Risky sexual practice and associated factors among street children of Wonago town, Gedeo zone, Southern Ethiopia

Introduction

A “risky sexual practice” is any sexual act that might put an individual’s social, physical, and psychological health at risk and increase the likelihood of adverse sexual and reproductive health consequences. Street children have risky sexual practices, which place them at all kinds of health risks. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess risky sexual practices and associated factors among street children in Wonago Town, southern Ethiopia.

Methods

A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed. About 214 street children, aged 10–18, residing in Wonago Town from September 1–30, 2021, participated in the study. Data was gathered from all of the street children in Wonago town. A pre-tested and structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Epi data software was used to enter the collected data, which was then exported to SPSS for analysis. A logistic regression model was applied to identify the associated factors. A p value <0.05 was used to declare the significant variables.

Results

A total of 214 street children were involved in the study. Overall, the magnitude of risky sexual practices was 43.46 percent (95% CI: 38.3–48.62). About 52.7% of participants had ever had sexual intercourse in the last year, and of them, around 43.5% had more than one sexual partner. Among sexually active street children, 40.9% never used a condom during sexual intercourse. Age (Adjusted Odd Ratio (AOR): 1.42, 95%CI: 1.03–2.37), educational status (AOR: 5.73, 95%CI: 1.49–10.51), substance use (AOR: 1.24, 95%CI: 1.03–2.07), duration on the street (AOR: 2.14, 95%CI: 1.03–4.12), and daily income (AOR: 0.68, 95%CI: 0.32–0.98) were found to be significantly associated with risky sexual practices.

Conclusion

Risky sexual practices among street children were more prevalent in Wonago Town, Southern Ethiopia. Children’s age, educational status, daily income, duration on the street, and status of substance use were the factors that contributed to risky sexual practices. As a result, conducting information and education campaigns, developing income-generating activities for children, increasing children’s school enrollment and attendance, improving access to sexual and reproductive health services, and providing capacity-building training for health care providers may all help to reduce risky sexual practices.

Food taboos and associated factors among agro-pastoralist pregnant women: A community-based cross-sectional study in Eastern Ethiopia

In underdeveloped nations, cultural norms that are harmful to women's health, such as food taboos, are responsible for five to fifteen percent of pregnancy-related deaths. Food Taboo traditions prevent women from consuming particular foods, which reduces dietary diversity and food quality and may have detrimental nutritional effects. However, little is known about Ethiopia's dietary taboos and related issues. So, the purpose of this study was to find out how common food taboos are among pregnant women in agro pastoralist settings, as well as the accompanying factors. 636 pregnant women were enrolled in a community-based cross-sectional study using a two-stage cluster sampling strategy, distributed over seven clusters. Data were exported from Epi Data version 3.01 to Statistical Package for Social Science version 20 after being entered. The prevalence of dietary taboos in this study was 67.4% (95% CI: 63.7%, 71.1%). Food taboos were independently and significantly predicted by lack of formal education [AOR = 1.97 (95% CI: 1.583, 4.496), low wealth index [AOR = 2.26 (95% CI: 1.173, 4.353)], absence of antenatal care visits [AOR = 6.16 (95% CI: 4.996, 10.128), lack of knowledge of maternal nutrition [AOR = 4.94 (95% CI: 3.799, 8.748)], and negative attitude toward maternal nutrition [ In the research area, dietary taboos were very common. Food taboos were independently predicted by low wealth index, lack of maternity care visits, lack of formal education, ignorance of maternal nutrition, and unfavorable attitudes. Therefore, it is highly advised that strong community-based maternal nutrition education and counseling, raising women's income, and preparing young women for study in order to improve their educational standing be implemented.

Predictors of Hand-Washing Practices at Critical Times Among Mothers of Under-5 Years Old Children in Rural Setting of Gedeo Zone, Southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND

Various communicable and infectious diseases could be contained by proper hand washing leading to a reduction in mortality and morbidity of children.

OBJECTIVE

To assess predictors of hand-washing practices at critical times among mothers of under 5 years old children in rural setting of Gedeo zone, Southern Ethiopia.

