Rights and responsibilities: Women leadership for health in Kyrgyzstan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is committed to empowering countries by implementing a gender, equity, and human rights approach in the health sector. The objective of this gender and inclusion analysis is to assess potential gender disparities of health sector management in the Kyrgyz Republic. The employed mixed-method approach takes advantage of data triangulation. Besides information from the literature and policy documents available at the international and national levels, the analysis includes interviews and data from the self-assessment of health services managers in the Kyrgyz Republic. A convenience sample of 75 health managers was taken and after up to three reminders a commendable response rate of 80% was achieved which resulted the final sample size of N = 60. A factor analysis using quartimax orthogonal rotation was applied to investigate the correlation between Teaching Qualification, Digitalization, Training Usefulness, Computer Workplace, and Gender Equality. In 2021, the Kyrgyz Republic adopted a new Constitution, which provides a sound legal framework to support gender equality and promote women's empowerment. However, according to a survey, only 42.9% of the respondents felt that equal rights and opportunities were integrated into their job descriptions. Similarly, only 40.7% believed that their institutions' written documents reflected a commitment to equal rights and opportunities for both genders. Two factors were identified as influencing gender equality: (1) personal and (2) technical aspects. Regarding personal aspects, gender equality, teaching qualification, and training usefulness were found to be significant. Regarding technical aspects, the computer workplace was related. In recent years, the Kyrgyz Republic has been developing a culture of gender equality. Political will is essential to promote and make organizational change possible. It is important to create a written mid-term policy that affirms a commitment to gender equality in organizational behavior, structures, staff, and management board compositions. Healthcare institutions need to prepare strategic and operational plans that incorporate gender equality principles.

Attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination and intention to get vaccinated in Western Balkans: cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Introduction of vaccines against COVID-19 has not encountered expected acceptance. The uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in Western Balkans countries is lagging behind the European Union average. The aim of our study was to assess the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the population of unvaccinated adult citizens of five Western Balkans countries, and to explore factors that influence the vaccination intention. METHODS: Cross-sectional study was conducted in the period from July to October 2021. The questionnaire was shared through online social media. Intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 was measured by a single item assessing the likelihood of getting vaccinated on a 5-points Likert scale. Linear regressions were conducted with socio-demographic characteristics, presence of chronic diseases and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination as independent factors. RESULTS: The largest proportion of unvaccinated respondents willing to get vaccinated in the future was observed in Montenegro and Albania (40.4% in each country), while in the Serbian sample, the willingness to get vaccinated was the lowest (22.6%). Socio-demographic characteristics were not significantly associated with the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in most of the countries. In Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia the strongest determinant of COVID-19 vaccination intention was the higher sense of social responsibility. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccination interventions and campaigns aiming to improve the COVID-19 vaccine uptake should be focussed on specific set of factors in each country, appealing to social responsibility as most prevalent determinant of vaccination intention in Western Balkans.

[Violence and injuries among school children in the Republic of Serbia].

INTRODUCTION: There are only a limited number of researches on the frequency, extent, causality and the location of injuries among young people. It is difficult to say to which extent the risky behavior in youth is really spread, because there are no routine data on this issue. In the Republic of Srpska, the first nationwide survey on health behavior of school aged children was conducted, comprising a very important area of health behavior related to injuries, violence and harassment. The aim of this paper was to investigate the risky behavior of school children in the Republic of Srpska in relation to injuries, violence and harassment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted throughout the entire territory of the Republic of Srpska during 2002, on a selected sample of schools and covered a total of 1783 pupils, 15 years of age. The survey instrument was the international standard questionnaire, modified for the Republic of Srpska region. RESULTS: Almost a quarter of all polled school children of both sexes have participated in fights. More than 10% of boys carry weapons. Injuries have mostly occurred during sports activities, on sports grounds (35.8%), at home (26.9%), in the school yard (14.5%), in the street or parking lots (11.4%) and in the countryside (5.6%). CONCLUSION: The existing violence and injuries among school children indicate a clear need for improvement of mutual communication and tolerance among pupils and involvement of all relevant community members: parents, teachers, health workers and the entire society in health education of school children.

Assessment of the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ): Serbian translation.

AIM: To test the discriminative metric properties and specificity of the Serbian version of the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) for assessment of the quality of life in asthma patients. METHOD: We studied 100 atopic and 60 nonatopic adult asthma patients with different disease severity, who were consecutively recruited from the outpatient and inpatient departments of the Institute of Allergology and Immunology, University Center of Serbia, between March 2000 and June 2002. After linguistic validation, AQLQ was administered, as well as Paykel's scale of stressful life events. Tests of statistical significance and General Linear Model were used to explore the correlation between characteristics of patients, disease, and environment, and AQLQ scores. Reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated by determining its internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha coefficient. RESULTS: A more severe form of the disease (F=16.05; p<0.001), life in rural areas (t=-2.67; p=0.008) and changes in weather conditions (t=3.05; p=0.003) were significantly associated with worse overall quality of life of the tested asthma patients. Older patients had poorer quality of life in domains of activity limitation (B=-0.024; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.036 to -0.011; p<0.001) and exposure to environmental stimuli (B=-0.022; 95% CI, -0.039 to -0.006; p=0.008). Higher values of forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1, % predicted) were correlated with better quality of life in overall (B=0.017; 95% CI, 0.009-0.025; p<0.001) and other questionnaire domains, except in domain of environmental stimuli. Poorer overall quality of life was recorded in atopic patients sensitive to house dust mites (t=2,60; p=0.011). Form (atopic and nonatopic) and duration of disease, as well as stressful life events were not significantly related to asthmatic patients' quality of life. The Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.72 to 0.93. CONCLUSION: Disease severity, place of residence, weather conditions, age, and FEV1 (% predicted) were significantly related to quality of life in our patients. The Serbian version of AQLQ was highly reliable.