International Journal of Public Health and Safety

Background: Today in various countries around the world, there is a dispute on the acceptability and legality of abortion. The recent attempt of fundamentalist groups in Poland to further tighten the already very restrictive legislation in Poland, caused in October 2016 contestations between the proponents of so-called pro-choice and pro-life attitudes, which took the form of mass street protests. Working on the attempt to explain the causes of the exacerbation of the dispute, we have also carried out our own focused surveys, which we describe in detail in this short report.

Methods: We conducted the surveys during three focus studies, which were organized by authors of the paper at the Department of Health Care of the University of Trencin (Slovakia); Department of Health Care Studies of Tomas Bata University, Zlin (Czech Republic) and the Institute of Nursing of the University of Applies Sciences, Nysa (Poland). The used questionnaire contained three questions related to opinions on the legislation on the admissibility of abortion.

Results: The gathered data indicate that 36% of young women in Poland think that the present legislation should be maintained and a further 34% of women are of the opinion that it should be liberalized. Only approximately 5% of the young women think that the present legislation should be even more stringent. Moreover, only a very small number of young women in the Czech Republic (5%) think that the present, liberal legislation existing in that country should be tightened.

Conclusions: The legislative initiatives of fundamentalist groups of citizens are not justified in the prevailing opinions of young women in our countries. The mass street protests of women which occurred in Poland showed, however, that fundamentalist arguments no longer play a crucial role if there is a violation of the dignity of women and their biological safety, particularly when non-governmental organizations and feminist associations are involved.

Purpose: Understand the HIV infection rate and relevant knowledge, attitude, behavior and access to health services among men who have sex with men (MSM) to provide evidence for HIV/AIDS prevention and control. Methodology: Questionnaire survey was conducted to understand HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitude, behavior and access to health services among MSM. Serological testing was performed to look at HIV, syphilis and HCV infection rates. Epi Data 3.2 was used to create a database and SPSS 17.0 was used for statistical analysis. Results: A total of 58.50% of subjects identified themselves as homosexuals; 28.20% of subjects gave correct answers to all HIV/AIDS-related questions; 81.57% of subjects had sex with different males in the past six months; 25.53% of subjects used condoms at anal sex with males in the past six months; HIV infection rate was 1.27%; syphilis infection rate was 6.22%; and HCV infection rate was 0.88%. Conclusions: MSM in Shandong Province have strong sense of self-identify, but they have poor knowledge of HIV/ AIDS, many irregular sexual partners and low condom use rate. Moreover, some MSM use drugs at the same time.

Background: Digitalisation is now indispensable. Medical undergraduates, thought of not being much involved with technology like hard core technical streams, are rampantly using these devices, hence assessing the implications of these devices on them is necessary.

With this background we aimed to assess the association of Digital devices (computers/laptops and cell-phones) on the physical health of the users, against self-reported duration of the devices.

Methods: A cross sectional study was carried among medical undergraduates. Sample size was calculated to be 781. All students aged 18 years and above, were included. A pretested anonymous semi structured proforma with validated tools (Standardized Nordic Questionnaire for Musculoskeletal Symptoms, semi-structured visual questionnaire) was used. Schirmer’s I test was done. Duration was considered in terms of average daily use (≤ 6 hours/day or >6 h/day) and past years spent using these devices (≤ 5 years or >5 years). Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 17.

Results: Final analysis could be done on 800 participants. Musculoskeletal discomfort (MSDs) of neck (55.19%), lower back (49.55%), and upper back (31.16%) was more among frequent users, unlike shoulder (31.10%) and knee (12.53%) MSDs, reported more among those with lesser daily use. MSDs could not be attributed to past years of use. Retro-orbital pain (48.32%) was more among frequent users, while watering (59.50%) and double vision (16.74%) were frequent in those with lesser use. Tired eyes (80.28%) was more among past users, contrary, blurred vision (54.16%) was more among recent users. Duration of daily use was significantly attributing to the presence of dry eyes (47/51) while visual acuity showed no such association.

Conclusion: Benefit of these devices could be severely undermined if abuse and overuse are not kept in check. Physical symptoms, often determined by the ergonomic conditions, but screen time may add the personal risk.

While the genetic matching between the donor and the recipient is essential for the success of the transplant procedure, there are other genetic factors that have the potential to significantly influence the clinical outcome. In this paper, a relatively simple test is described that has the potential to predict the suitability of the potential donor for organ donation. This test should be performed by the time the person makes his decision to be a future donor.