METHOD

An institutional-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among 422 women with children under the age of 5 attended the Dilla Zuria health facility and were chosen using a systematic sampling method. Data was gathered using pre-tested interview-administered structured questionnaires. Data was entered into EPI info version 17 and analyzed using SPSS version 25. Binary logistic regression was employed to identify the association between dependent and independent variables. Finally, for variables with a P < .05 in multivariable analysis, adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was determined and interpreted.

RESULTS

The hand washing practice of mothers at critical times was 44.9% [95% CI: 40.1, 49.7%]. The pertinent predictors were favorable attitude [AOR = 7.77, 95% CI: 4.56, 10.37], availability of water source near the household [AOR = 5.31, 95% CI: 3.56, 10.37], and constant availability of soaps at household [AOR = 2.32, 95% CI: 1.33, 6.70].

CONCLUSION

In our study, hand-washing practices at critical times was low. The pertinent predictors were attitude, the presence of a water source near the household, and the presence of soap. Therefore, it is advised to encourage domestic hygiene education to improve mothers' attitudes and to increase the availability of water and soap close to the household to promote handwashing with soap and water at critical times.

Health related quality of life and its association with social support among people living with HIV/AIDS receiving antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) are frequently confronted with severe social issues such as rejection, abandonment, criticism, and stigma. This would negatively affect their quality of life. Several studies have been conducted so far to assess factors affecting the health-related quality of life among people living with HIV/AIDS who are on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Ethiopia. However, to our knowledge, there is no previous study that has summarized the results of the studies that investigated health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among PLWHA in Ethiopia. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to estimate the pooled prevalence of HRQOL and its association with social support among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) on ART in Ethiopia.

Methods

A systematic search was carried out using several electronic databases (PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, and Cochrane electronic), Google Scholar, Google, and a manual search of the literature on health-related quality of life among people living with HIV/AIDS who are on ART. A Microsoft Excel data extraction sheet was used to extract pertinent data from an individual study. To assess the heterogeneity of primary articles, the Cochrane Q test statistics and the I2 test were carried out, and a random effects meta-analysis was used to estimate the pooled prevalence of HRQOL.

Result

Out of the 493 articles reviewed, ten with a total of 3257 study participants were eligible for meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of HRQOL among people living with HIV/AIDS who are on antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia was 45.27%. We found that strong perceived social support was significantly associated with higher levels of subjectively perceived HRQOL. PLWHA who were on ART and had good social support were four times more likely to report higher HRQOL when compared to their counterparts [AOR = 4.01, 95% CI 3.07–5.23].

Conclusion

A substantial number of PLWHA had poor HRQOL in Ethiopia. Social support was significantly associated with HRQOL among people living with HIV/AIDS. Hence, it’s recommended to encourage suitable intervention at every follow-up visit, and psycho-social support is also warranted to improve the quality of life.

Community-based new born care practice and its associated factors among women who give birth at home in Ethiopia: cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

In Ethiopia, perinatal mortality rate was 33 per 1000 pregnancies and 64.4% of this death was occurred within the first 7 days of neonatal life. Moreover, more than 2.1% of new born babies were died within their first seven days of life in Ethiopia. Majority of neonatal deaths are preventable by applying an effective and lifesaving interventions. However, little is known about newborn care practice at the community level.

METHODS

A community-based cross-sectional study design was used. Multi-stage sampling techniques were used to get a total of 540 mothers who gave birth at home within the past six months from their kebeles in Ethiopia. Data was collected by using face-to-face interview with structured questionnaires. Then the data was coded, cleaned, and entered into Epidemiological data version 3.1 and exported to statistical package for social science version 23.0 for analyses. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression model was used to identify statistically significant associations between dependent and independent variables. The odds ratio at 95% confidence interval with P-Value 0.05% was computed.

RESULTS

A total of 540 women were participated with a response rate of 98.3%. Only 208 (44%) of the women had good practice towards essential newborn care. Head of households [AOR (95%CI) 2.7417 (1.80-4.25)], type of birth attendant [AOR (95%CI) 3.962 (3.329-7.171)] and bad obstetrical history [AOR (95%CI) 3.151 (2.209-4.969)] were significantly associated with maternal newborn care practice.

