Nursing Students' Computer Anxiety and Attitudes Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose of this research was to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the level of computer anxiety of nursing students and also their attitude related to computer use. A cross-sectional study was conducted in two periods, one before the COVID-19 pandemic (1st period) and the second during the COVID-19 pandemic (2nd period). The research instrument consisted of three parts, a questionnaire with questions about demographic and educational characteristics such as gender and semester of study, the Computer Anxiety Rating Scale (CARS), that used to assess the nursing students' levels of computer anxiety and the Computer Attitude Scale (CAS) that used to measure nursing students' positive and negative attitudes towards computers. Data from 957 undergraduate nursing students were obtained. Specifically, in the 1st period, 370 nursing students participated (38.66%), while in the 2nd period 587 (61.34%) undergraduates participated. The anxiety of participants during COVID-19 pandemic period was reduced compared to that of participants before the COVID-19 period. Respondents during the COVID-19 pandemic have fewer negative feelings towards computers, based on their answers in contrast to the participants in the study before the COVID-19 pandemic. Computer anxiety and attitudes have change among nursing students among COVID-19 pandemic. Nursing students after the implementation of online training are reporting positive feeling towards computer use and are more confident for their ICT skills.

Efficiency of an Online Intervention in the Knowledge Concerning COPD in Nursing Students.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive and debilitating respiratory disorder. Nurses play a major role in managing the disease. This study aimed to test the effect of a brief online intervention in increasing the knowledge of COPD in a sample of nursing students in Greece. Materials and Methods: The intervention entailed a combination of two ½ hour lectures focusing on the treatment and care of patients with COPD according to existing guidelines. Data were collected with a structured questionnaire specially designed for this study including questions regarding information on sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, and the Bristol COPD Knowledge Questionnaire (BCKQ) which is designed to assess the knowledge of 13 COPD-specific topics. The questionnaire was distributed three times and the one-way ANOVA test of repeated measures was applied to investigate the effect of the educational intervention by examining the periods before, immediately after, and one month after the intervention. Results: 125 nursing students participated in this study of which 13.6% were men (n=17) and 86.4% were women. According to the results of the repeated measures ANOVA test, there was a statistically significant improvement in gained knowledge about COPD. Conclusions: Short educational interventions can be effective in acquiring and cultivating nursing students concerning COPD. These short online tutorials seem to be cost-effective as they can be organized easily and with minimal financial resources.

Guideline Daily Amounts Versus Nutri-Score Labeling: Perceptions of Greek Consumers About Front-of-Pack Label.

Nutrition information is becoming more urgent than ever so that consumers can make informed choices when buying food. This study aimed to investigate consumers' perceptions and behavior of the front-of-pack label (FOPL), between two specific labeling systems, the Nutri-Score and the Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA). This is a post hoc analysis of data from a previous, more extensive cross-sectional study conducted from April 2021 to June 2021. A total of 510 participants were included in the study, of whom 49.6% were women. Participants' perceptions were assessed in nine questions on a five-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree). Multivariate variance analysis (MANOVA) was performed to test the effects of the label GDA vs. Nutri-Score on the overall positive and negative perceptions. We found that the Nutri-Score label was significantly more understandable (p=0.003), clear, visible, and preferable (p<0.001) than the GDA label, which required more time to be understood. The findings indicate that the interpretive label, Nutri-Score, was superior to the non-interpretive label GDA, in terms of consumers' perception, more visibility, less time-consuming, and reliability. The FOPL can improve the ability of consumers in Greece to understand the healthfulness of food products.

Multimorbidity, Trauma Exposure, and Frailty of Older Adults in the Community.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between multimorbidity, traumatic events and frailty among older adults in the community. The studied population consisted of 257 older people who were recipients of the services and active members of Open Care Centers for the Elderly (OCCE) of the Municipality of Grevena and meet a set of selection criteria. The collection of the data was carried out using a fully structured questionnaire, which consisted of two sections: a form of individual features and the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI). The sample consisted of 114 men (44.4%) and 143 women (55.6%) aged between 61 and 96 years with an average of 75.12 years. The results showed that the mean scores were 2.70 for the Physical Frailty (standard deviation = 2.16), 1.43 for the Psychological Frailty (standard deviation = 1.21), 1.32 for the Social Frailty (standard deviation = 0.64) and 5.44 for the total Frailty (standard deviation = 3.02). We took into account the cut-off point five of 54.1% (n = 139) in terms of the participants' frailty. Physical, Psychological, and Total Frailty are related to (a) the presence of two or more chronic diseases or disorders, (b) the experience of a serious illness in the previous year, and (c) the experience of a serious illness of a loved one during the previous year. The outcomes helped to identify frailty syndrome in older people and the factors associated with it.

