Cost estimation of a school-based intervention for improving HIV/AIDS risk perception among secondary school adolescents in Enugu State, Nigeria.

Early sexual debut is common in Nigeria and increases HIV risk among adolescents. About 152,000 adolescents are living with HIV. Lack of knowledge and appropriate sexual reproductive health services are some factors responsible. This paper estimated the cost of secondary school-based HIV/AIDS intervention for schools in Enugu State, Nigeria. The rationale for estimation is to avoid unaffordable and ineffective interventions. The cost was estimated between March to October 2019 for schools in urban and rural areas with population of 1595 students. The cost estimation was aided through UNAID proposed guideline. The estimation was done by classifying intervention into cost of training, cost of services and cost of commodities. The cost was estimated at $5954. The estimated cost in urban is lesser than that of rural. This estimated cost of intervention may inform stakeholders with the knowledge of cost implications to avoid unaffordable school-based HIV interventions in Enugu State, Nigeria.

Investigation of burnout syndrome among electrical and building technology undergraduate students in Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: The investigation of burnout among undergraduate students is yet to receive the same amount of attention as burnout in employees. Despite the negative effects of burnout among students, there is dearth of literature on burnout problem among electrical and building technology undergraduate students. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the burnout levels and the effect of rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) on symptoms of burnout among electrical and building technology undergraduate students in South-East zone of Nigeria. METHOD: A group randomized trial design involving a treatment group versus no-treatment group was adopted for this study. One hundred fifty four undergraduate students of electrical and building technology who met the study's inclusion criteria were selected from public universities in the South-East zone of Nigeria. The intervention consisted of 10 weeks of REBT treatment and 8 weeks of follow-up meetings conducted at 4 months. A self-report questionnaire was used for data collection. Repeated-measures analysis of variance, paired sample t test, and Chi-Squared were used for data analysis. RESULTS: The outcome indicated that the levels of burnout syndrome among the students are high and REBT had a significant effect on the symptoms of burnout syndrome among the electrical and building technology students in the treatment group compared to their counterparts in the no-treatment group. Finally, the positive gains were significantly maintained by the treatment group at follow-up. CONCLUSION: The current study suggests that an REBT program can be effective for dealing with burnout syndrome among the population of undergraduate students of electrical and building technology in Nigeria.

Rational emotive intervention for stress management among english education undergraduates: Implications for school curriculum innovation.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Different studies have shown the prevalence of high level of stress among undergraduate students. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT) as a stress management intervention among English Education undergraduates in Universities in Southeastern Nigeria. METHOD: The study adopted a group randomized trial design. One hundred sixteen samples of English education undergraduates (with a high level of perceived stress) took part in the study. These students were randomly assigned to groups - intervention group(n = 58) and no-intervention control group (n = 58). The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) was used for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using 2-way mixed repeated measure ANOVA and independent sample t test at 0.05 probability level. RESULT: Results showed that an REBT program significantly reduced the stress among English education undergraduates in the intervention group compared to the students in the control group as measured by PSS-14. Also, the English education undergraduates who benefited from the REBT program maintained the reduction in stress after 3 months when the researchers conducted a follow-up. CONCLUSION: REBT program can be used to equip undergraduate students with the necessary skills to manage stress. The implications for curriculum innovation were highlighted.

Improved Cook-stoves and Environmental and Health Outcomes: Lessons from Cross River State, Nigeria.

This paper studies a topic in the triangle of environment, development and health-the effectiveness of the improved cooking solution. While a range of improved cook-stoves (ICS) is available in the market, since decades with a number of new entrants from recent years, adoption is still low in many developing regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, also because stove performance is sometimes found to be deficient. However, in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, few improved cook-stove interventions are on-going. Incidentally, there is little evidence on the effect of improved cook-stoves on different components of health and environmental outcomes in rural Nigeria. This study, using cross-sectional data from Cross River State, the State with the largest forest area in the country, analyzed the impacts of locally designed improved cook-stoves on the environmental and health outcomes of rural women. A sample of four hundred (400) married women was drawn from eight rural communities with the highest concentration of improved cook-stove users. The woman in-charge of cooking in each household was the respondent. Also, in each household, the household head (if different from the primary cook) was interviewed. Using inverse propensity score weighting for data analysis, we found significant fuel and time savings from the adoption of the cook-stove. However, this study found no evidence of the reduction of indoor air pollution associated diseases given stove design and users' behavior. This underscores the need to revisit the design of the stove and consider users' cooking behavior in the design.