CONCLUSION

Less than half of the mothers had good newborn care practice. In this study, head of household, type of birth attendant, and bad obstetrical history were significantly associated with maternal newborn care practice. Therefore, Ministry of Women and Woreda women and Child offices needs to promote the socioeconomic empowerment of women to increase the practice of essential newborn care practices.

Minimum dietary diversity and its associated factors among infants and young children in Ethiopia: evidence from Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (2016)

Background

Adequate infant and young child feeding during the first 1000 days of life is very essential to improve child health, survival, growth, and development through minimum dietary diversity (MDD). Hence, this study aimed to assess MDD and its multi-level factors among infants and young children aged 6–23 months in Ethiopia.

Methods

Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS-2016) data was used to identify both individual and community-level factors of dietary diversity. Weighted samples of 2,962 children were eligible and a multi-level regression model was used for the analysis. Finally, factors with a P-value of <0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results

The prevalence of MDD among children in Ethiopia was 12.09%. According to this study, factors such as having a mother who attended higher education (AOR = 3.09, (95% CI; _1.67–5.71)), being a female household head (AOR = 0.62, (95% CI; _0.40–0.95)), having a mother's agricultural occupation (AOR = 1.89, (95% CI; _1.10–3.23)) and living in the household in the richest wealth index were significantly associated at the individual level. At the community level, children living in rural areas (AOR = 0.62, 95% CI; 0.39–0.98) were significant risk factors for MDD (AOR = 0.62, 95% CI; 0.39–0.98).

Conclusion

The educational and occupational status of the mother, wealth index, and region were significantly associated with MDD. Hence, strengthening of the existing nutritional intervention is helpful to increase diversified food consumption among children.

Overweight and Obesity Among Adult HIV Infected Peoples Receiving ART in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

Over-nutrition and diet-linked non-communicable morbidities are showing increasing trend overtime. Even if there are different factors that affect the change in BMI other than ART, several authors have reported increases in BMI among PLHIV on treatment that are equal to or surpass the general population. This study is aimed to estimate the prevalence of obesity and overweight among adult HIV infected peoples taking ART in Ethiopia.

METHOD

PubMed, CINAHL, Web of science, global health and Google scholar electronic databases were used to perform a systematic literature search. Two authors independently extracted all the necessary data using a structured data extraction format. Data analysis was done using STATA Version 14. The heterogeneity of the studies was assessed by using I2 test. A random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled prevalence. Publication bias was checked using Funnel plot and Egger's test.

RESULT

Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-one studies were reviewed and 13 studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria were included in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis of 13 studies, comprising 4994 participants resulted in pooled prevalence of overweight to be 17.85% (95% CI: 12.22-23.47). Whereas, the pooled prevalence of overweight was found to be 3.90 (95% CI: 2.31-5.49) but after adjusting for publication bias using trim and fill analysis it has become 3.58 (95% CI: 2.04-5.13). Magnitude of both overweight and obesity was higher in studies conducted in Addis Ababa, studies done after 2016 and studies having sample size of less than 400, in subgroup analysis.

CONCLUSION

The magnitude of overweight and obesity among HIV infected peoples taking ART in Ethiopia is high. There is a need to have a routine screening to PLWHA on the risk of over-nutrition in order to facilitate early detection.

Magnitude of, and Factors Associated with Cardiovascular Disease Among Type Two Diabetes Mellitus Patients

BACKGROUND

Diabetes mellitus is becoming one of the major health problems in developing countries. The number of adults living with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) worldwide is increasing over time. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the major cause of death in T2DM. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and its associated factors among diabetic patients at the MRC clinic of Dilla University Referral Hospital (DURH).

METHODS

A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted from April to May 2019 . A total of 216 diabetic individuals were selected with a convenient sampling technique from patients on follow-up at DURH MRC. Data were collected using a structured format. The diagnosis of CVD was made with the necessary diagnostic tests and examination. The data analysis was done in SPSS software version 20. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analysis was carried out to identify factors associated with cardiovascular disease.

