Mental Health First Aid Training: A Study of Community Members’ Pre and Post-training Responses to a 17-Item Questionnaire

Background:Mental Health First Aid, an important component of metal health educational programs, targets naive community members, public, allied mental health personnel, and mental health experts with specific reference as to how these trained aiders should help people in crisis or with mental health conditions in the community.Objective:This study aimed to describe pre-to-post-test assessment of those who were trained in MHFA program.Setting: National Center for Mental Health Promotion, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Methods:Trained mental health professionals organized MHFA courses (n=35) for training self-selected, nonrandomized community members (n=862) who were assessed pre-to-post training by using an adapted 17-item questionnaire for measuring the impact of MHFA course on their mental health knowledge, perception, attitude and practice.Results: The participants’ responses to questionnaire were varied at pre-and post-test evaluation and 65% of them showed mild to significant positive changes in their responses, and the rest were not affected positively after this course, possibly attributed to multiple factors related tonaïve community trainees, advanced questionnaire, short timeline and dissimilar instructors.Conclusion: Although all participants well received the MHFA courses, 65% of participants’ pre-to-post-test responses improved positively. The preliminary results of this studyarenot generalizable to the whole community,need to be cautiously interpreted and this research is calling for more studies especially randomized controlledtrials in future.

Importancia del cálculo de la sensibilidad, la especificidad y otros parámetros estadísticos en el uso de las pruebas de diagnóstico clínico y de laboratorio / Importance of calculation of sensitivity, specificity, and other statistical parameters in the use of clinical and laboratory diagnostic tests

Resumen: la elección de una prueba a realizar para un paciente, así como su interpretación, es un escenario diario al cual el médico se debe enfrentar y para el cual debe aplicar su juicio crítico basado en las evidencias informadas. Es común que cuando se habla de una prueba de diagnóstico clínico o de laboratorio se describan parámetros como la sensibilidad, la especificidad y los valores predictivos positivos y negativos. Estos reflejan las características de una prueba diagnóstica y sirven para decidir en qué momento se deben utilizar (sensibilidad y especificidad de una prueba) o qué significado tiene el resultado de una prueba en un paciente en particular. Cuando se trata de comparar estos parámetros en diferentes pruebas y optar por la que es de mayor utilidad en el diagnóstico de una enfermedad determinada, es indispensable que el médico conozca y aprenda cómo se obtienen estas medidas y cuál es su interpretación para decidir la conducta más apropiada para el paciente. El objetivo de la presente revisión es ofrecer los conceptos estadísticos básicos y simples para la comprensión y aplicación de las pruebas de diagnóstico clínico y de laboratorio. (AU)

Abstract: The selection of a test to request a patient as well as their interpretation is a daily scenario in which the physician must deal and apply his critical judgment based on the reported evidences. It is common that when talking about a clinical or laboratory diagnostic test, parameters such as sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values are described. These parameters reflect the characteristics of a diagnostic test and serve to decide when should be used (sensitivity and specificity of a test) or what is the meaning of a test result in a particular patient. When it is necessary to compare these parameters in different tests and opting for the most useful for the diagnosis of a particular disease, it is essential that the physician knows and learns how these measures are obtained and their interpretation to decide the most appropriate behavior for the patient. The objective of the present review is to provide basic and simple statistical concepts for the understanding and application of clinical and laboratory diagnostic tests. (AU)

On the path of continual improvement: An evaluation of biomedical waste management training.

Microbiologists play a pivotal role in the prevention of infection both at hospital and community level. Biomedical waste management (BMWM) is one of the aspects of infection control. For the effective implementation of this, various training programmes have been conducted at our regional training centre. This study evaluates the impact of the BMWM training programme. Knowledge on all parameters was signifi cantly better at post-course evaluation for all the participants (P value 0.001). Evaluation of training is recommended to improve the effectiveness of training method.