Ain Shams University Hospitals, to determine its risk factors and to measure its effect on the occurrence of depression, anxiety and stress. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted upon a sample of employees in Ain Shams University Hospitals, working in the same job for at least one year and not involved in direct patient's care. Employees were interviewed using the "workplace stress scale", the "Depression Anxiety Stress Scale DASS-21", and the "socioeconomic status scale for health research in Egypt" by El-Gilany. Results: The study included 462 participants, their age ranged from 18 to 59 years (mean 6 SD: 43.4 6 10.9), 171(37%) were males and 291 (63%) were females, and the majority were in the middle and high social class (79.2% and 16.9%) respectively). Most of the employee experienced work-related stress: 40 (87.7%) of them, the moderate, severe, and dangerous levels were 32.3%, 22.5% and 7.6% respectively. Work-related stress was significantly associated with job category with engineers were the least stressed (50%) and workers were the most (94.1%). The majority of participants suffered any of the three mental ill-health and the frequency of depression, anxiety and stress (312 (67.5), 319 (69.0) and 239 (51.7) respectively). Severe/ extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety and stress were observed among 20.8%, 34.6% and 17.6% of participants respectively. Work related stress was significantly associated with the three mental ill-health status. Conclusion: This study revealed a high level of work-related stress among hospital employee who are not involved in patient's care with around fifth of them suffered severe levels of mental ill-health. Occupational stress resulted mainly from inadequate control over work duties and unpleasant or unsafe work conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]