RESULTS

A total of 216 patients participated in the study and the mean age of the study participants was 30 years; 83.3% of the study participants were male. The overall prevalence of cardiovascular disease was 25% of which 57% were ischemic heart disease, 32% were hypertensive and 10% were stroke. Duration of DM for more than 10 years and diabetic drug discontinuation were factors associated with cardiovascular disease. Odds of CVD was nearly four times more in those whose duration of DM is more than 10 years (AOR=4.00, 95% CI: 2.386-6.705) and odds of CVD among those who discontinued medication were almost three times more, (AOR=2.98, 95% CI: 1.287-6.080).

CONCLUSION

A quarter of the diabetic population studied developed CVD. Duration of DM for more than 10 years and drug discontinuation are independent associated factors of CVD. Hence appropriate intervention at early stages should be implemented at primary healthcare level.

Correlations between directional and orientational tuning of cells in cat striate cortex

Simple (N = 284) and complex cells (N = 125) in the central projection area (0-5 degrees eccentricity) of the striate cortex of cats were stimulated with moving light bars and the responses to different directions of movement were recorded and plotted as polar-plots. Fourier analysis was applied to polar plots (SDO-analysis, Wörgötter and Eysel 1987; Wörgötter et al. 1990) to determine the general sensitivity (S) of the cells to visual stimulation, the directional (D) and orientational (O) tuning strength as well as preferred direction (PD) and preferred orientation (PO). Statistical distributions of the S, D and O parameters were determined for simple and complex cells of the cortical layers II-VI. Simple cells were more strongly tuned for direction and orientation than complex cells, whereas complex cells had a greater general sensitivity to visual stimulation. Directional tuning was significantly stronger in layer VI than in layer IV simple cells, otherwise no differences were detected between these two layers. We found that cells with large D and small O components are generally rare. The D and O components were plotted against each other to determine any possible correlation between the tuning strengths. The correlations were statistically significant for simple and complex cells but the correlation coefficients were very small (r less than 0.3). It is suggested that only a very weak coupling between directional and orientational tuning exists, preferentially in the deeper layer simple cells.

Lateral interactions at direction-selective striate neurones in the cat demonstrated by local cortical inactivation

1. Single neurones were recorded with glass-coated tungsten electrodes from area 17 of the cat's visual cortex. The cats were anaesthetized and artificially respirated with a mixture of halothane, nitrous oxide and oxygen. 2. For local cortical inactivation a multibarrel pipette was placed 0.5-2.5 mm posterior (or anterior) to the recording site, at a depth of 400-600 micron. Four separate barrels of the pipette were filled with gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA); the fifth was filled with Pontamine Sky Blue for labelling of the centre of the inactivation site. 3. Direction-selective cells, of differing optimal orientations and preferred directions of motion, were classified as simple or complex and tested with computer-controlled stimuli presented on an oscilloscope. 4. During continuous recording GABA was microionophoretically applied for different durations and with different ejection currents. The effectiveness of GABA microionophoresis was evident from the direct GABAergic effects (strong overall inhibition of the recorded cells) observed with high ejection currents and prolonged application. 5. Two discrete effects could be observed during local inactivation distant from the cortical cell under study: an increase of the response in either the non-preferred or the preferred direction; or a decrease of the response in the preferred direction. All GABA-induced changes were reversible. 6. The depressant action of GABA was independent of the relative topography between recording and inactivation site and affected mainly the response to the preferred direction of stimulus motion. 7. Disinhibition was only observed when the stimulus-evoked response moved on the cortical map in a direction from the GABA pipette towards the recording electrode. It is concluded that GABA reversibly silences inhibitory interneurones that are situated in the vicinity of the micropipette tip and are involved in generation of direction selectivity. 8. No fundamental differences between cells from different cortical layers were observed. The disinhibitory effects of GABA inactivation were more pronounced and more frequently seen in simple cells (61%) than in complex cells (38%), while the opposite was true for reduced excitation during lateral GABA inactivation (observed in 62% of the complex vs. 39% of the simple cells). Accordingly, lateral inhibition statistically prevails in simple cells and lateral excitation in complex cells. 9. Among the inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms affected by lateral GABA inactivation, inhibition is organized with a higher topographic specificity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)