Descriptive Index Research Articles

Compare the efficiency of artificial substrates and leaf litter substrates in macro invertebrates aggregation samples at Gilgel Gibe Watershade, Southwest Ethiopia

The utility of artificial and natural substrate samplers affects the distribution of macro invertebrates in freshwater ecosystems. This study evaluated the efficiency of litter substrates of Croton macrostachyus, Eucalyptus grandis, Ficus sure, and Salix subserrata and artificial substrates/ bricks in terms of macro invertebrates colonization, abundance, family richness, uniformity, and composition of the sampled macro invertebrates. Few researchers have evaluated the efficiency of artificial and natural substrates in the colonization and dispersal of macro invertebrates in freshwater ecosystems. The objectives of this assessment were to evaluate the efficiency of artificial and natural substrate samplers in collecting macro invertebrates for water quality assessments of the Gilgel Gibe Watershade and its tributaries. Five sampling areas were chosen to compare macro invertebrates colonization in relation to the effect of inorganic (bricks) and leaf litter as substrates. Four organic or bedding substrates were selected and collected from the upper and lower study sites based on native and exotic plant species and their diversity along the study sites. Therefore, the following litter species were collected: Croton macrostachyus, Eucalyptus grandis, Ficu ssure, and Salix subserrata. After 30 days, all samples from each site were collected. Past software was used for descriptive and diversity indices analysis. A total of 5491 macro invertebrates individuals were counted on both substrates (artificial/bricks and natural/litter species). The compositions of Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera differed by litter substrates and were consistently higher in litter bags containing artificial substrates. In general, the family richness, uniformity, and composition of the artificial substrate samplers for macro invertebrates were higher than those of the litter substrates, which may indicate that the artificial substrates was more efficient than the litter substrates in dispersing macro invertebrates due to its ability to allocate habitat support to macro invertebrates.

An outlook multiple: The ontological multiplicity of the Met Office's 3‐month outlook

AbstractThis paper uses a material semiotic approach to explore how the ontological multiplicity of climate affects the communication of seasonal climate outlooks (SCO). The analysis is based on an ethnography of the UK Meteorological Office's (Met Office) 3‐month outlook, which predicts seasonal climate variability for the whole of the UK over the next 3 months. I advance geographical knowledge by critiquing a tendency among SCO providers to assume that stakeholders only treat the climate as a descriptive index of weather trends. Instead, I propose that the idea of a normal climate, which is central to this mode of communication, is an effect of materially diverse professional practices, such as running seasonal climate models, making contingency plans, or writing and publishing newspaper articles. These socio‐material practices enact multiple understandings, or ontologies, of what the climate is, which then shape how SCO are understood and used. The analysis identifies moments where ontologies of climate converge and diverge and discusses the effect that these moments have on the communication of the Met Office's 3‐month outlook. The paper concludes by assessing the theoretical significance of material semiotic approaches for geographical research into the multiplicity of climate, as well as the practical significance of this work for scientists who are involved in communicating climate information.

Job satisfaction among Swedish police officers: The role of work-related stress, gender-based and sexual harassment.

The aim of this cross-sectional study is to increase our understanding of job satisfaction in Swedish police officers by taking into account work-related stress, and sexual and gender-based harassment. Data were collected from 152 police officers working in vulnerable areas in Stockholm using sociodemographic questions, the Police Stress Identification Questionnaire (PSIQ), Sexual and gender-based harassment questions, and Job Descriptive Index (JDI). The obtained results indicated that male and female police officers reported the highest satisfaction in “people on your present job.” The lowest score of job satisfaction in both male and female police officers was related to “opportunity for promotion” and then “pay.” There were no significant differences in the subscales of job satisfaction between male and female police officers. The older and more experienced officers, the less satisfaction was reported in “job in general” and more satisfaction reported in “pay.” Comparing job satisfaction between patrol officers and those officers who worked in internal services showed police patrol officers had higher job satisfaction in “job in general,” “work in the present job,” “opportunity for promotion” and “supervision” compared to their counterparts in internal services. There were not any significant differences between the subscales of job satisfaction between male and female police officers. There was not any significant association between job satisfaction subscales and having experience of sexual or gender-based harassment. Among various subscales of police stressors, organizational stress was in negative relation with three domains of job satisfaction; “job in general,” “pay” and “supervision.” Also, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed organizational stress was most often of predictive impact related to various job satisfaction domains in police officers.

