ABSTRACT
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the pandemic has become an important topic of global public health. To reduce the rapid spread of the pandemic, compliance with preventive behaviors has become one of the important guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO). Healthcare workers stand on the frontline for pandemic prevention, and preventive behaviors are essential measures to protect their health and safety. The purpose of this study was to propose an integrative model that explained and predicted COVID-19 preventive behaviors among healthcare workers. The study integrated workplace safety climate and the health belief model (HBM) to verify the impact of workplace safety climate and health belief factors on the safety attitude, safety compliance, and safety satisfaction of healthcare workers performing COVID-19 pandemic prevention behaviors. A cross-sectional study was conducted from March to August 2021 with a self-administered online questionnaire. The sample of the study was drawn from healthcare workers of a famous medical institution in Taipei City as research subjects. After collecting 273 valid questionnaires and verifying them through the analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM), the findings revealed that workplace safety climate had an impact on health belief factors, and then health belief factors had impacts on safety attitudes. In addition, safety attitude affected safety compliance, while safety compliance further affected safety satisfaction. The study showed that workplace safety climate can strengthen healthcare workers' health beliefs and further affect their safety attitudes, safety compliance, and safety satisfaction. The study attempted to propose a model of healthcare workers' pandemic prevention behaviors as a reference for medical facility administrators in real practice.
ABSTRACT
Chamaecyparis obtusa Siebold & Zucc. f.formosana Hayata (Cupressaceae) is one of the treasured conifers in Taiwan. In this study, the wood essential oil of the species was extracted and its anti-inflammatory bioactivities analyzed. The composition analysis of the essential oil yielded a total of 57 compounds with alpha-terpineol (19.4%), tau-muurolol (16.9%), borneol (16%), and alpha-cadinol (10.9%) predominating. The anti-inflammatory assays of the essential oil suggest that C obtusa f. formnosana wood oil has no cytotoxicity, and was capable of inhibiting the expressions of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), IL-6, IL-1, pro IL-1beta, NO, iNOS, and NLRP3 in murine macrophage cells. It was unable, however, to inhibit the expression of COX-2. Further investigation of the effect of the essential oil on the cellular signal transduction indicated that it was capable of inhibiting ERKI/2, JNKI/2 and p38; it also showed excellent inhibition against ROS. Thus, the overall results indicated that C. obtusa f.formnosana wood oil had very good anti-inflammatory efficacies.
Subject(s)
Anti-Inflammatory Agents/pharmacology , Chamaecyparis/chemistry , Oils, Volatile/pharmacology , Animals , Cells, Cultured , Cyclooxygenase 2 Inhibitors/pharmacology , Mice , Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases/antagonists & inhibitors , Nitric Oxide/antagonists & inhibitors , Oils, Volatile/analysis , Reactive Oxygen Species/metabolism , TaiwanABSTRACT
The hydrodistilled leaf essential oil of Litsea coreana was analyzed by GC/FID and GC/MS. Fifty-two compounds were identified, the main components being n-decanal (27.5%), 2E,6E-farnesol (25.8%), beta-eudesmol (10.3%), ethyl n-dodecanoate (8.0%) and tau-cadinol (6.6%). Oxygenated sesquiterpenes (56.8%) and non-terpenoids (37.0%) were the predominant groups of compounds. The leaf oil exhibited excellent antifungal and anti-wood-decay fungal activities.
