BACKGROUND: While attention has been paid to physical risks in the work environment and the promotion of individual employee health, mental health protection and promotion have received much less focus. Psychosocial risk management has not yet been fully incorporated in such efforts. This paper presents good practices in promoting mental health in the workplace in line with World Health Organization (WHO) guidance by identifying barriers, opportunities, and the way forward in this area. METHODS: Semistructured interviews were conducted with 17 experts who were selected on the basis of their knowledge and expertise in relation to good practice identified tools. Interviewees were asked to evaluate the approaches on the basis of the WHO model for healthy workplaces. RESULTS: The examples of good practice for Workplace Mental Health Promotion (WMHP) are in line with the principles and the five keys of the WHO model. They support the third objective of the WHO comprehensive mental health action plan 2013e2020 for multisectoral implementation of WMHP strategies. Examples of good practice include the engagement of all stakeholders and representatives, science-driven practice, dissemination of good practice, continual improvement, and evaluation. Actions to inform policies/legislation, promote education on psychosocial risks, and provide better evidence were suggested for higher WMHP success. CONCLUSION: The study identified commonalities in good practice approaches in different countries and stressed the importance of a strong policy and enforcement framework as well as organizational responsibility for WMHP. For progress to be achieved in this area, a holistic and multidisciplinary approach was unanimously suggested as a way to successful implementation.
Education ; Mental Health* ; Occupational Health ; Risk Management ; World Health Organization

No abstract available.
Goals ; *Health Education ; Health Promotion ; Human ; World Health Organization

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to analyze the factors affecting health education program needs as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) for promoting health in middle-aged women. METHODS: Study subjects included 203 middle-aged women ranging in ages between 40 and 59 years, living in S-city. Data were collected from September 10 to 24, 2011. Descriptive statistics, independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze general characteristics and the need for health education programs related to the general characteristics. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to access the factors influencing the need for health education programs. All data were analyzed by SPSS/WIN 17.0 program. RESULTS: The average score of the health promotion behaviors was 3.46 (+/-0.74). The average score of the need for health education programs (including physical, psychological, and social health education programs) was 3.88 (+/-0.13); and this was affected by age (psychological health education programs beta=-0.21), self-actualization (physical, psychological, social health education programs beta=0.28, beta=0.30, beta=0.30), health responsibility (social health education programs beta=0.21), interpersonal support (physical health education programs beta=0.18), and stress management (social health education programs beta=0.18). CONCLUSIONS: Based on the study results, health education for middle-aged women should be impacted less by monthly income and educational background, and should have more specialized, accessible contents considering not only programs that middle-aged women prefer but also the factors influencing the needs of health education.
Female ; Health Education* ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; World Health Organization

This study was performed to see whether neurobehavioral tests was affected by the exposure-free time in the workers chronically exposed to organic solvents. Thirty-four female workers were participated and four items among neurobehavioral core test battery of World Health Organization, including digit span, Santa Ana Dexterity, digit symbol, Benton Visual Retention, were administered to the workers. Test was conducted three times-preshift on Monday, preshift on Weekday and during shift on Weekday-per person and the interval of tests was 2 weeks. Digit span forward, Santa Ana Dexterity, digit symbol, and Benton Visual Retention showed significant decrements by performing time, especially during shift on Weekday versus preshift on Monday and preshift on Weekday. In addition, the score at preshift on Weekday was significantly lower than preshift on Monday, in preferred Santa Ana Dexterity and digit symbol. Generally, those who were exposed to high concentration, over 50 years and under 6 years of education showed marked decrease of score at during shift. So, it would be desirable that neurobehavioral test is conducted at preshift on Monday and items related to short term memory could be considerable to be done at preshift on Weekday.
Education ; Female ; Humans ; Memory ; Solvents* ; World Health Organization

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of integrating the World Health Organization (WHO) patient safety curriculum into undergraduate medical education in Pakistan. METHODS: A qualitative interpretive case study was conducted at Riphah International University, Islamabad, from October 2016 to June 2017. The study included 9 faculty members and 1 expert on patient safety. The interviews were audiotaped, and a thematic analysis of the transcripts was performed using NVivo software. RESULTS: Four themes were derived based on the need analysis model. The sub-themes derived from the collected data were arranged under the themes of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, in accordance with the principles of SWOT analysis. The strengths identified were the need for a formal patient safety curriculum and its early integration into the undergraduate program. The weaknesses were faculty awareness and participation in development programs. The opportunities were an ongoing effort to develop an appropriate curriculum, to improve the current culture of healthcare, and to use the WHO curricular resource guide. The threats were attitudes towards patient safety in Pakistani culture, resistance to implementation from different levels, and the role of regulatory authorities. CONCLUSION: The theme of patient safety needs to be incorporated early into the formal medical education curriculum, with the main goals of striving to do no harm and seeing mistakes as opportunities to learn. Faculty development activities need to be organized, and faculty members should to be encouraged to participate in them. The lack of a patient safety culture was identified as the primary reason for resistance to this initiative at many levels. The WHO curriculum, amended according to local institutional culture, can be implemented appropriately with support from the corresponding regulatory bodies.
Curriculum* ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate* ; Global Health* ; Pakistan* ; Patient Safety ; World Health Organization*