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Comprehensive Assessment of acceptance and Commitment Therapy (CompACT) in active-duty military personnel

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a third-wave cognitive-behavioral treatment that targets psychological flexibility (PF), or the ability to persist in behavior consistent with values regardless of unwanted private experiences. The growing use of ACT necessitates an accurate assessment of PF. The Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (CompACT) is a three-factor measure of PF (Openness to Experience, Valued Action, and Behavioral Awareness) whose psychometric properties have been examined in limited populations. The current study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the CompACT in U.S. military personnel who enrolled in a weight management randomized controlled trial.Military personnel who either failed or were at risk of failing the Navy's physical fitness assessment or had overweight/obese body mass index (BMI; N = 178, Mage = 29.15 years; MBMI = 33.13 kg/m2; 61.8% female) completed the CompACT and other questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the three-factor structure of the original 23-item CompACT (CompACT-23) as well as an 18-item version identified in a Portuguese sample (CompACT-18). Internal consistency and convergent validity with measures of weight-related experiential avoidance, perceived stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD symptoms, and life satisfaction were examined.The three-factor structure of the CompACT-23 showed poor fit to the data while the fit of the CompACT-18 was acceptable, as indicated by three descriptive indices (χ2/df = 1.73, RMSEA = 0.069, SRMR = 0.074). All descriptive fit indices in addition to two comparative fit indices (AIC and BIC) indicated improved model fit over the CompACT-23. The CompACT-18 and its subscales exhibited adequate internal consistency (α = 0.768 to 0.861) and convergent validity in expected directions with measures of weight-related experiential avoidance, perceived stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD symptoms, and satisfaction with life.Results support using the refined, English language CompACT-18 as a three-factor measure of PF in populations such as U.S. military personnel who may benefit from weight management intervention. Future research should explore the content validity of the full measure and the removed items. Lost content could mean the CompACT-23 and the CompACT-18 differentially assess PF. Additional studies should examine psychometric properties in large and more diverse samples to further evaluate the appropriateness of the measure across populations. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine test-retest reliability and sensitivity to change.

Comparing of Compassion-Based Emotion Focused Therapy With Compassion-Focused Treatment on Quality of Life of Primary Headache Patients

Objectives: The formulation of emotion-focused and compassion-focused behavioral intervention therapy can explain the relationship between the dimensions of problems and the health promotion of patients with headache symptoms and present the first combined treatment for emotional problems and the sedation of the nervous system to investigate and comprehensively prevent the symptoms of primary headaches. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with a control group. The sample consisted of 45 patients with primary headache symptoms who were referred to the neurology clinic of Khatam Al-Anbia Hospital in Tehran City, Iran. They were selected by the purposive sampling method and randomly divided into two experimental groups and a control group (15 people in each group). The experimental groups underwent a combination of compassion-based emotion therapy (ten 60-min sessions) and compassion-focused treatment (eight 60-min sessions). The control group received no intervention. After collecting the data, they were entered into the SPSS software, version 24. Descriptive statistical indices (mean and standard deviation) and statistical inference (repeated measures analysis of variance and the Bonferroni post hoc test) were used to analyze the data. Results: The findings showed that the quality of life (QoL) variable is not significant because of the non-compliance with the spheric default in the intragroup effect and time factor (F=3.47, df=1.15, and P<0.05); However, the interaction of the factor of time and group (F= 8.25, df= 2.31, and P<0.01) shows a significant difference (P<0.01) in the QoL variable between pre-test, post-test, and follow-up and time interaction with the group (between the three groups). Conclusion: Compassion-based emotion-based combination therapy packages can help control the current situation and subsequent decisions of patients in the face of the signs and symptoms of early headaches by creating a calm mental environment and relieving any pressure or stress. Therefore, compassion-based emotion-based combination therapy is a treatment option that can be used to increase the QoL of people with primary headaches.

