Validation of coronavirus-2019 phobia scale using preschool practitioners in urban and rural communities in Nigeria: Implication for educational sociologists.

ABSTRACT: Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) emerged in December 2019, causing significant changes in people's social lives and other human activities. The outbreak halted educational activities throughout the world. The Nigerian experience was unique in that most people were skeptical about the pandemic's existence. This practice contributed to the Nigerian people's fear of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, in Nigeria, there has never been a validated or established Covid-19 phobia scale, necessitating this study.This study was a pure validation study on COVID-19 phobia scale (C19PS). The study area was south-east states and a sample of 386 preschool practitioners in urban and rural communities of South East States, Nigeria participated in the study. The eligibility criteria include being a preschool teacher and demonstrating signs of COVID-19 phobia. The validation of the C19PS was done by subjecting the data gathered to principal axis factoring analysis with varimax rotation. The model fit for the data was tested using root mean square error of approximation and comparative fit index.It was found that the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of .845 for the measure of the adequacy of the sample size. There was also a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (P < .05). This implies that the correlation matrix for the C19PS is not an identity matrix. It was revealed that C19PS had good overall reliability (α = .896) and model fit (Root mean square error of approximation = .042, comparative fit index = .943) in a sample of Nigerian preschool practitioners.As a result, C19PS was recommended as a trustworthy tool for identifying persons who suffer from COVID-19 phobia.

Managing job stress among teachers of children with autism spectrum disorders: A randomized controlled trial of cognitive behavioral therapy with yoga.

BACKGROUND: Job-related stress undermines occupational, personal, and organizational outcomes. Stress symptoms are common among teachers of children with autism spectrum disorders and affect the academic progress of the children. This study investigated the effectiveness of yoga-based cognitive behavioral therapy in reducing occupational stress among teachers of children with autism in Lagos states, Nigeria. METHODS: The current study adopted a group-randomized waitlist control (WLC) trial design with pre-test, posttest, and follow-up assessments. Participants included 58 teachers of children with autism in public and private special schools in Lagos state. Participants were randomly assigned to combined cognitive behavioral therapy and yoga (Y-CBT) (N = 29) and WLC (N = 29) groups. The Y-CBT group participated in a 2 hours Y-CBT program weekly for 12 weeks. Three instruments - Demographic Questionnaire, Single-Item Stress Questionnaire, and Teachers' Stress Inventory (TSI) were used to collect data. Data were collected at baseline; posttest and follow-up evaluations. Data were analyzed using means, standard deviations, t test statistics, repeated measures analysis of variance, and bar charts. RESULTS: Results revealed that all dimensions of job stress (perception of stress sources, stress manifestation, and total TSI scores) reduced significantly at posttest and follow up assessments among the Y-CBT group, compared to the WLC. CONCLUSION: It was concluded that Y-CBT modalities could help to minimize the perception of stress sources and stress manifestation as well as total TSI scores among teachers of children with autism spectrum disorders.

Measuring the effect of interpersonal communication on awareness and knowledge of COVID-19 among rural communities in Eastern Nigeria.

Awareness and knowledge have been identified as essential requirements to successfully combat the global threat which COVID-19 currently poses. Rural communities are particularly at risk because of their low socio-economic status and high illiteracy level. There is currently uncertainty regarding how to effectively raise awareness about the pandemic and educate rural communities about it. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of interpersonal communication in awareness creation and knowledge about COVID-19 among rural communities in a developing country. We tested three hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The sample size was made up 470 participants. The questionnaire served as the instrument for data collection. In the analysis of data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results demonstrate that interpersonal communication is effective in creating awareness about COVID-19 among rural communities. It was also found that interpersonal communication was effective in improving knowledge about the pandemic among rural communications. We explored the implications of these findings on healthcare delivery.

Potential roles of school administrators and community-residing adults in tobacco use prevention in Nigerian college students: a viewpoint.

Tobacco use is a key risk factor for the development of non-communicable diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. On May 31 every year, World No Tobacco Day is celebrated to draw attention to the health risks and other risks related to tobacco use and to campaign for effective policies to minimize tobacco use. In this paper, we address important issues related to tobacco use, and highlight the potential roles of school administrators and community-residing adults in supporting college students in Nigeria in refraining from tobacco use. We argue that various stakeholders, including school administrators and community-residing adults, have important roles to play in providing community- and school-level support to college students to enable them to refrain from tobacco use. However, research is needed to empirically measure whether and how school administrators and community-residing adults have helped to reduce tobacco use in college students in Nigeria.