This article is intended to review up to date knowledge about standardized patients (SPs) and SP-based objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE) in medical education. SPs have become almost indispensable in the education and training of health care professionals. The utilization of SPs provides an invaluable contribution to the creation of a safe, yet realistic, learner-centered environment. While SPs provide a realistic experience of patient interaction that can be evaluated by a third party observer, they can also be trained to assess the student's performance and provide feedback to the student with consistency. Standardization of the performance, recording student behaviors by well-developed checklists, and/or receiving feedback from the SPs are important parameters of the educational experience and provide a meaningful evaluation of student performance. In assessment, SPs are used most commonly in the context of formal examinations, often referred to as OSCEs. An OSCE should be prepared step by step according to principles of appropriate logistics. The validity of the OSCE assessment is increased by matching educational content with the balanced blue print matrix for comprehensive performance examination. The thorough training of all physician/SP raters involved during the whole observation time in which students interact with SPs is critical to the reliable OSCE. SP-based OSCE has its own limitations, so it is to be judged as one among many evaluation methods for competency and/or performance.
Checklist ; Competency-Based Education ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Organization and Administration ; Patient Simulation

China ; Health Behavior ; Health Education ; methods ; organization & administration ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Health Promotion ; methods ; organization & administration ; Humans ; Motivation ; Occupational Health Services ; Pilot Projects ; Workplace

OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to investigate the prevalence of anxiety and to identify demographic variables and clinical characteristics impacting on anxiety and quality of life in the elderly. METHODS: We analyzed data of 300 patients. Generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7), World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment Instrument Brief Form (WHOQOL-BREF), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Scale of Social Support (SSS), Brief Encounter Psychosocial instrument (BEPSI-K) were used to evaluate. Patients were divided into anxiety and non-anxiety group according to the GAD-7 score. We compared stress and quality of life between two groups and analyzed multiple linear regression with anxiety and quality of life as criterion variables. RESULTS: The prevalence of anxiety in elderly was 27% (n=81). Compared to the non-anxiety, anxiety people appeared significantly lower mean scores all of subscales in WHOQOL-BREF : General Health (t=-6.782, p<0.001), Physical Health (t=-6.935, p<0.001), Psychological Health (t=-8.816, p<0.001), Social Relationship (t=-5.409, p<0.001) and Environmental Health (t=-5.667, p<0.001). Stress, social support, education, sleep were significant explanation variables for anxiety and anxiety, stress, self-esteem were significant explanation variables for quality of life. CONCLUSION: These results show that the most important variable influencing on anxiety was stress and influencing on quality of life was anxiety.
Aged* ; Anxiety* ; Education ; Environmental Health ; Humans ; Linear Models ; Prevalence ; Quality of Life* ; World Health Organization

INTRODUCTIONThe Academic Medicine Education Institute (AM∙EI), jointly established by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) and Singapore Healthcare Services (SingHealth), is a newly formed health professions education academy designed to cultivate best education practices and create a community of health professions educators. To achieve the aims of AM∙EI, the needs of SingHealth educators have to be understood. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess educators' perceptions towards the current education climate and their academic needs.

MATERIALS AND METHODSA 28-item questionnaire consisting of free-response, Likert-type and ranking questions was developed. The questionnaire was electronically distributed to 200 medical and nursing educators, and made available to attendees of the 2012 Singhealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress through hardcopies.

RESULTSA total of 150 completed questionnaires were received (94 from electronic survey and 56 from Congress). Five themes emerged from the analysis of responses to free-response questions: 1) faculty development, 2) development of a community of educators, 3) recognition for educational efforts, 4) institutional support, and 5) better communication about SingHealth educational activities. Respondents were in highest agreement with the statements (rating of 3.7 out of 5): "The SingHealth education programmes are high quality", "New learning or teaching methods are welcomed in this institution/hospital", and "An academic appointment is important to me". The competencies that respondents felt to be the most important were facilitating discussions, presentation skills, and providing feedback (respective means = 5.1, 5, 5 of 7).

CONCLUSIONThis needs assessment provided us with important insights regarding SingHealth medical educators' perceptions of their education environment and established key priorities for the AM∙EI's programming efforts.

Academies and Institutes ; Attitude of Health Personnel ; Education, Medical ; organization & administration ; Education, Nursing ; organization & administration ; Faculty, Medical ; organization & administration ; Faculty, Nursing ; organization & administration ; Humans ; International Cooperation ; Needs Assessment ; North Carolina ; Organizational Culture ; Schools, Medical ; organization & administration ; Singapore ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study identifies challenges to the first nurse training program for undergraduate nursing students at a nursing and midwifery school in Iran using a collaborative approach in order to improve the program. METHODS: Action research was used as a research strategy with qualitative content analysis and quantitative evaluation. The participants were 148 individuals from nursing academic and clinical settings, including administrators, faculty members, students, and staff nurses. We obtained approval from the research deputy and ethics committee of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran for this study. RESULTS: Lack of coherence in the educational program and implementation of the program, inadequate communication between management inside and outside the organization, insufficient understanding of situations by students, and improper control of inhibitors and use of facilitators in teaching and in practice were among the major challenges in the first training process in the context of this study. After classification of problems, the educational decision-making authorities of the school developed an operational program with stakeholder cooperation to plan initial reforms, implementation of reforms, reflection about the actions, and evaluation. Comparison of student satisfaction with the collaborative learning process versus the traditional method showed that except for the atmosphere in the clinical learning environment (p > .05), the mean differences for all dimensions were statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm the overall success of the revised partnership program, but stressed the need for further modification of some details for its implementation in future rounds.
Attitude of Health Personnel ; Education, Nursing/*organization & administration ; Educational Measurement/methods ; Health Services Research/organization & administration ; Humans ; Iran ; Midwifery/*education ; Nurse's Role ; Nursing Education Research/organization & administration ; Personal Satisfaction ; Reproducibility of Results ; Students, Nursing/psychology ; Teaching ; Trust