Spatiotemporal regularization correlation filter with response feedback

Most existing trackers based on correlation filtering try to introduce different regularization items to improve the learning process of the tracking object. However, the parameters of the corresponding regularization items need to be adjusted dynamically to meet the corresponding tracking process. The regularization parameters are often fixed, so they cannot be updated for more accurate tracking. We propose a method to adaptively adjust the spatiotemporal regularization parameters during the tracking process. We make use of the important correlation between the response map and tracking quality in the tracking process of correlation filtering and introduce the confidence description index of the response map to optimize the spatiotemporal regularization parameters, so the training of correlation filtering can focus on the part with high confidence. In this way, the overfitting situation in training is reduced, and the accuracy and robustness of the tracker are enhanced. In performance evaluation experiments on the OTB2015 and DTB70 datasets, our algorithm outperforms the other comparative algorithms in terms of tracking success rate and distance accuracy, especially in complex scenarios, such as illumination variation, background clutter, out-of-view, and low resolution.

The influence of cold versus room temperature charcoal on reducing nausea of poisoned patients: A randomized clinical trial

Objective: Intoxication is among the most common causes of emergency department (ED) visits. Activated charcoal is one of the useful treatments preventing poison absorption. However, nausea caused by using charcoal has made this substance less acceptable among patients. This study aims at investigating the influence of using cold charcoal on reducing the nausea among poisoned patients. Methods: This clinical experimental trial study approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Regional School of Medicine of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences with the code 930106. Randomization was provided by Sealed Envelope. Accordingly, the experimental group received cold charcoal (4ᵒC), while the control group received room temperature charcoal (23ᵒC). We used the coding method in order to double blind the study. After half and one hour, nausea was checked in patients by visual numeric scale (VNS). Data were described by using descriptive and analytic test indices including frequency, mean ± standard deviation and suitable charts and tables. Results: The average age of participants was 25.83±7.05. The severity of nausea half an hour after consuming charcoal in cold charcoal group and experimental group was 1.3 and 2.73, respectively (P<0.001). One hour after consuming charcoal, the severity of nausea in cold charcoal group and experimental group was 0.39 and 1.38 (P<0.001). As indicated by the results of the study and after investigating the changing trend of nausea severity, nausea severity decreased in both groups by passing time from half to one hour (P<0.001). Conclusion: Cold charcoal can reduce the rate of nausea and make it more acceptable among patients.

Two-stage semi-supervised learning inversion for reservoir physical parameters

Reservoir physical parameters are crucial indexes for reservoir description. Deep learning is a data-driven algorithm, which may avoid some issues in conventional deterministic and stochastic inversion methods, such as cumulative and approximate errors. We develop a two-stage semi-supervised learning inversion method to predict porosity, shale content, and water saturation. Firstly, an inversion network is designed to predict physical parameters from pre-stack seismic data and initial models. The Spatio-temporal characteristics of seismic data and the low-frequency structural information of the initial model can be utilized efficiently by the network. In addition, considering the high production cost of label data in exploration geophysics, we construct a semi-supervised learning inversion workflow to relieve the dependence on the label in training. The rock physics model and seismic convolution forward model are invoked as a forward process in the workflow. Finally, we propose a two-stage inversion strategy to deal with the inversion of physical parameters with different data characteristics. The proposed method is applied to a field survey successfully. A high-resolution and high-accuracy inversion result can be obtained with our method, and potential locations of the gas reservoir can be indicated by prediction results. Meanwhile, the comparisons of the two stages demonstrate that illusions in predicted water saturation can be eliminated effectively.

Assessing job satisfaction and emotional intelligence in public school teachers

Education is a profession that has been particularly prone to teacher turnover. Educators in today's educational system face a slew of unreasonable demands and expectations, including increasing responsibility, a lack of funding, parental disengagement, a lack of positive student attitudes, a low regard for their profession, and meagre compensation. Many instructors are dissatisfied with their jobs as a result of the pressures they are under. 50 percent of new instructors quit during the first five years, according to Colbert and Wolff (1992). Emotional intelligence, according to Daniel Goleman's latest writings (1995, 1998), is a predictor of success and contentment in the workplace. Emotional intelligence and teacher work satisfaction have not been studied to date. This study invited instructors to take Baron EQ-i Self Report Scale, Job Descriptive Index (JDI) in order to examine this phenomenon in the context of teachers. The questionnaires were sent out to 101 teachers, and a total of 101 responses were received. Emotional intelligence plays a factor in teachers' self-reported job satisfaction, according to data analysis. did confirm linked to job satisfaction and the number of years of teaching experience. There are several ideas for future research that are brought forward.

