The Impact of an Interactive Educational Program to Improve Hand-washing Compliance among Preschoolers in a Hungarian Kindergarten

Background: Hand wash morale is changing among health workers and, despite many efforts; it is not always possible to achieve lasting improvement. Considering the fact that today’s preschoolers are tomorrow’s health workers, hand washing is one of the habits that should be strictly acquired earlier in life. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether hand washes morale among preschoolers can be improved by introducing a regular educational program. Methods: As a part of the collaboration between the County Hospital and an urban kindergarten, we have developed an interactive educational program that involves both health professionals and kindergarten teachers. The program disseminated information about hand washing and hand hygiene through children’s stories, songs, video films, hand washing puzzles, and board games. Kindergarten teachers held the training sessions twice a week. Before and after the introduction of the program, we examined the children’s hand washing patterns using a UV light kit. Results: Before the introduction of the educational program, only 12.3% of children were able to wash their hands properly. This figure increased to 44.3% after the introduction of the interactive educational program. There were no significant differences between boys and girls, neither in the pre-intervention nor in the post-intervention phase. Conclusions: Hand wash morale for preschool children can be improved through regular interactive educational programs. Through these, children can be induced to compete among themselves to have a cleaner hand. In our opinion, this can be transformed into a multiplier that needs to be further strengthened in the elementary school.

Levels and predictors of stress among medical students in Alexandria

In recent years there has been a growing appreciation of the issues of quality of life and stresses involved in medical training, as this may affect their learning and academic performance. However, such studies are lacking in medical schools of Egypt. Therefore, we carried out this study to assess the prevalence of psychological morbidity, sources and severity of stress among undergraduate medical students in Alexandria Faculty of Medicine. A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was carried out among the undergraduate medical students at Alexandria Faculty of Medicine during the academic year 2006/2007. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was used to collect personal and socio-demographic data. The psychological morbidity was assessed using the 30-item General Health Questionnaire [GHQ-30]. A 25-item questionnaire was used to assess sources of stress and their severity. Students from all academic years were represented in the study sample. A total of 379 students were included in the study. Both prevalence and levels of stress were considerably high. The overall estimated prevalence of stress was 85.2%, while the overall mean score on the GHQ was 16.4 +/- 7.0. The high levels of distress were experienced by medical students in all academic years, being highest among third year students. There were significant differences in prevalence and mean scores of stress between both sexes, being higher in female students as compared to males. Principal stressors were related to academic pressures and psycho-social/quality of life issues rather than to personal problems. Variables proved to be significantly associated with stress among medical students, included: being a female [OR =2.137]; concerns over choice of the medical career [OR=2.423]; dissatisfaction with current teaching methods in equipping students with essential competencies/possibility of future incompetence [OR=2. 837]: sense of insecurity concerning professional future/feeling that medical profession has failed [OR=2.957]; curriculum overload [OR= 1.971]; nature and subjectivity/unfairness of examinations [OR= 2.208 and 2.485 respectively]; inability of examinations to assess students' real skills [OR=3. 745]; lack of time for relaxation/relief [OR=4.732]; effect on private life with lack of time for recreation, practicing any personal hobbies [OR =2.752], social relationships [OR=2.462], or sports [OR=1.815]; fear of dealing with patients [OR=2.533]; inability to deal with death or suffering [OR=2.214]; and lack of supportive home atmosphere/environment [OR =2.822]. The high level of psychological morbidity warrants need for interventions like social and psychological support to improve the quality of Iife for our medical students. Student advisors and counselors may train students about stress management. There is also need to bring about academic changes concerning the content of curricula, quality of teaching and evaluation system. More leisure time activities, better interaction with the academic staff and proper guidance, and advisory services at medical schools could do a lot to reduce the stress

Smoking - related behaviour and attitudes among medical students in Alexandria

As a preliminary step toward incorporating a tobacco education and intervention program into our undergraduate medical curriculum, this study was designed to assess students smoking-related behaviour, knowledge and attitudes towards tobacco, and perceptions of their future role as doctors in smoking intervention. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the university year 2001/2002 on a representative sample of male medical students enrolled in 4[th] and 5[th] years at Alexandria University. A total of 320 students across the 2 years completed the survey. The smoking rate among medical students was 17.5% [10.9% smoked daily and 66% occasionally]. The awareness of harmful effects of smoking and knowledge about the causal role of tobacco in the development of specific diseases were deficient. The intention to perform smoking intervention in the future as doctors seemed unsatisfactory. About 85% of the students thought that doctors should carry out smoking cessation advice depending on the disease, while the rate of those who thought so irrespective of the disease did not reach 44%. Current smokers thought less actively about smoking intervention than non-smokers. Nearly two-thirds of students [65.3%] felt they were not sufficiently prepared for caring or counseling smokers, and only 31.9% of students were convinced of the effectiveness of the doctor's advice to stop smoking. Seventy-seven and half percent of them desired specific training in smoking intervention. Non-smokers were more in favour of legislative actions to discourage tobacco use than current smokers. These findings suggest that medical school authorities should design and implement an appropriate basic training aimed at better preparing medical students for their future role in prevention of smoking. Specific teaching of medical students about smoking-related diseases and a patient-centered smoking cessation intervention is required to provide future medical practitioners with the knowledge and skills they need to effectively intervene with smokers

Causes and associations of specific developmental language disorders in children

This study aimed at formulating a hypothesis about the etiology of specific developmental language impairment [SDLI] in children and identifying their associated factors. The study was conducted on 402 children with delayed language development [DLD] who attended the Unit of Phoniatrics in Alexandria Main University Hospital during a period of six months. Findings in 117 children with SDLI were compared to those of 285 children whose DLD was accounted for by recognizable etiological factors There is not only a variety of possible causes, but also it seems likely that more than one factor operates in the individual child with such a disorder. Etiological factors may interact in the causation of developmental language disorders, so that the effect of several factors is greater than the sum of individual effects

Current status of breast-feeding in Alexandria governorate: a community-based study

This study was carried out to provide baseline data for various indicators measuring breast-feeding and bottle-feeding practices in Alexandria. In 1995, a total of 1080 children aged below 24 months, equally distributed among six age groups, were selected for a household 24-hour dietary survey. The findings indicated that only 42.2% of infants below 4 months were currently exclusively breast-fed, while 21.1% were predominantly breast-fed. Hence, the rate of breast-feeding was 63.3%. The prevalence rate of timely complementary feeding was 62.3%. Continued breast-feeding rate at 1 year was 64.4%, and at 2 years was 33.9%. The bottle-feeding rate [among infants less than 12 months] was 44.3%