Mother's knowledge for environmental risks and self-awareness for the presence of pollutants in her living area in West and Central Anatolia: a cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Environmental risk awareness is a key concept to raise awareness and plan future programs for environmental protection. A cross-sectional household survey aimed to find out the presence of environmental hazards next to living area and the mother's knowledge levels about environmental risk factors with their related factors according to district development ranking, and Western and Central Anatolian regions with sampling from rural and urban residence. METHOD: The study was designed with household sampling weighted according to population density in 2008. Data on the demography and health status, dwelling characteristics of the residents are also collected in 2009. In addition, open-ended questions "What does environmental risk/hazard mean?" and "Which environmental risks/hazards are present in your environment?" were asked. The data collected from the survey were analyzed using multivariate binary logistic regression. RESULTS: The sample included 3489 mothers living either in urban or rural areas. Of the mothers, 19.3% did not know what an environmental risk is and 75.7% stated that there was at least one environmental pollutant in their environment. The most commonly perceived risk factor was air pollution (23.0%), which was reported to be present in their living areas by 12.4%. Regions, residence, settlement features of the house, and health status of family members were associated with the perception of environmental risk at a statistically significant level. CONCLUSION: The neighborhood conditions and health status of family associated with the mother's awareness for environmental risk factors. Communication and cooperation between local governments, health institutions, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders should be strengthened to increase risk awareness.

Environmental risk perception of mothers and presence of risk factors in rural and urban areas in Adana, Turkey.

This cross-sectional study with an open-ended manner aimed (1) to evaluate the environmental risk perception levels of mothers having at least one child and living in Adana and (2) to determine their awareness of the risk factors in their environment. Of mothers, 30.2% did not know the concept of environmental risk factor. Most frequent perceived risks were violence (17%), air pollution (15.5%) and undefined pollution (15%). The most common mentioned problems in their environment were air pollution (9.9%), violence (7.9%) and municipal service problems (8.4%). Mothers living in the urban area reported more violence, air pollution and undefined pollution as environmental threats than those living in the countryside. The place of residence, the education level of the mother and the number of people in the house significantly were related with the risk perception. There is a need for studies in other regions to determine the environmental literacy of mothers.

An Assessment of the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Toward Standard Precautions Among Health Workers From a Hospital in Northern Cyprus.

BACKGROUND: The objective was to assess the knowledge level, attitude, and practice of health care workers towards standard precautions, and to identify the related factors. Furthermore, it was attempted to identify the proportion of having the experience of needle stick injuries (NSIs) and associated factors among participants. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a teaching hospital among 233 health workers using a self-administrated questionnaire. The questionnaire included eight knowledge items, seven practice items, and five attitude items. Based on the mean score of each category, responses were grouped into "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory". Univariate, bivariate, and multivariable logistic regression analyses were done. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants 32.95 (SD ± 9.70) and 62.2% of them were women. 57.5% of the staff had a satisfactory level of correct knowledge (>5 correct answers), 37.3% had a satisfactory positive attitude (>3 correct answers), and 30.9% had a satisfactory practice (>3 correct answers) towards standard precautions. The occupation was one of the predictors as doctors were less likely to have satisfactory knowledge and practice compared to nurses (OR = 0.269, 95% CI: 0.10-0.70 and OR = 0.248, 95% CI: 0.08-0.77, respectively). Out of 174 participants, 31.6% of them reported experiencing NSIs and support staff were 71% less likely to experience NSIs compared to nurses & paramedics. CONCLUSION: The findings revealed a substandard adherence of standard precautions among participants, which highlighted the necessity of the provision of a periodic, tailored training program based on the occupation and risk exposure.

Relationships between screen time, internet addiction and other lifestyle behaviors with obesity among secondary school students in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Asut Ö, Abuduxike G, Acar-Vaizoglu S, Cali S. Relationships between screen time, internet addiction and other lifestyle behaviors with obesity among secondary school students in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Turk J Pediatr 2019; 61: 568-579. Obesity among children and adolescents is one of the critical public health problems worldwide, and the prevalence of obesity has been increasing rapidly over decades. We examined the associations between screen time, internet addiction and other life style behaviors with obesity among high school students in Near East College in Northern Cyprus. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 469 secondary school students with mean age 11.95 ±0.81 years. A self-administrated questionnaire was applied to assess screen time and life style behaviors. The Turkish adapted version of the short-form of internet addiction test was used to assess internet addiction problems. Height and weight were measured objectively to calculate body mass Index (BMI) and classify based on the BMI percentiles for sex and age. Descriptive analysis, Chi-Square test and multivariate regression analysis were performed, and the p- value < 0.05 was accepted as significant. Of all participants, 17.2% were overweight and obese, and 18.1% had internet addiction, while 40.7% of them reported to have screen time of more than two hours a day. After adjusting the analysis for age and sex, eating snacks while watching TV (OR,3.04; 95% CI, 1.28-7.21), self- perceived body weight (OR, 24.9; 95% CI, 9.64-64.25) and having a play station in the room (OR,4.6; 95% CI, 1.85 - 11.42) were significantly associated with obesity. Screen time (OR,4.68; 95% CI, 2.61-8.38; p=0.000) and having a computer in the bedroom (OR,1.7;95% CI, 1.01- 2.87; p=0.046) were significantly associated with internet addiction, whereas parent`s complaint about lengthy technology use (OR,0.23; 95% CI, 0.11-0.46; p=0.000) was found to be a protective factor against internet addiction. The findings highlighted the significance of a family - school based integrated approach, which should be implemented to tackle obesity problem to improve the quality of life of children and adolescents.

Environmental consciousness of students from secondary and high schools in Bodrum, Turkey.

In this study, it is aimed to determine environmental awareness of secondary and high school students in Bodrum, Turkey. This cross-sectional designed study was conducted on 381 students from secondary school and 335 high school students between 5th and 12th grades in Bodrum. In order to assess the environmental consciousness level, a questionnaire form consisting 58 questions and 17 statements for evaluation of environmental consciousness was developed by researchers. t test was used for the difference between the distribution of percentages and the difference between the averages of environmental consciousness level. The top three environmental health issues that were determined as "very harmful" were "smoking, air pollution resulting from power plants and being in a smoking area" for secondary school students and "smoking, air pollution resulting from power plants and ozone depletion" for high school students. Both in secondary and high school students, the mean environmental consciousness level of female students was higher than that of male students. The mean environmental consciousness level was 12.4 ± 2.7 for secondary school students and 12.1 ± 3.1 for high school students. There was a need of training activities of both the teachers and the students to improve the environmental awareness of the secondary and high school students.