Improving complementary feeding practices through a comprehensive health systems strengthening approach: experiences from Egypt. (Special section on complementary feeding in emergencies.)

This article describes experiences of improving complementary feeding practices using a systems approach with particular focus on health systems strengthening. Achievements included: the development of national guidelines for optimum complementary feeding for children 6-23 months of age, inclusion of a specific indicator for complementary feeding in the new National Food and Nutrition Strategy, updated training packages to improve health worker counselling skills and strengthened social behaviour change communication activities. A systems approach requires strong coordination between all partners across sectors to ensure communities benefit from the synergistic effects of complementary interventions, while system strengthening was noted to improve the resilience of the Ministry of Health and Population to withstand the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent Ukraine crisis.

Interns’ Self-efficacy, Internet Addiction, Wellbeing, and Online Learning Experiences: A Descriptive-Correlational Study

The ramifications of Internet addiction on psychological and social wellbeing have been extensively demonstrated in previous studies involving college students, but examining the mediating role of Internet addiction between self-efficacy and overall wellbeing has not been well-investigated, particularly among interns. This study first assessed the online learning experiences of a sample of interns during the COVID-19 pandemic and then explored the association between three constructs: self-efficacy, Internet addiction, and overall wellbeing. Fresh graduates engaging in an online internship program were recruited to participate in a cross-sectional online survey during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Bahrain. Self-administered scales of General Self-Efficacy (GSE), Internet Addiction Test (IAT), and PERMA Profiler were used to collect data about self-efficacy, Internet addiction, and overall wellbeing. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength of the hypothesized relationships between these three constructs. A structural equation model was used to analyze the mediating role of Internet addiction. Overall, the higher the self-efficacy the participants perceived, the lesser Internet addiction they exhibited (r = −0.23, p = 0.02), and the more wellbeing they felt (r = 0.45, p ˂ 0.01). Internet addiction has been found as a mediating factor between self-efficacy and overall wellbeing (b = 0.12, p < 0.001). 61.5% of the participants had mild to moderate levels of Internet addiction. Experiencing less communication with colleagues because of online learning was one of the top-rated online experiences and consistently, enjoying positive relationships was the lowest-rated pillar of PERMA. Therefore, problematic Internet use that negatively affects individuals’ health should be managed through self-efficacy-boosting strategies. Further, fostering communications and social connectedness disrupted with excessive reliance on virtual environments demands special attention by counseling psychologists and e-education providers/developers. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The use of artificial intelligence to triage new symptomatic patients to one-stop clinic - Preliminary data

Introduction: The pressure on one-stop symptomatic clinic is rising due to COVID pandemic and increased referral from GPs. The study aimed to develop and assess the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to triage new symptomatic patients to the one-stop clinic. Method: The retrospective data was collected from electronic database for period January-December 2021. The presenting complaint and medical history from the GP referral form was used to create AI software that would use this information to predict the likelihood of patient getting biopsy or having a follow up appointment. Results: There were 257 patients (females n=247, 96.1%) with the average age of 40.9. The common presenting complaint was lump (n=175, 68%), pain (n=50, 19.4%), and change in shape/skin change (n=20, 7.8%). 18 patients (7.0%) had a biopsy in the clinic and 22 patients (8.6%) had follow-up review. The GPs' accuracy of correct referral was 69.1%. One third (36.9%) of the referrals could have been managed in the community or as a routine review by the breast surgeon. The online software's accuracy was 91%. The accuracy for detecting patients who needed urgent breast clinic review and a biopsy was 100%. Conclusion: The use of AI has the potential to triage patients to one-stop clinic and reduce the number of patients seen in the clinic. More data is required to validate the AI software and to be tested in the community.

Forecasting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia using ARIMA prediction model under current public health interventions.

The substantial increase in the number of daily new cases infected with coronavirus around the world is alarming, and several researchers are currently using various mathematical and machine learning-based prediction models to estimate the future trend of this pandemic. In this work, we employed the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model to forecast the expected daily number of COVID-19 cases in Saudi Arabia in the next four weeks. We first performed four different prediction models; Autoregressive Model, Moving Average, a combination of both (ARMA), and integrated ARMA (ARIMA), to determine the best model fit, and we found out that the ARIMA model outperformed the other models. The forecasting results showed that the trend in Saudi Arabia will continue growing and may reach up to 7668 new cases per day and over 127,129 cumulative daily cases in a matter of four weeks if stringent precautionary and control measures are not implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19. This indicates that the Umrah and Hajj Pilgrimages to the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia that are supposedly scheduled to be performed by nearly 2 million Muslims in mid-July may be suspended. A set of extreme preventive and control measures are proposed in an effort to avoid such a situation.