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BACKGROUND: Globally, sixty-two percent of cerebrovascular disease and forty-nine percent of ischemic heart disease are attributable to increased blood pressure. Half of the patients with stroke and heart disease were due to hypertension. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify prevalence of hypertension and its associated factors in Gimbi town, Ethiopia. METHODS: We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study from May to June 2017 on 471 participants in Gimbi town, western Ethiopia. A systematic sampling method was used to recruit study participants. Data collectors used structured questionnaires to gather data through face to face interview. The standardized procedure followed to measure blood pressure and anthropometric measurements by trained extension health workers. We entered data into Epi-data and exported to SPSS version 20.00 for analysis. Variables having a P-value less than or equal to 0.05 were declared as statistically significant in multivariable analysis. RESULTS: Four hundred seventy-one participants were included with a response rate of 98.85%, and 248 (52.6%) were female. The prevalence of isolated systolic and diastolic hypertension was 9.55% and 9.3%, respectively. Of 157 (33.5%) hypertensive participants, 117 (24.8%) were newly diagnosed. Age 35-55 [AOR: 2.335 95% CI (1.360-4.009)], ≥55 [(AOR: 3.566 95% CI (1.288-9.876))], occupation, government employee [(AOR: 3.072 95% CI (1.458-6.474))], merchants [(AOR: 3.177 95% CI (1.290-7.824))], ever alcohol drinker [(AOR: 2.333 95% CI (1.320-4.122))], and family history of hypertension [(AOR: 6.642 95% CI (4.068-10.843))] were found to be predictor variables for hypertension. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study indicated a hidden high prevalence of hypertension indicating the need for stakeholders' collaboration to design and implement a mobile blood pressure screening programs at the community level.
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OBJECTIVES: Diarrhea is a major contributing factor for preventable childhood morbidity and death. Despite the occurrence of diarrhea is decreasing, its effect is increasing at an alarming rate among under-5 children particularly in developing countries. The survey was aimed to assess diarrhea and associated factors among children less than 5 years (0-59 months) in Ethiopia with nationally representative data. METHODS: The data were extracted from the Ethiopian National Survey of 2016. A logistic regression model was undertaken to identify the contributing factors for childhood diarrhea. Variables with p < 0.05 were considered as independent predictors of childhood diarrhea. RESULTS: From a total of 10,641 under-5 children, 5483(51.5%) were males and most of the children (62.3%) were above 24 months. About 10.2% had diarrhea 14 days before data collection, and the majority (93.1%) were born to married mothers. Receiving no treatment or advice for fever/cough (adjusted odd ratio (AOR) = 0.170, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.139-0.208, p = 0.001), being permanent residence (AOR = 0.583, 95% CI: 0.347-0.982, p = 0.043), initiating breastfeeding after 24 h of birth (AOR = 1.553, 95% CI: 1.197-2.015, p = 0.001), and lack of prenatal care (AOR = 2.142, 95% CI: 0.624-0.875, p = 0.001) were independent predictors of diarrhea among under-5 children's in Ethiopia. CONCLUSION: The result of this survey indicated that diarrhea is a significant health challenge among under-5 children. To tackle this illness, sufficient education on child and maternal health has to be provided for mothers focusing on predictive factors.
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As the Ethiopian health system faced critical resource constraints, wise use of the available health resources is a priority agenda. Therefore, our study aimed to assess technical efficiency of maternal and reproductive health services in public hospitals of Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. Two-stage data envelopment analysis was performed among 14 hospitals with input orientation and variable returns to scale assumptions. Technical efficiency scores were computed at the first stage, and predictors were determined using Tobit regression at the second stage. The assessment revealed that 12 (85.7%) hospitals were pure technical efficient and 9 (64.29%) hospitals were scale efficient. Level (primary/general) (ß = 1.17, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.16-2.18), service years (ß = 0.02, 95% CI = 0.003-0.03), and size of catchment population (ß = 5.58E-07, 95% CI = 2.95E-08 to 1.09E-06) were positively associated with technical efficiency of maternal and reproductive health service, whereas average waiting time for maternal health service (ß = -0.03, 95% CI = -0.05 to -0.01) was negatively associated with efficiency. In conclusion, most of the hospitals were technically efficient and around two-thirds were operating scale efficient. Allocation of more resources to older secondary hospitals with larger catchment population could result in more efficient use of resources for maternal and reproductive health service delivery.
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BACKGROUND: The fact that the majority of patients come late creates management difficulties as these first hours are important to avoid secondary insults to the brain and preserve the ischemic penumbra. Although thrombolytic treatments are currently not available in our hospital, significant delays during the prehospital or in-hospital phases of care create management difficulties and would make such advanced treatments impossible in the future in Ethiopia. METHODS: Prospective observational study was carried at stroke unit of Jimma University Medical Center for 4 consecutive months from March 10 to July 10, 2017. Data was cleaned and entered to Epidata version 3.1 and then exported and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. RESULTS: A total of 116 eligible stroke patients were recruited during the study period with mean age of 55.1±14.0 years, ranging from 23 to 96 years. The majority of stroke patients were males (62.9%) and from rural areas (72.4%). The median time elapsed between the onset of stroke symptoms and arrival to the hospital was 27 hours. Almost half (47.4%) of the patients presented within 24 hours and 26 (22.4%) patients presented to hospital beyond 72 hours. Majority of patients (40.5%) showed severe neurological deficit on admission and the mean National Institute of health stroke scale (NIHSS) was 15.71 ± 7.52. The mean Glasgow coma scale (GCS) was moderate (12.12±3.35). On hospital arrival systolic blood pressure (SBP) was highly elevated (≥140 mm Hg) in 65.5% of the patients. The circadian pattern showed a significant peak in morning for hemorrhagic stroke (35.7%) and afternoon for ischemic stroke (38.3%). CONCLUSIONS: The delay of hospital arrival was a challenge similar to other high income countries for early management of the patients. Studies that attempt to determine some of the factors that impede timely presentation in patients with strokes are advisable to address those issues further.