Frailty and Quality of Life Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults.

Older people often feel weak and have limited physical activity and walking capacity, without energy. These characteristics meet the conditions for the onset of the frailty syndrome. The effect that frailty syndrome can have on the elderly's quality of life (QOL) status has not been sufficiently explored, especially in the Greek population. This study aims to investigate the correlation between frailty and QOL in a community population of elderly people with independent living. A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed. The study sample consisted of 257 elderly people from three Open Care Centers for the Elderly Population of the Municipality of Grevena, Greece. The Tilburg Frailty Indicator was used to measure frailty in elderly people and the World Health Organization QOL-BREF was used to assess the health-related QOL of older people. The majority of elderly people showed relatively low overall frailty score (mean: 5.44). The elderly people had relatively high QoL assessment values and general satisfaction with their health condition. The obtained results show a statistically significant negative relationship between (i) physical frailty, psychological frailty, and all dimensions of QOL, (ii) social frailty and social relationships, and (iii) total frailty and all dimensions of QOL. Consequently, despite an average age of 75.12 years and higher female participation, the study population was not very frail and were satisfied with their QOL. Frailty has a negative effect in all QOL domains.

Online Consumer Survey Comparing Different Front-of-Pack Labels in Greece.

According to the WHO, front-of-pack nutrition labeling provides simplified nutrition information in the form of symbols, colors or words that can help consumers understand the nutritional quality of food, thus leading them to healthier food choices. It is considered of the utmost importance to explore the knowledge and understanding of consumers about this form of nutrition labeling. The aim of this study was to investigate the understanding and perceptions of Greek consumers in response to five different front-of-pack nutrition labels (FoPLs): the Multiple Traffic Lights, Health Star Rating System, Guideline Daily Amounts, Warning Symbols and Nutri-Score. From April 2021 to June 2021, 1278 participants from Greece took part in an online survey where they were asked to rank three products according to their nutritional quality. The classification process was performed first without FoPLs and then with FoPLs. The ability to classify products according to their nutritional quality was evaluated with multinomial logistic regression models, and the Nutri-Score label presented greater improvements when compared to the GDA label for Greek consumers. The Nutri-Score seemed to better help the Greek consumers rank foods according to their nutritional value.

Meta-Analysis of Tourette Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Provides Support for a Shared Genetic Basis.

Gilles de la Tourette Sydrome (TS) is a childhood onset neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized phenotypically by the presence of multiple motor and vocal tics. It is often accompanied by multiple psychiatric comorbidities, with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) among the most common. The extensive co-occurrence of the two disorders suggests a shared genetic background. A major step toward the elucidation of the genetic architecture of TS was undertaken by the first TS Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) reporting 552 SNPs that were moderately associated with TS (p < 1E-3). Similarly, initial ADHD GWAS attempts and meta-analysis were not able to produce genome-wide significant findings, but have provided insight to the genetic basis of the disorder. Here, we examine the common genetic background of the two neuropsychiatric phenotypes, by meta-analyzing the 552 top hits in the TS GWAS with the results of ADHD first GWASs. We identify 19 significant SNPs, with the top four implicated genes being TBC1D7, GUCY1A3, RAP1GDS1, and CHST11. TBCD17 harbors the top scoring SNP, rs1866863 (p:3.23E-07), located in a regulatory region downstream of the gene, and the third best-scoring SNP, rs2458304 (p:2.54E-06), located within an intron of the gene. Both variants were in linkage disequilibrium with eQTL rs499818, indicating a role in the expression levels of the gene. TBC1D7 is the third subunit of the TSC1/TSC2 complex, an inhibitor of the mTOR signaling pathway, with a central role in cell growth and autophagy. The top genes implicated by our study indicate a complex and intricate interplay between them, warranting further investigation into a possibly shared etiological mechanism for TS and ADHD.

Genetic algorithm pruning of probabilistic neural networks in medical disease estimation.

A hybrid model consisting of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and a Genetic Algorithm procedure for diagnostic risk factors selection in Medicine is proposed in this paper. A medical disease prediction may be viewed as a pattern classification problem based on a set of clinical and laboratory parameters. Probabilistic Neural Network models were assessed in terms of their classification accuracy concerning medical disease prediction. A Genetic Algorithm search was performed to examine potential redundancy in the diagnostic factors. This search led to a pruned ANN architecture, minimizing the number of diagnostic factors used during the training phase and therefore minimizing the number of nodes in the ANN input and hidden layer as well as the Mean Square Error of the trained ANN at the testing phase. As a conclusion, a number of diagnostic factors in a patient's data record can be omitted without loss of fidelity in the diagnosis procedure.