ABSTRACT The study was designed to determine the health implications of substance abuse among the on-campus male students of the University of Calabar, Cross River State Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design which comprises 320 on-campus male students of the University of Calabar. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The instrument for data collection was a self developed validated structured questionnaire with reliability of 0.89. Data generat...
Background According to the WHO (2014 d), depression is the number one cause of health problems and disability amongst adolescents (age 10-19 years). Furthermore, suicide which is the third leading cause of death amongst this age group is strongly associated with severe forms of depression (WHO 2014d). Evidence indicates that half of the mental health disorders in adulthood start during adolescence (WHO 2014d).Therefore, proper intervention and prevention of mental health problems amongst ad...
BACKGROUND Nigeria has a tropical climate with temperatures ranging between 250C and 400 C. Average rainfall is about 2,650 millimetres in the southeast to less than 600 millimetres in some part of the north; with areas of mangrove swamps, tropical rain forests, coastal areas, open woodlands and Savannah. This climatic and geographic condition of Nigeria favours the transmission of malaria (Malaria Consortium, 2014), and is in keeping with the endemicity of the disease in the country. How...
Background The poliovirus belongs to the enterovirus family and has three serotypes: serotype 1, 2 and 3. In addition, the 3 serotypes do not have cross immunity (Shors 2011). Therefore, immunity against one serotype does not provide immunity against another (WHO 2014c). It is noteworthy that Nigeria has not recorded any incidence of serotype 3 for about one year although the other serotypes still exist in the country (National Primary Healthcare Development Agency-NPHDA 2013). In addition,...
Background: This study is aimed at identifying sustainable and convenient ways that traditional birth attendants (TBAs) could support prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Method: The study was conducted using a critical literature review methodology. Key words and their alternative terms were identified. A Boolean search was carried out using the keywords and their alternative terms in Global Health, PubMed and Web of ...
The aim of the study was to explore the mental health effects of substance abuse among the youth and to examine services put in place in helping mentally disturbed as a result of substance abuse. The study adopted a cross-sectional qualitative research approach. The data was collected through in-depth face to face interviews. Participants were sampled and divided into two sections: youth abusing substances and key informants. They were drawn using purposive and snowball sampling, and data was...
Chronic diseases mean that they last a life time or for a long time. People suffering from diseases such as asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes feel stigmatized when they are referred to as disabled. Congestive heart failure and failure of organs is also classified as being chronic. To note, such kind of ailments lead to organs failure, thus lead to disability. Diseases such as asthma for instance make one not to spend life in the normal way; one has to avoid staying in the cold for too ...
Objective: Bladder tumor antigen (BTA) is a common biomarker for urothelial carcinoma while bladder wall thickening (BWT) is a sign of urinary bladder irritation which suggests cystitis or early-stage bladder cancer pathology, most especially in the absence of bladder outlet obstruction. The aim of this study was to find the incidence of urinary bladder thickness and evaluate the relationship between BTA and BWTin a low schistosomiasis-endemic Nigerian village. Materials and Methods: The stud...
ABSTRACT Birth spacing is one of the major aspects of reproductive health which contributes to the increase or decrease of mortality related to women and children. Existing researches on birth spacing have revealed that short birth interval has implications on mothers and their children. However, adequate attention has not been given to men’s involvement in birth spacing. This study examined the relationship between characteristics of men aged 15-49 years who are in union and their preferre...
Abstract Background: Antiretroviral therapy is a drug treatment that plays a great role in reduction of mortality among children infected with human immunodeficiency virus. Studies in Africa have shown that there is short survival time among children receiving antiretroviral therapy. Factors that contribute to low survival probability have been poorly described in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. Objective: The study was conducted to estimate the survival time and identify as...
ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Fertility is the major component of population dynamics, which is used to show a major role in the size, and structure of a particular population. In Ethiopia, total fertility rate is 4.6 children per woman. This high fertility brings a significant problem on the health of mothers and children. OBJECTIVE: To identify the determinants of high fertility in Angacha District, Southern Ethiopia. METHOD: A community-based case-control study design was conducted from Septem...
There is increased problem in Nigeria today as to moral laxity, promiscuity, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI), forced marriage, school dropout etc. among youths. The increase in these problems according to Orieh (1981, as cited in Nakpoda, 2012) has been attributed to ignorance of youth towards sexual health, confusion and frustration resulting from lack of awareness from both the home and the school on the need for sex education in the educational setting. ...
Abstract: Although avertable and treatable, pneumonia is still one of the top five causes of mortality in the developing world especially in Southern Africa. One major challenge being faced globally today in the field of public health is the pneumococcal resistance to antibiotics both in infants and adults. The purpose of this review was to compare rates and causes of treatment failure in South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique. Articles used for this review were searched for in electro...
Mosquitoes are vectors of parasites causing diseases and are distributed in various ecological niches. This research work was set to determine the distribution and relative abundance of mosquito larvae in Guyuk Local Government Area of Adamawa State within the months of August 2014 and January 2015. Banjiram, Guyuk, Bobini and Chikila districts were surveyed using standard entomological procedures. Dipping Method was used in collecting larval samples from the field and reared to adult in inse...
Over 3 billion people particularly in low-middle income countries rely on biomass fuel as their primary source of domestic energy. Indoor air pollution from combustion of biomass fuels accounts for 1.6 million deaths yearly with 50% of deaths occurring in children due to acute respiratory tract infections and an estimated healthcare cost of USD $10 billion annually. Numerous studies have reported the association between indoor air pollution and respiratory tract infections in children. T...