North Central City Research Articles

The burden of drug abuse: Predictors of prescription drug abuse among women in Northern Nigeria. A systematic review

IntroductionThe North-Eastern, North-Western, and North-Central cities in Nigeria comprise of 19 states, each with its own governor. With over 400 ethnicities in the country, Northern Nigeria is home to many ethnic groups nearly half of whom are the Hausa-Fulani whose main religion is Islam. Practices in Northern Nigeria has favoured polygamy, early child marriage, and a lack of desire for western education while encouraging the strictly Islamic studies especially among the Hausa/Fulanis. Northern Nigeria is also known for its gender inequality and poverty. Prescription drug abuse has become more common in recent years even among women in Northern Nigeria. ObjectivesThis study's objectives include finding out the predicting factors to entry into prescription drug use among women in Northern Nigeria. Highlighting the causes of growing numbers in prescription drug abuse as well as recommending solutions in form of preventative measures. MethodsEight articles were selected after being critically appraised for this study following a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. For this mixed method Systematic Review (SR), a thematic analysis was used for the results and findings. ResultsThis research shows that some of the factors in the rise of prescription drug abuse among women in Northern Nigeria include: unemployment, insurgency due to the activities of violent extremist organization—Boko Haram—in the Northern region, as well as family dynamics which involves family history of drug misuse, early marriage, and a lack of education. ConclusionUnderstanding the factors influencing women into drug use in Northern Nigeria can help end the cycle. This study suggests recommendations to prompt a decline in the rising numbers of prescription drug use among women in Northern Nigeria.

Thyroid Autoimmunity in Pregnancy in a North-Central City in Nigeria

Background: Pregnancy often increases the likelihood of adverse maternal and fetal outcomes in cases of thyroid dysfunction. The inherent variation and instability of the thyroid gland can predispose the pregnant woman and fetus to significant negative consequences. Although thyroid autoimmunity may become less common as pregnancy progresses, it remains a prevalent dysfunction during this period. Method: We conducted a hospital-based cross-sectional study involving 250 healthy pregnant women who volunteered to participate. Blood samples were collected from the participants and analysed using the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technique to measure serum levels of Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and anti-TPO antibodies. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS. Result: Among the participants, 31 (12.4%) were found to have thyroid dysfunction, with 12 (4.8%) exhibiting signs of thyroid autoimmunity. Specifically, 8 (3.2%) were diagnosed with hypothyroidism, while 4 (1.6%) showed hyperthyroidism. Conclusion: This study identified a prevalence of 4.8% for thyroid autoimmunity during pregnancy using the anti-TPO antibody assay. Furthermore, we determined that measuring thyroid stimulating hormone levels was a reliable indicator for detecting thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy.

Psychological and stigma profiles of HIV patients in a North-Central city of Nigeria.

ABSTRACTBackground:The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of infirmity and disease. Researchers and clinicians have mainly focused on health outcomes that are physically or laboratory measured. These, however, do not reflect how the affected individual feels and functions in daily life. This study assessed the psychological and stigma profiles of patients attending HIV clinics in a North-central State of Nigeria.Methods:The study design was descriptive cross-sectional. A total of 384 HIV-positive patients who were systematically recruited at 5 public service delivery sites in Ilorin, Kwara State, North-central Nigeria participated in the study. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 20.0. Level of significance was pre-determined at P value < 0.05 at a confidence level of 95%.Results:Fifty-nine percent of respondents reported being anxious about their condition and 25.5% felt depressed. Eighty-six percent received adherence counselling and 82.3% received psychological care from support groups. In the psychological domain, majority (74.5%) of the respondents had high health-related quality of life (HRQoL). There was a statistically significant association between employment status and psychological domain of HRQoL. As regards stigma, majority experienced high stereotype stigma (73.7%) and 67.2% experienced high stigma as pertains disclosure.Conclusion:Health workers should promote psychological support of HIV patients, for example, in form of support groups and adherence counseling. Efforts by government and corporate bodies should be geared towards employment empowerment of PLWHA which may help improve quality of life.

Causes of Dental Trauma: Results of Findings Among Patients in a Secondary Oral Healthcare Center, Jos, Nigeria.

