Sleep quality among undergraduate occupational therapy students in the University of Santo Tomas during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A descriptive cross-sectional study

Background@#Sleep is an essential occupation for students. It affects one's neurocognitive functions and psychomotor performance, playing a significant role in academic performance, health, and well-being. This study aims to describe the sleep quality and sleep patterns among undergraduate occupational therapy (OT) students at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) during the COVID-19 pandemic.@*Methods@#This descriptive cross-sectional study utilized a record review based on existing data from the UST OT Department's Student Life Survey 2021 database. A total of 205 students from different year levels and academic cohorts of the academic year 2021-2022 participated in the survey, which included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The data with valid responses (n=204) was analyzed using the measures of central tendency and dispersion, such as mean and standard deviation.@*Results@#Data analysis revealed that 95.59% (n=195) of student respondents had significantly poor sleep quality, while 4.41% (n=9) had good sleep quality. Students in the fifth-year level had the greatest sleep dysfunction as opposed to those in the third-year level who had little sleep dysfunction. Sleep duration and daytime dysfunction received the highest individual scores across all year levels.@*Conclusion@#Having poor sleep quality is a common occurrence among undergraduate OT students in UST during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sleep pattern trends suggest the need for school administrators and educators to create measures to mitigate possible negative effects on their student’s academic performance, health, and overall quality of life, especially during public health emergencies, calamities, and disasters.

Incidência de lesões em atletas de basquetebol em cadeira de rodas / Incidence of injuries in wheelchair basketball players

O esporte adaptado tem obtido grande evolução técnica nos últimos anos, o que veio acompanhado por aumentono volume de treino dos atletas e no número de lesões. Este estudo teve o objetivo de avaliar a incidência de lesões em atletas de basquetebol de cadeira de rodas, bem como sua relação com o desempenho motor e aspectos ligados à qualidade de vida. Foramavaliados 11 atletas do sexo masculino, com média de idade de 30,27 anos (+ 6,51), com lesões medulares em níveis torácicos e lombares. O desempenho motor foi avaliado com testes deagilidade e velocidade. A ocorrência de lesões foi verificada por questionários, nos quais os atletas relataram a intensidade de dor e o quanto esta influenciava negativamente o seu dia-a-dia. Foi usada estatística descritiva, teste t-Student para verificar diferença no desempenho motor entre atletas com níveis mais altos e mais baixos de dor e teste de correlação entre idade, tempode prática e desempenho motor dos atletas. Verificou-se que as lesões mais frequentes foram na região do ombro, mas que estas não interferiram no desempenho motor. O que de fato interferiu no desempenho dos atletas foi o tempo de prática, sendo que osatletas mais experientes exibiram melhores resultados no teste develocidade. Também foi ressaltada a importância de uma melhor preparação física específica para prevenção de lesões.

Adapted sports for people with disabilities has had great technical developments in recent years, which was accompanied by an increase in the volume of training of athletes and the number of injuries. This study aims to evaluate the motor performance and the incidence of injuries in elite wheelchair basketball athletes. We evaluated 11 male wheelchair basketball athletes in the cities of Londrina and Maringa, with a mean ageof 30.27 years (+ 6.51), with spinal cord injuries in the thoracic and lumbar levels. Motor performance was evaluated in the form of agility and speed tests. To verify the occurrence of lesions we used questionnaires, in which athletes reported pain intensityand how this negatively infl uenced daily activities. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and it was used t-test to verify differences in motor performance between athletes with higher and lower levels of pain. It was also verified the correlation between age, duration of practice and motor performance of athletes. It wasfound that the lesions were more frequent in the shoulder area, but these did not affect motor performance. What actually affected the performance of the athletes was the practice time, with more experienced athletes showing better results in the speed test. It was also highlighted the importance of a better physical trainingto prevent sports injuries.

Desarrollo y evaluación de un programa educativo contra la teniosis en una comunidad rural de México / Evaluation of a didactic program against taenia solium in a mexican rural small town

Se llevó a cabo un estudio en una comunidad rural del estado de Morelos, México para evaluar la educación para la salud como una estrategia de intervención contra la Taenia solium. Se desarrolló una campaña de educación para promover el conocimiento del ciclo de transmisión del parásito y para mejorar los hábitos higiénicos y las condiciones sanitarias que favorecen la transmisión. Los efectos de la campaña de educación fueron evaluados midiendo los cambios en las tasas de prevalencia de teniosis humana y cisticercosis porcina antes y después de la campaña. La estrategia de educación para la salud se aplicó con base de la información obtenida de un estudio sociológico con base en la información obtenida de un estudio sociológico y con la participación activa de la población. Se observaron mejorías estadísticamente significativas (p< 0.05) en el conocimiento sobre el parásito, su ciclo de vida y cómo se adquiere la parasitosis por los humanos; sin embargo, los cambios en el comportamiento relacionado en cerdos al inicio del estudio fueron 2.6 por ciento y 5.2 por ciento por inspección de lengua y detección de anticuerpos (técnica de inmunoblot) respectivamente y aproximadamente un año después de la intervención estas prevalencias fueron 0 por ciento y 1.2 por ciento (p< 0.05) respectivamente. Estos cambios se acompañaron de reducciones significativas en la proporción de cerdos con acceso a las fuentes de infección y en que deambularan libremente. Se concluye que la campaña de educación para la salud, en conjueto con el compromiso de la comunidad, redujo las oportunidades de transmisión de T. soliun en el cilco humano-cerdo