Impact of COVID-19 on Job Satisfaction: The Case of Military and Airline Pilots

ABSTRACT Objective To investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the military and airline pilots’ Job Satisfaction (JS), and identify important contributory factors to support the development of future mitigating strategies. Background The aviation industry has undergone a series of devastating changes since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the implications of the pandemic on pilots’ JS are unknown. Methods Quantitative JS measurements were taken from 203 European and Middle Eastern pilots, during the pandemic (March, 2021), using the shortened Job Descriptive Index and Job In General validated scales. Follow-up semi-structured interviews (April 2021) were conducted with 16 participants to establish pre-pandemic JS levels and identify the degree of change due to COVID-19. Results Significant JS differences (p < .001) were observed between military and airline pilots; the former having higher levels. Qualitative findings revealed that airline pilots’ levels decreased due to factors such as job security, pay cuts, opportunities for promotion and skill-fade concerns. Military pilots experienced an increased JS, as state-funded organizations were not substantially affected by COVID-19, which led to a feeling of appreciation and thankfulness. Conclusion COVID-19 has caused a major disruption to JS of military and airline pilots. Suggested mitigation measures for the civil aviation sector comprised effective communication between pilots and managers to reduce the pandemic-induced job uncertainty. Solutions such as extra flight simulator sorties were recommended to tackle the skill-fade effect.

Comparing the Dimensions of Marital Intimacy, Commitment, and Satisfaction in Couples With and Without Pre-Marriage Counseling Experience

Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the dimensions of intimacy, commitment, and marital satisfaction in couples with and without pre-marrital counseling. Methods: The present study is a causal-comparative study, and the statistical population includes two groups of married people in Tehran between 2018-2019, one of which had experienced premarital counseling while the other group did not have this experience. The sample consisted of two groups of married people using available and convenient sampling method which consisted of total of 60 couples. Three questionnaires of intimacy, commitment and marital satisfaction were applied. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics indices and the mixed variance analysis method using SPSS software. Results: Findings showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups regarding the dimensions of marital intimacy in the dimension of psychological intimacy. And comparing the dimensions of marital commitment in the two groups showed that there is a significant difference in the dimension of personal commitment. Comparison of the dimensions of marital satisfaction showed that the counseling group in the dimension of children and parenting was significantly higher than in the counseling group. Conclusion: Therefore, it seems that pre-marital counseling programs need training and interventions in order to promote intimacy, commitment, and marital satisfaction.

Ethnobotanical study on medicinal plants used by ethnic people of Gechi District, South West Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract. Desalegn A, Egigu MC, Sasikumar JM. 2022. Ethnobotanical study on medicinal plants used by ethnic people of Gechi District, South West Oromia, Ethiopia. Nusantara Bioscience 14: 104-116. This study recorded medicinal plants used by ethnic people of Gechi District, Buno Bedele zone of South West Oromia region, Ethiopia. Data were collected from 386 informants through semi-structured interviews, guided field observations, and focus group discussions. Descriptive statistics and quantitative ethnobotanical indices were used to analyze the data. Moreover, an independent t-test and one-way ANOVA were employed to analyze the effect of Socio-demographic traits on traditional medicinal knowledge. The study documented 70 medicinal plant species belonging to 61 genera and 36 families. The majority of the plants (83.7%) were used to treat human ailments. Asteraceae (7 species) mostly represented the family. Most of the plants collected were shrubs (32.9 %), followed by herbs (25.7%). Leaves (42.3%) represented the highest part for remedy preparation. The dominant route of administration of remedies was Oral (56%). Jaccard’s similarity index (JI) showed a high degree of similarities (JI = 0.75-0.91) among the Kebeles. The highest Informant consensus factor (ICF) value (0.73) was detected for the sensory organs category illnesses. Juniperus procera Hochst. ex. Endl. was observed with the highest fidelity level (FL) index value (0.97) for the wound. The highest preference ranking (PR) was adjudged to Ruta chalepensis L. for stomach ache. Syzygium guineense (Willd.) DC. was top-ranked as a multipurpose plant in direct matrix ranking (DR). It was observed that the Traditional Knowledge (TK) of medicinal plants was significantly (P&lt;0.05) influenced by gender, age, and educational level of the people. Therefore, our documentation of TK on medicinal plants possessed by the people of the studied area could help preserve their knowledge for extensive use.