Background:Dental trauma is a major type of traumatic dental injury (TDI) and a common presentation in many oral health facilities in Nigeria. Despite the high prevalence of TDIs, causes of dental trauma are yet to be fully investigated among Nigerians.Aim:The aim of this study is to determine the types of dental trauma, aetiology, and the causes of dental trauma as it relates with sociodemographic characteristics among dental patients.Materials and Methods:This was a cross-sectional study among patients attending a secondary oral healthcare facility in the North Central city of Jos between January 2019 and December 2020. The sociodemographic features of the patients include patients’ complaints, clinical and social history, result of simple clinical oral examinations, and diagnoses of dental trauma. The classification of Ellis and Davey (1970) was used to classify dental trauma for this study.Results:One hundred and seventy-six (6.7%) patients presented with dental trauma involving 281 teeth. The mean age was 37.54 ± 2.16 years. The most common cause of dental trauma in 48 (27.3%) patients was bone cracking, followed by falls in 33 (18.8%), road traffic accidents (RTAs) in 26 (14.8%), and bottle opening with teeth in 26 (14.8%). Bone cracking was the major cause of dental trauma in 18 (31.0%) educated and 2 (28.6%) non-educated patients. Among the patients, 118 (67.1%) presented with single traumatized tooth. Permanent anterior teeth 151 (53.74%) were more involved, and class 2 trauma involving enamel and dentinal structure was the most common presentation.Conclusion:Oral health awareness campaign on the damaging effect of bone cracking and use of tooth for opening metal caps of bottled drinks among adult population will reduce the prevalence of dental trauma among many adult Nigerians.

Coping strategies among patients attending HIV clinics in a North-central State of Nigeria.

Nigeria ranks third among the countries with the highest HIV/AIDS burden in the world, next only to India and South Africa. The North-Central zone which Kwara State belongs to has the highest concentration of HIV prevalence rate of 7.5%, while the North-Western zone recorded the lowest prevalence of 2.1%; Kwara state has a prevalence rate of 2.2%. The study assessed the coping strategies adopted by patients attending HIV clinics in a North-central city of Nigeria. The study design was descriptive cross-sectional involving 384 HIV-positive patients who were systematically recruited at 5 public service delivery sites in Ilorin- a North-central city, Nigeria was used for the study. Coping strategies were measured using the Brief COPE scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20.0. Level of significance was pre-determined at P value <0.05 at a confidence level of 95%. Female respondents constituted 222 (58.0%) while males were 162 (42.0%). Respondents experienced varying proportion of coping strategies of which Self-distraction 288 (75.0%), active coping 249 (64.8%), emotional support 228 (59.4%), among others were the major strategies adopted by respondents. HIV is a chronic disease with heavy burden on both patients and health facility rendering services for the care of these patients. A good proportion of respondents interviewed adopted varying coping strategies. Sustained social and psychological support will improve further the coping strategies of living with HIV.

English Fricative Rendition of Educated Speakers of English from a North-Central City of Nigeria

This paper examines the influence of ethnicity on the realization of the English fricatives articulated by selected educated speakers of English from four ethnic groups of Ebira, Igala, Hausa and Okun-Yoruba residing in Lokoja, a North-Central city of Nigeria. Data for the study consist of 1080 tokens elicited from 120 informants. Guided by a synthesis of the theoretical frameworks of Honey’s (1997) Sociophonology and Azevedo’s (1981) Contrastive Phonology, perceptual and acoustic analyses of the data reveal that, although speakers have a tendency to not articulate sounds absent in their phonemic inventory with the dexterity expected of their level of education, co-habitation seems a factor that has robbed off on the speakers’ level of performance in this study: 80% overcame their linguistic challenges to correctly articulate the test items while 30% generally found it difficult to articulate the interdental fricatives /P/ and /D/ and the voiced palato-alveolar fricative /Z/; perhaps, because these sounds are absent in their respective phonemic inventories. The paper submits additionally that, phonology is still resistant to input (cf. Fajobi, 2013), level of education notwithstanding. However, positive social relations could impact positively on language use and competence in any pluralinguistic English as a second language (ESL) environment.

