Use of Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing and Information Management System in a Survey among HIV High-Risk Groups in India: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis

Socioeconomic status, perceived family support and psychological distress in older Kenyans: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES

Incidences of psychological distress are on the rise among older Kenyans. While socioeconomic status and family support have been shown to impact the mental health of older individuals, they remain understudied in the older Kenyan population. This study investigated the prevalence of psychological distress among older Kenyans and examined its relationships with economic status and perceived family support.

METHOD

Data came from a cross-sectional survey of 376 older Kenyans from four rural and urban areas in 2022. The survey collected demographic, global health, social support, socioeconomic, and psychological health variables. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationship between socioeconomic status, family support, and psychological distress.

RESULTS

Overall, 61% reported high psychological distress, with women experiencing significantly higher levels. Structural equation modeling results indicated that food insecurity, flooring material, material wealth, chronic health, self-rated physical health, sex, and education were significant predictors. The dimensions of family support were not significantly associated with psychological distress.

CONCLUSION

The findings illuminate that psychological distress is a critical health concern for the sample and needs targeted health interventions. They also underline the essential role of economic status in the psychological distress of older Kenyans. Future studies should explore these relationships using longitudinal, family-level, and representative data.

Mobile health-delivered narrative intervention to increase cervical cancer screening among Malawian women living with HIV: A pilot randomized controlled trial

Objective

This study aimed to develop and evaluate a mobile health (mHealth)-delivered, theory-guided, culturally tailored storytelling narrative (STN) intervention to increase cervical cancer screening among Malawian women living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Methods

This study involved two phases: Phase 1: development of a theory-guided and culturally adapted STN intervention and Phase 2: a pilot randomized controlled trial was conducted. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three arms: Arm 1: tablet-based video (mHealth) with STN (n = 60); Arm 2: mHealth with a video of nonnarrative educational materials (n = 59); and Arm 3: control group with only reading nonnarrative educational materials in person (n = 60). Cervical cancer screening was measured using visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) uptakes by self-report and health passport record review at 2 and 6 months after intervention.

Results

Both arms 1 and 2 had nearly twice the rate of VIA uptakes than those in Arm 3 (51.0% and 50.0%, respectively, vs. 35.0%, P = 0.01) at 2 months follow-up, but there were no differences among groups from 2- to 6-month follow-ups. All groups demonstrated significant improvement of knowledge about risk factors, intention, and VIA uptakes.

Conclusions

The findings demonstrate the preliminary effectiveness of the intervention on cervical cancer screening behavior and the feasibility of the study regarding recruitment, retention, treatment fidelity, and acceptability of the single 30-min session. The feasibility and the preliminary results of the effectiveness of the proposed study indicate scaling up the STN intervention to a larger population of women to increase cervical cancer screening uptake to prevent deaths due to cervical cancer in Malawi.

The associations between working conditions and subjective sleep quality among female migrant care workers

Background

Subjective sleep quality may reflect the mental well-being of migrant care workers; however, the related occupational factors remain unclear. This study examines the association between the characteristics of care labor and the subjective sleep quality of female migrants.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, Southeast Asian migrant care workers in Taiwan were recruited using convenience sampling. Data on working conditions, including workplace setting, wage, working hours, psychiatric symptoms of care recipients, and sleep quality measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), were collected through computer-assisted personal interviews. Multiple linear regression analyses were performed to determine the independent relationship between working conditions and the PSQI global score.

Results

There were 220 institution-(47.7%) and home-based (52.3%) care workers, and 47.7% had a PSQI score higher than 5. After controlling for covariates, the lowest tertile of wages and daily working hours (> 8 h) were independently correlated with poor sleep quality. Moreover, in the stepwise regression model, wage and working hours remained the most explainable correlates of poor sleep quality.

Conclusion

This study lent support to the notion that low wages and long working hours are significant occupational factors that negatively impact the subjective sleep quality of female Southeast Asian migrant care workers in Taiwan.

Factors Affecting the Transition from Paper to Digital Data Collection for Mobile Tuberculosis Active Case Finding in Low Internet Access Settings in Pakistan

Between September 2020 and March 2021, Mercy Corps piloted hybrid digital (CAPI) and paper-based (PAPI) data collection as part of its tuberculosis (TB) active case finding strategy. Data were collected using CAPI and PAPI at 140 TB chest camps in low Internet access areas of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in Pakistan. PAPI data collection was performed primarily during the camp and entered using a tailor-performed CAPI tool after camps. To assess the feasibility of this hybrid approach, quality of digital records were measured against the paper “gold standard”, and user acceptance was evaluated through focus group discussions. Completeness of digital data varied by indicator, van screening team, and month of implementation: chest camp attendees and pulmonary TB cases showed the highest CAPI/PAPI completeness ratios (1.01 and 0.96 respectively), and among them, all forms of TB diagnosis and treatment initiation were lowest (0.63 and 0.64 respectively). Vans entering CAPI data with high levels of completeness generally did so for all indicators, and significant differences in mean indicator completeness rates between PAPI and CAPI were observed between vans. User feedback suggested that although the CAPI tool required practice to gain proficiency, the technology was appreciated and will be better perceived once double entry in CAPI and PAPI can transition to CAPI only. CAPI data collection enables data to be entered in a more timely fashion in low-Internet-access settings, which will enable more rapid, evidence-based program steering. The current system in which double data entry is conducted to ensure data quality is an added burden for staff with many activities. Transitioning to a fully digital data collection system for TB case finding in low-Internet-access settings requires substantial investments in M&E support, shifts in data reporting accountability, and technology to link records of patients who pass through separate data collection stages during chest camp events.

Psychometric Analysis of the Shortened Version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale on the Slovak Population (SWBS-Sk)

This study was focused on verifying the factor structure of the shortened version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) on a representative sample of adult Slovak citizens (N = 1018, 49% men, age 18-85 years, and mean age 46.2). The shortened version of the SWBS consists of 10 items divided into two subscales: religious well-being (RWB) and existential well-being (EWB). Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed insufficient parameters of the full two-factor model due to three negatively formulated items. After their exclusion, the two-factor model was found to be valid in the Slovakian population (χ (13) = 53.1, p < 0.001, χ2/df = 4.1, CFI = 0.999, TLI = 0.999, RMSEA = 0.055, and SRMR = 0.028). The reliability of the final version of the SWBS-Sk, consisting of seven positively worded items, is high, with α = 0.86 and ω = 0.94. Religious respondents and women scored significantly higher on the whole scale (p = 0.001) as well as on the two subscales (p < 0.05). A higher age was associated with a higher RWB score (p = 0.001) and a lower EWB score (p = 0.002). The shortened version of the SWBS-Sk consisting of positively worded items was found to be valid and reliable for further use in the Slovak environment.