Corneal Endothelial Characteristics in Normal Chinese Han Children and Youngsters: A Study from the Specular Microscopy Descriptions

Objective To observe the morphological changes of corneal endothelial cells in healthy Chinese children and youngsters and analyze the sensitive and specificity of the endothelial assessments. Methods 14,670 Chinese healthy volunteers enrolled were examined by specular microscopy, and the endothelial descriptive indexes: the central corneal thickness (CCT), endothelial cell density (ECD), coefficient of variation in average cell size (CV), the percentage of regular hexagonal cells (hexagonality, HEX), cell size of minimal cell (Smin), cell size of maximal cell (Smax), average cell size (Savg), and size of standard deviation of cell area (Ssd) as well as sex and age were analyzed. Results The average age of this study is 17.36 ± 7.58 (4–30) years. There is no sex predominance: 7,260 male (49.5%) and 7,410 female (50.5%). The mean CCT, ECD, CV, HEX, Smin/max, Savg, and Ssd are 529.94 ± 31.53 (437–644) μm, 3,051.28 ± 375.49 (2,031–4,074) cells/mm2, 28.34 ± 4.36 (18–40) %, 61.21 ± 10.29 (17–89) %, (147.79 ± 21.94 to 678.29 ± 120.96) μm2, 332.74 ± 44.62 μm2, and 95.02 ± 23.17 μm2, respectively. The CCTs keep consistency. The ECD decreased rate is 1.02%/year. The curve of ECD and hexagonality expresses the same linear tender. The CCT and endothelial evaluation indexes have no sex predominant (p > 0.05); the quantitative indicators: CCT, ECD, and HEX are significant negative associated with age (p = 0.001 or p < 0.001); the variability indexes: the CV, Smin, Smax, Savg, and Ssd are positive correlation (p < 0.001). The coefficients of CCT, HE, and Smin are -0.35, -0.59, and 1.17, respectively. Conclusions The ECD decrease rate is 1.02%/year of the normal Chinese Han childhood to the earlier adulthood. The ages 4 to 12, 13 to 20, and 21 to 30 can be named as the childhood, puberty and adulthood from endothelial biologic identity. The HEX is the sensitivity marks for the polymorphisms while the S min is the specificity indicator CVs upon the Topcon Noncon Specular microscopy results.

Job Satisfaction and Burnout in Croatian Physiotherapists.

Background: Physiotherapists are important healthcare professionals in modern and multidisciplinary health forces. However, they are exposed to a high risk of occupational burnout, which is associated with reduced job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is essential for medical professionals because it directly influences patient safety and the quality of medical care. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the association between sociodemographic variables of Croatian physiotherapists, job satisfaction, and occupational burnout. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed among 404 physiotherapists using a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), and Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI). Results: The study group of Croatian physiotherapists was marked by a high level of job satisfaction and occupational burnout. However, a higher level of occupational burnout is associated with lower job satisfaction. The main determinants of job satisfaction were younger age, female gender, less work experience, and married or partnership. At the same time, a higher level of occupational burnout was associated with working in government institutions and being single. Conclusions: As a reaction to psychological stress at work with the main components of exhaustion and disengagement, occupational burnout is negatively associated with job satisfaction. Therefore, assessing the factors influencing job satisfaction and burnout in the workplace can help develop physiotherapists’ mental health prevention strategies.

Decision-Making During a Disaster-Scenario Tabletop Exercise by Prelicensure Student Nurses - A Replication Study.