The use of distraction as a pain management technique among nurses in a North-central city in Nigeria

PurposeDistraction is an effective and readily-available pain management intervention which can be highly valuable in low-resource health facilities. It is an integral part of the pain management course in the nursing curriculum of many Nigerian universities. Hence, this study seeks to determine the gap between theory and clinical practice. The aim of this study is to assess the beliefs of nurses on distraction as a pain management intervention, and their use of distraction during clinical practice. DesignA descriptive survey was conducted. Methods170 questionnaires were distributed to nurses in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. There was a response rate of 96%. Data were analyzed using both descriptive (such as frequency and percentages) and inferential statistics (such as chi-square). ResultsMajority of the study participants were familiar with distraction and its use in pain management (98.8%). The majority of the participants (97.5%) indicated they use distraction as a pain management technique, and they (61.3%) believed that distraction can be effective, without administering any pharmacological agent. The nurses (84%) mostly used distraction to manage post-operative pain. ConclusionFrom the nurses’ perspective, it appears distraction is well-utilized in clinical practice. However, there is a need to educate nurses on the use of various distractors and other non-pharmacological interventions in order to improve pain management. Clinical implicationThe use of distraction among Nigerian nurses is encouraging, but they should be cautious about using distraction alone for pain management. Nurses should endeavor to use distraction with a pharmacological agent, as appropriate.

Deleterious Emission Abatement through Structured Energy Use Pattern: A North Central Nigeria Perspective

Abstract Holistic view of household energy consumption based on greenhouse gas emissions in the North Central cities of Nigeria was examined in this study. Scenarios considered were based on income level of energy users (low and high) and energy metering system (i.e. pre-paid and post-paid energy billing systems). Strong direct nexus was observed between energy use and emissions pattern. Energy utilization by post-paid category had higher weekly average value of 35.09 and 41.70 kWh as against 23.18 and 33.38 kWh for low and high income pre-paid consumers respectively. Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from both classification followed similar trend. Data obtained and analysed in the study show that global warming and acidification potentials could be reduced by 33.94 and 19.95 % for low and high income category consumers when pre-paid meters are in place. Conclusively, energy system users with pre-paid metering system displayed reasonable level of management decisions that reduce energy wastage and consequently environmental negative impacts.

POST/SOCIALIST AFFECT: Ruination and Reconstruction of the Nation in Urban Vietnam

This article explores the engineering of affect in socialist urban design and subsequent changes in the affective register of a rapidly growing city in late socialist Vietnam. The setting is the north central city of Vinh, destroyed by aerial bombing during the American War and rebuilt with assistance from East Germany. A primary focus of urban reconstruction was Quang Trung public housing that provided modern, European-style apartments and facilities for more than eight thousand residents left homeless from the war. Drawing from interviews, images, poems, and archival materials that document urban reconstruction, the article foregrounds the complex historical, ideological, social, and gendered meanings and sentiments attached to a particular construction material: bricks. It argues that bricks have figured prominently in radical and recurring urban transformations in Vinh, both in the creation and the destruction of urban spaces and architectural forms. As utopic objects of desire, bricks gave shape to an engaged politics of hope and belief in future betterment, as construction technologies once reserved for the elite were made available to the masses. In Quang Trung public housing, bricks harnessed political passions and utopian sentiments that over time, as Vinh's urban identity shifted from a model socialist city to a regional center of commercial trade and industry, came to signify unfulfilled promises of the socialist state and dystopic ruins that today stand in the way of capitalist redevelopment.

The Effect of NaCl and CMA on the Growth and Morphology ofArctostaphylos uva-ursi(Kinnikinnick)

Numerous studies have described the negative effects of the commonly used deicer, NaCl, on plants; this has led to research on less toxic alternatives, for example, calcium magnesium acetate (CMA). The present research investigated the native ground cover species,Arctostaphylos uva-ursi(kinnikinnick), as a possible candidate for landscaping in high salt conditions. The effect of NaCl and CMA on the growth, morphology, and survival ofA. uva-ursiplants was examined to explore the use of CMA as a potential environmentally friendly alternative deicing agent to that of NaCl. The influence of these deicing agents on selected soil properties was also investigated. It was found that this ground cover species was able to tolerate moderate-to-high levels of NaCl and even greater concentrations of CMA. Therefore,A. uva-ursiproved to be a candidate for landscaping use in a north central city of Canada, where deicing agents are used in winter months.

