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Introduction: Since the emergence of COVID-19, the Malaysian government has made wearing a face mask in public mandatory since August 1, 2020, as an effort by the government to control the transmission of COVID-19. However, Malaysians' willingness to wear face masks in public is unknown., Objective: Thus, this study aimed to evaluate their perception of face mask wearing during COVID-19 and its contributing factors., Methodology: A total of 1024 respondents, aged ≥ 18 years, participated in this online cross-sectional survey from October 2021 to December 2021. The Face Mask Perception Scale (FMPS) was used to measure their perceptions., Results: Most of the respondents perceived wearing a face mask as uncomfortable. Our findings also revealed statistically significant differences and a small effect (f2 = 0.04) in which respondents who were concerned about being infected by the virus perceived face mask wearing appearance positively (B = - 0.09 units of log-transformed, 95% CI = - 0.15, - 0.04), whereas married respondents perceived it negatively (B = 0.07 units of log-transformed, 95% CI = 0.03, 0.09). There were no statistically significant differences in other domains of FMPS., Conclusion: In conclusion, discomfort was a major complaint. Marital status and fear of COVID-19 infection affected their perceptions. The public health implications of these findings highlight the importance of addressing discomfort and societal perceptions, particularly those influenced by factors such as marital status and COVID-19 experience, to promote widespread acceptance and consistent usage of face masks, which is crucial in mitigating the spread of COVID-19., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Yusof 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.)

Healthcare practitioners face significant risks of workplace violence due to various reasons such as hospital congestion, miscommunication, and aggressive behaviours of patients and relatives. Exposure to workplace violence may disrupt the workflow process and compromise patient care in healthcare facilities, ultimately affecting job performance, reducing job satisfaction, and negatively affecting the physical and mental health of healthcare practitioners. This study aimed to review all the published studies conducted on the experiences of workplace violence among healthcare practitioners. This study is a systematic review of qualitative studies. Data were collected through online databases including ScienceDirect, PubMed, MEDLINE and JSTOR were searched from the year 2015-2021. The inclusion criteria were: qualitative methods and mixed methods of data collection and analysis; studies that were carried out among healthcare practitioners who have been experience on workplace violence; scope of the primary studies included experience of workplace violence; and published in English/Malay in academic journal between 2015 and 2021. A total of 15 papers were included in the final analysis. The overall quality of the included papers was high. Of the 15 papers, 12 studies fully met the CASP criteria. The results of the 15 included studies were organised into the thematic groups of: i) verbal violence as the common workplace violence; ii) perceived causes of workplace violence and iii) seeking help. Across different countries, verbal violence was the most common type of workplace violence reported by healthcare practitioners. This review also identified that a lack of information, failure to meet patient expectations, and delayed treatment were the main contributing factors to workplace violence., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest: None., (© Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2024.)

Introduction: Smartphone addiction is becoming a global concern affecting every part of society, including healthcare professionals. This study aimed to identify the prevalence of risk of smartphone addiction and its associated factors among medical and dental students in a public university in Malaysia., Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted among pre-clinical medical and dental students using convenience sampling. Questions regarding sociodemographic profile and responses to the Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Version (SAS-SV) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Score questionnaire (DASS-21) were collected. Multiple logistic regression testing was used to analyse the factors associated with smartphone addiction., Results: We invited 409 pre-clinical medical and dental students to participate voluntarily, resulting in a response rate of 80.2%. The prevalence of high-risk smartphone addiction among the participants was 47.9%. Male participants, participants who used smartphones mainly for social media, and participants with depressive symptoms were more likely to have a high risk of smartphone addiction. Medical students, participants who spent less than 3 hours per day on a smartphone, and participants who used smartphones for education-related activities were less likely to have a high risk of smartphone addiction., Conclusion: Smartphone addiction prevalence among pre-clinical medical and dental students was high. Therefore, the authorities should overcome this problem by implementing early measures., (© Academy of Family Physicians of Malaysia.)

The objectives of occupational health services (OHS) are to create a healthy and safe working environment, prevent work-related diseases, optimise employees' functional capacity and promote health. According to the literature, global accessibility to OHS has not shown much improvement and even worsened in certain countries. The main challenges come from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). To respond to these global challenges, the basic occupational health services (BOHS) guideline was published under the purview of the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization. The guideline describes BOHS as part of the infrastructure called the occupational safety and health system, an essential element that ensures the high service coverage and sustainability of the programme. The BOHS guideline was introduced in Malaysia by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health with a focus on SMEs, but its accessibility is low. A gap analysis was conducted between the current BOHS in Malaysia and the published international guideline. The important challenges identified that contributes to the low BOHS accessibility in Malaysia is the weakness in the BOHS infrastructure and OHS system provision. The proposed BOHS infrastructure model is meant to increase accessibility and to provide fair and equitable health services for Malaysians., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest None.

Introduction: Sleep is vital for mental and physical health of an individual. Duration of sleep influences the metabolism and regulates body weight., Objective: To assess the cross-sectional association of sleep duration with body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio in Malaysian students., Methods: Eighty-nine Malaysian students of both genders, and with a mean (standard deviation) age of 21.2 (0.9) years were included. Institutional Ethics Committee clearance was obtained prior to the start of study. The subjects were interviewed regarding the average hours of sleep/day, their self-reported sleep duration was categorized as < 6hour/day (short sleep duration), 6-7hour/day and > 7hour/day. Their height (in meters), weight (in kilograms), waist and hip circumference (in centimetre) were measured. BMI and waist-hip ratio were calculated using appropriate formulas and expressed as mean (standard deviation). The duration of sleep was compared with BMI and waist-hip ratio using one way ANOVA., Results: No statistical significance was observed when sleep duration was associated with BMI (p=0.65) and waist-hip ratio (p=0.95). Duration of sleep did not affect BMI and waist hip ratio in the Malaysian students in our study. The age and healthy lifestyle of the subjects in this study may have been a reason for no significant influence of short sleep duration on the BMI and waist-hip ratio., Conclusion: No association was found between sleep duration with BMI and waist hip ratio in the Malaysian students.

Background: This study aimed to develop an index that can rank welding workplace that associate well with possible health risk of welders., Methods: Welding Fumes Health Index (WFHI) were developed based on data from case studies conducted in Plant 1 and Plant 2. Personal sampling of welding fumes to assess the concentration of metal constituents along with series of lung function tests was conducted. Fifteen metal constituents were investigated in each case study. Index values were derived from aggregation analysis of metal constituent concentration while significant lung functions were recognized through statistical analysis in each plant., Results: The results showed none of the metal constituent concentration was exceeding the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for all plants. However, statistical analysis showed significant mean differences of lung functions between welders and non-welders. The index was then applied to one of the welding industry (Plant 3) for verification purpose. The developed index showed its promising ability to rank welding workplace, according to the multiple constituent concentrations of welding fumes that associates well with lung functions of the investigated welders., Conclusion: There was possibility that some of the metal constituents were below the detection limit leading to '0' value of sub index, thus the multiplicative form of aggregation model was not suitable for analysis. On the other hand, maximum or minimum operator forms suffer from compensation issues and were not considered in this study.