"Determine which clients to recommend for discharge in a disaster situation" is a Registered Nurse Activity Statement on the National Council Licensing Exam test plan. The activity statement raised the nursing education research question: could senior student nurses transfer their learning to a novel circumstance, with a high degree of risk, making decisions using patient assessments and determining resource needs? A study with a descriptive quantitative approach was designed with 2 aims. The first was to describe students' transfer of learning for basic disaster and medical-surgical knowledge and make recommendations for patient dispositions. The second aim was to describe students' attitudes about their transfer of learning during the tabletop exercise. A researcher-designed disaster-scenario tabletop exercise and 3 instruments with subject-matter-expert feedback captured participants' decisions. Eligible senior student nurses volunteered to participate in the replicated study that was extended to 2 universities. Participant decisions and attitude responses were statistically analyzed. Descriptive and difficulty index statistics described students' transfer of learning for basic disaster and medical-surgical topics, patient disposition recommendations, and attitudes. The cut-score for optimal transfer of learning was difficulty index (DI) ≤ .49. Students had positive attitudes and transferred learning to most decisions. Decision DIs ≤ .49 were remediated.

The Analysis study of EFL College Students' English Writing Using Coh-Metrix

This study conducted a corpus-based analysis using Coh-Metrix to examine the difficulty level of EFL college students’ writing. A total of 294 writing samples written by 94 college students were used for this study. The English writing samples were classified into three groups of high, mid, and low level based on the students’ final test. As for the analysis tool, Coh-Metrix 3.0 was used for lexical, syntactic, and cohesion levels and readability. As a result of the study, there were statistically significant differences among three groups in lexical analysis including descriptive indices and lexical diversity. As for syntactic analysis, there were also statistically significant differences in syntactic complexity and syntactic pattern density except for SYNNP and DRPP. In the case of cohesion analysis, there were statistically significant differences in all indicators in the referential cohesion and LSA except for LSAPP1. Finally, there were statistically significant differences in readability including FRE and FKGL. Based on the results of this study, pedagogical implications on using Coh-Metrix as a useful and evaluation tool on students’ writing and several suggestions for further studies are discussed.

The Evaluation of Results of Twenty Common Equations for Differentiation of Beta Thalassemia Trait from Iron Deficiency Anemia: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background:Beta Thalassemia Trait (BTT) and Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) were two common clinical problems with clinical hypochromic and microcytic manifestations, and their differentiation from each other was very important and needs innovative formulas and laboratory tests. Since the consideration of anemia as a pair with BTT leads to beta-thalassemia major birth in 25% of cases, offering prospective parents detailed information about the likelihood of their offspring developing BTT is essential. The present study aimed to investigate the performance of common equations in differentiation of BTT from IDA.Methods:In the present cross-sectional study, twenty common equations were selected in the differentiation of BTT from IDA. To evaluate the equations, the tests of 292 individuals (73 individuals with BTT and 219 individuals with IDA) were compared with the initial diagnosis of hypochromic and microcytic anemia using the formulas. Descriptive and value indices and Roc curve were utilized for all equations to analyze the results.Results:Among twenty differential equations, Bordbar, Kerman I, II and Srivastava equations had the highest area under Roc curve (AUC) of 0.841, 0.838, 0.836, and 0.830 respectively, but Kandhro I. equation had the lowest AUC (0.378).Conclusion:Given the importance of AUC and value indices of differential equations in clinical decision making, and results of evaluating common equations in differentiation of BTT from IDA. It is essential to improve the values of the equations by re-examining the parameters involved in them.