Criminal intent and educational aspiration of disadvantaged school-age hawkers in two selected North central cities of Nigeria

One of the international agenda is to utilize all available human and non-human resources towards enhancing youth’s educational and moral development. However, evidences abound that a good number of Nigerian youths are drawn by negative socio-economic experiences to a life of full time or part time hawking. The consequences of this life-style on the educational aspiration and moral development of the youths were studied in this research. The research comparatively surveyed the levels of criminal intent and educational aspiration of school-age hawkers and non-hawkers in North-Central Cities of Nigeria. Thus, it employed purposive sampling technique to draw a sample of 246 school age hawkers from Lokoja and Ilorin in Northern Nigeria. Data were obtained using two researcher-made questionnaires; Criminal Intent Questionnaire (CIQ) and Educational Aspiration Questionnaire (EAQ). To answer the raised research questions, data were analyzed using frequency count and percentages while t-test statistic was used to test the postulated hypotheses. Findings showed that school-age hawkers have higher criminal intent (73.98%) and low educational aspiration than school-age non-hawkers (14.63%). It was also found that the criminal intent and educational aspiration of the two categories of sampled respondents varied on the basis of gender. While criminal intent was higher on the side of male hawkers, educational aspiration was higher on the side of female non-hawkers. Based on these, it was concluded that on the basis of gender, hawking can develop criminal intent and discourage educational aspiration in school-age children. Thus, it was recommended that parents and Nigeria government should intensify efforts at reducing hawking among school-age children, if the country wants to avert raising youth with criminal orientation and if it wants to be among nations around the world to achieve the goals of Education for All (EFA) come 2015. Key words: Intent, aspiration, school-age, level, criminal, high, low.

Workers in Risorgimento Bologna

Although historians have revisited the Risorgimento in recent years, adding significantly more sophistication to their analyses, scholars continue to have little sense of how the Italian lower classes experienced national unification. At the same time, traditional labour history, as one field that might correct this oversight, seldom looks back before unification. This study suggests the two fields would both benefit by examining labour during the decades of the Risorgimento. Despite widespread affection for Garibaldi, the popular hero of the Risorgimento, labourers were seldom engaged in the politics of nation-making. However, the development of strikes and associations in the north-central city of Bologna during the last years of the Risorgimento suggests that labourers were adapting to and making use of changes in the political atmosphere in pressing their own demands.

Ethnicity, region, and public fiscal commitment to policing

Based on a study of all cities of 25,000 or more in population size, the research described in this paper investigates the response of the urban fiscal policing commitment to the visibility of those ethnic groups categorized as Hispanic by the U.S. Census. Although the funding requests of police officials may be based on sound professional judgement, the public nature of the budgetary process paves the way for non-professional criteria to play a role in the determination of the final level of financing. The results of the multivariate analysis indicate that the relative size of the Hispanic populations is a significant predictor of the level of policing expenditures in cities in the South and the West, even after the role of the police as providers of social services to the poor has been considered. Percent Hispanic does not, however, have a significant impact on policing expenditures in Northeastern and North Central cities. The findings suggest that while a community's fiscal capacity and its need for p...

Aesthetic and Utilitarian Qualities of Clothing: Use of a Multidimensional Clothing Value Model

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate consumers' valuation of clothing and accessory items on the basis of aesthetic and utilitarian qualities. Differences in dollar amounts consumers said they would be willing to pay for the items served as indicators of valuation. Data were collected from 102 female shoppers at a regional mall in a north central city. Analysis of variance and Tukey post hoc comparisons were used to determine whether differences existed be tween the dollar amounts that consumers said they would be willing to spend for the clothing and accessory items. The findings indicated that subjects were willing to pay the most for high aesthetic items regardless of utility and the least for low aesthetic, low utility items. Demographic variables such as age, income level, marital status, number of children, race, occupation and educational level were not significantly related to dollar amounts that subjects said they were willing to spend.