Sitmate: an android mobile application for the prevention of musculoskeletal discomfort among a business process outsourcing company workforce management personnel / The Health Sciences Journal

INTRODUCTION@#Due to COVID-19 pandemic, many have shifted into working at home which led to physical inactivity. This may cause musculoskeletal discomfort, chronic disease, muscle atrophy and spinal imbalance due to improper and prolonged sitting posture. Since mobile devices are relatively available for most of the office workers, there were still a lack of evidence-based mobile applications that can counteract the inactivity through exercises, which led to the researchers to create an application called SitMate that consists of evidence-based exercises which aimed to prevent musculoskeletal discomfort among a business process outsourcing company Workforce Management Personnel (BPO-WMP).@*METHODS@#Eleven participants (18-40 years old) full-time, work-from-home BPO-WMP were randomized into Treatment Group(TG)(n=6) and Control Group (CG)(n=5). The TG received one month intervention with the use of SitMate Application containing relaxation exercises, range of motion exercises and stretching exercises, and notifications for postural correction while the CG continued their usual working schedule.@*RESULTS@#There were no significant differences between two groups on all body parts that were measured using the Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire, and no significant differences in the intragroup pre-test and post-test scores on all body parts between TG and CG. For the intra-group post-test of the TG, there were noted improvements on the hip/buttock, right shoulder, upper back (median = 0) and right wrist (median = 1.5). There was also a noted increase in discomfort on the neck (median = 1.5) and lower back (median = 3). For the post-test of the CG, there were noted improvements on the right shoulder, right wrist (median = 0) and lower back (median = 1.5).@*CONCLUSION@#This study has shown that the SitMate application does not effectively reduce the prolonged sitting-related discomfort among the personnel after 1 month of intervention.

Effect of general intervention on the psychological state alleviation of healthy pregnant women / 中国实用护理杂志

Objective To explore the effect of general intervention in improving the psychological condition of healthy pregnant women. Methods Totally 96 pregnant women who made prenatal visits in our obstetrics and outpatient department were divided into the control and the intervention group stochasti-cally. The intervention group started from first prenatal visit. The general intervention measures included cognitive intervention, the behavioral intervention, family coping intervention and psychological intervention with self-designed relaxation exercises. While conventional prenatal visit, propaganda and nursing were im-plemented to the control group.Self-made general questionnaire and symptom checklist 90 (SCL-90)were used to survey and analyze the results. Results Post-natal depression and anxiety of the control group was obviously higher than that of the prenatal. The Post-natal obsessive-compulsive symptom, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, hostility, terror and bigotry in the intervention group were greatly alleviated. Com-pared with the control group, obsessive-compulsive symptom, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, hostility and terror of the intervention group were significantly different (P<0.05). The depression improved while the difference was not evidently differenL Conclusions Delivery had great influence on the psychological status of women,especially anxiety and depression. General intervention measures like psychological relax-ation exercises can improve the psychological condition of healthy pregnant women obviously,especially de-pression.