Measurement properties of the EQ-5D-Y administered through a smartphone app in children with asthma: a longitudinal questionnaire study

BackgroundAsthma impacts children’s physical, emotional, and psychosocial Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL). The EQ-5D-Y is a generic econometric instrument developed to measure HRQL in children.ObjectiveEvaluation of feasibility, validity, reliability, and responsiveness of EQ-5D-Y descriptive system and utility index to allow the assessment of HRQL in children with asthma, aged 8–11 years (self-response version) or under 8 years old (proxy-response version).MethodsWe used data from baseline to 10 months of follow-up of an observational, prospective study of children with persistent asthma recruited by pediatricians in Spain (2018–2020). HRQL instruments were administered through a smartphone application: ARCA app. The EQ-5D-Y is composed of a 5-dimension descriptive system, a utility index ranging from 1 to − 0.5392, and a general health visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS). The Pediatric Asthma Impact Scale (PROMIS-PAIS) includes 8 items, providing a raw score. Construct validity hypotheses were stated a priori, and evaluated following two approaches, multitrait–multimethod matrix and known groups’ comparisons. Reliability and responsiveness subsamples were defined by stability or change in EQ-VAS and the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ), to estimate the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the magnitude of change over time.ResultsThe EQ-5D-Y was completed at baseline for 119 children (81 self-responded and 38 through proxy response), with a mean age of 9.1 (1.7) years. Mean (SD) of the EQ-5D-Y utility index was 0.93 (0.11), with ceiling and floor effects of 60.3% and 0%, respectively. Multitrait–multimethod matrix confirmed the associations previously hypothesized for the EQ-5D-Y utility index [moderate with PROMIS-PAIS (0.38) and weak with ACQ (0.28)], and for the EQ-5D-Y dimension “problems doing usual activities” [moderate with the ACQ item (0.35) and weak with the PROMIS-PAIS item (0.17)]. Statistically significant differences were found in the EQ-5D-Y between groups defined by asthma control, reliever inhalers use, and second-hand smoke exposure, with mostly moderate effect sizes (0.45–0.75). The ICC of the EQ-5D-Y utility index in the stable subsamples was high (0.81 and 0.79); and responsiveness subsamples presented a moderate to large magnitude of change (0.68 and 0.78), though without statistical significance.ConclusionsThese results support the use of the EQ-5D-Y as a feasible, valid, and reliable instrument for evaluating HRQL in children with persistent asthma. Further studies are needed on the responsiveness of the EQ-5D-Y in this population.

Loneliness and psychological well-being among community-dwelling elderly people: the mediating role of death anxiety

Purpose The present study aims to investigate the relationship between loneliness and psychological well-being and examine whether death anxiety mediates the association between loneliness and psychological well-being among community-dwelling elderly people in the Kerala state of India. Design/methodology/approach A total of 209 participants (125 males and 84 females) were selected for this study through the convenience sampling method. SPSS (version 22) was used to estimate descriptive and correlational indices. Mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes Process macro-Version 3.5 and 5,000 bootstrapped sample-based analysis. Findings Results indicate the significant indirect effect of loneliness on psychological well-being through the influence of death anxiety. It was thus concluded that lonely feelings among elderly people lower psychological well-being and death anxiety partially mediates the relationship of loneliness and psychological well-being. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectional study with the use of questionnaires might not be adequate to establish causal links. All the participants were from community-dwelling. So it reduces the possibility of generalizing the findings to institutional settings. The study recommends the need and importance of mental health support for elderly people through community intervention programs to reduce their feeling of loneliness. Originality/value The present study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by substantiating the mediating role of death anxiety in the relationship between loneliness and the psychological well-being of elderly people staying at home.

Critical Thinking and its Relationship to the Knowledge Integration and Familiarity among University Students during Open-Book Tests

The study aimed to assess the relationship between critical thinking and knowledge integration and familiarity among university students during the open book tests. Also identifying levels of critical, Knowledge familiar and integrating and critical thinking among university students. A targeted sample of 239 students had been drawn from the Psychology (division in the first, third, and fourth teams), Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, Port Said University. The study relied on practical and social problems related to the courses taught to students. The study prepared the Critical Thinking Scale, Familiarity, and Knowledge Integration Scale. Use exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to verify the validity. The instruments had acceptable stability according to the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. The results confirmed the existence of a high positive correlation between critical thinking and knowledge integration and familiarity. This means that the learner has become more professional and experienced in dealing with and criticizing problems. And the studied knowledge became more familiar and integrated due to the formation and qualification of the knowledge structure with the continuous application of open-book tests. The levels of critical thinking, familiarity and integration of knowledge were high among the sample students according to descriptive statistics indices.