Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a significant health threat and public burden worldwide, particularly in developing countries, including Nepal, due to its low healthcare ...standards and irrational use of antibiotics. It is evident that MRSA strains are frequently detected in Nepalese hospitals; however, they remain underreported. Therefore, to provide a comprehensive and clear understanding of MRSA infection at the national level, this systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of MRSA in Nepal.
PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, Google scholar, and Nepalese databases were searched for studies published between 1st January 2008 and 31st August 2020. A total of 26 original articles were selected for quantitative analysis. Data extraction was accomplished by three authors independently and meta-analysis was performed using MedCalc Version 19.5.1 and Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software v.3.0.
The pooled prevalence of MRSA infections among 5951 confirmed S. aureus isolates was 38.2% (95% CI, 31.4%–45.2%). We found a significant heterogeneity (I2 = 96.7% for resistance proportion), and no evidence of publication bias (p = 0.256) among studies. MRSA strains showed a high level of resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics and the highest susceptibility profile was noted in vancomycin 98.0% followed by chloramphenicol 91.0%.
The analysis revealed that the overall MRSA burden in Nepal is considerably high and the prevalence of MRSA infections is in the increasing trend. Sound legislation, definite antibiotic policy, and implementations of control interventions are indispensable for tackling MRSA infection and antimicrobial resistance as a whole.
The world has faced huge negative effects from the COVID-19 pandemic between early 2020 and late 2021. Each country has implemented a range of preventive measures to minimize the risk during the ...COVID-19 pandemic. This study assessed the COVID-19-related fear, risk perception, and preventative behavior during the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 in Nepal. In a cross-sectional study, conducted in mid-2021 during the nationwide lockdown in Nepal, a total of 1484 individuals completed measures on fear of COVID-19, COVID-19 risk perception, and preventive behavior. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with COVID-19 fear. The results revealed significant differences in the fear of COVID-19 in association with the perceived risk of COVID-19 and preventive behaviors. Age, risk perception, preventive behavior, and poor health status were significantly positively related to fear of COVID-19. Perceived risk and preventive behaviors uniquely predicted fear of COVID-19 over and above the effects of socio-demographic variables. Being female and unmarried were the significant factors associated with fear of COVID-19 among study respondents. Higher risk perception, poor health status, and being female were strong factors of increased fear of COVID-19. Targeted interventions are essential to integrate community-level mental health care for COVID-19 resilience.
While vaccine acceptance changes over time, and factors determining vaccine acceptance differ depending on disease and region, limited studies have evaluated vaccine acceptance in Nepal. We conducted ...an online, cross-sectional study to assess COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among Nepalese. Data were collected before and after the vaccine approval in Nepal, during which 576 and 241 responses were obtained, respectively. We found that vaccine acceptance was generally high among Nepalese (93%) and increased after the safety of vaccine was examined by the regulatory bodies (98%). This indicated the role of the national drug regulatory authority to convey drug safety. In addition, we analyzed the predictor(s) of vaccine acceptance. We found that the people who believe that vaccine is an effective measure in preventing and controlling the disease were highly likely to accept vaccination. Given that Nepal had just passed the most devastating wave of COVID-19 during our post-approval data collection, we assume that this might have also played a role in the belief that vaccination is an appropriate approach to combat the pandemic. Likewise, the number of people willing to vaccinate as soon as possible increased from 43% to 86% after approval. Therefore, our results indicate that the government needs to focus on assuring the safety and effectiveness of a vaccine to enhance acceptance. Although fewer responses obtained after vaccine approval might have affected our results, overall, our findings indicate vaccine acceptance is likely to be affected by socio-demographic factors and the attitudes of respondents. This should be carefully considered in the rollout of the vaccination plans in Nepal and countries alike in future.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a global public health crisis. Preventive measures to tackle the deadly virus are influenced by people's knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) toward ...COVID-19. This study aimed to assess the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice toward COVID-19 among Nepalese residents in Nepal.
A web-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among 755 Nepalese residents across all seven provinces of Nepal. The questionnaire used to determine the KAP of the participants was derived from a previous study conducted in Nepal. Descriptive analysis was done to identify the distribution of socio-economic and demographic characteristics of participants. Factors associated with residents’ KAP regarding COVID-19 were examined using Chi-square tests at the significance level of 0.05.
The mean age of the participants was 24.6 years. At the time of data collection, 8.2% of the participants had their families in isolation or quarantine center. In this study, 76.4%, 58.0%, and 63.6% of the participants had a good knowledge level, attitude level, and practice level respectively regarding COVID-19. Occupation and marital status were significantly associated with knowledge, attitude, and practice level. Age was significantly associated with knowledge and attitude level. Those participants who had their family members in quarantine were found to have a good level of preventive practice. The knowledge-attitude (rka = 0.184, p < 0.001), attitude-practice (rap = 0.125, p < 0.001) and knowledge-practice (rkp = 0.07, p < 0.05) were positively correlated in this study.
This study showed satisfactory awareness regarding COVID-19 among Nepalese residents. Community-based health education programs should be promoted to develop a positive attitude toward healthy practices to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic or any future health crisis.
•In this study, 76.4%, 58.0%, and 63.6% of the participants had a good knowledge (K), good attitude (A), and good practice (P) level respectively regarding COVID-19.•Occupation and marital status were significantly associated with KAP of participants. Similarly, those who had their family members in quarantine were found to have a good level of preventive practice.•This study included participants from all of the seven provinces of Nepal during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper attempts to analyze the relationship between co-workers' behavior and its impact on attitudinal behavior of the faculty members. The co-worker's behavior such as team support and lack of ...team support are used as an independent dimension and employee attitudinal behavior such as job satisfaction, job performance and job commitment are used as a dependent variable. The major objective of this research was to identify the effect on attitudinal behavior of faculty members' of higher educational institutions of Nepal due to their co-worker's behavior. Pair t- test was used to examine between the current and expectation co-worker's behavior of faculty members in the working place. Similarly, the one way analysis of variance was also used to test the hypothesis. The sample size was 400 faculty members. The findings show that here is significant relationship between the current and expected perception of the faculty towards the co-workers’ behavior. Similarly, the findings of team support co-workers’ behavior has positive significant and with lack of team support co-workers’ behavior has negatively significant difference with attitudinal behavior of the faculty.
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