Sepsis is still a leading cause of death in the United States despite extensive research and modern advancement in technology. Early recognition of sepsis and timely management strategies are important for effective reduction of sepsis-related morbidity and mortality. Guided by the logic model, the purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic reminders in enhancing clinical decision-making among 30 nurses in 3 medical-surgical units. The practice-focused question addressed the effectiveness of electronic reminders for early recognition and initiation of goal-directed treatment of sepsis in hospitalized patients on medical-surgical units in an effort to reduce sepsis mortality rates. Data were collected from a randomized convenience sample using a self-constructed questionnaire and through observation. The observations were aimed at assessing whether the nurses adhered to the sepsis protocol, while the questionnaire captured the participants' perceptions regarding the use of automated alerts measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Statistical analysis involved the use of frequencies and percentages, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). The results indicated that all the nurses adhered to sepsis protocol. The sepsis-related mortality rate, mean response time, and rate of severe sepsis at the hospital were reduced by 17.2%, 14 minutes, and 11.1%, respectively. It was concluded that automatic alert systems improve nurses' ability to recognize early symptoms of sepsis and their ability to initiate Code Sepsis. However, replication of this study using a large sample size could provide findings that are more generalizable. Electronic reminders may promote positive social change because earlier recognition of sepsis by nurses may lead to a reduction of healthcare costs through improved management of sepsis patients in acute care settings.

No description available.

MCur / Department of Advanced Nursing Science / Background: Perinatal and neonatal mortality rates remain high in South Africa especially in rural areas and townships where the majority of poor people live. With regard to perinatal and neonatal mortality, South Africa like many other developing countries has failed to achieve MDG 4 and 5 by 2015 regardless of many efforts by the governments. To achieve the SDG which replaced MDGs for child health, it is necessary for the South African public and private health care to reduce substantially perinatal and new born deaths, particularly in rural areas. There are many factors that contribute to a high perinatal mortality rate in public hospitals in rural areas. To understand these factors, a study was conducted with midwives from selected public hospitals in Limpopo, Vhembe district which experiences the highest perinatal mortality rates in South Africa. Purpose and methodology: The purpose of this research study was to assess factors contributing to high perinatal mortality rates in the selected public hospitals in Vhembe district. A quantitative, descriptive, exploratory and cross-sectional design was used to collect data from the sampled hospitals in the Vhembe district. Hospitals were purposively sampled based on the statistics of monthly deliveries. The target population consisted of all registered midwives who had been working in the maternity units for at least two years. Cochrane's formula was used to determine the sample from the target population for each hospital. A random sample of 110 respondents was selected upon which a questionnaire was administered to each by the researcher. Responses from the close-ended and open-ended questions was grouped and analysed quantitatively by means of Statistical Package for Social Sciences 23.0 (SPSS). Results and findings: Results were presented in frequency tables and graphs revealed that most of the midwives lacked knowledge and skills in a number of key areas needed for them to operate efficiently in the maternity wards. There was also high staff turnover which led to a few midwives being overworked. The utilisation of guidelines and protocols in maternity was left to individual midwives as the hospitals did not evaluate the use of it. Conclusions: Lack of key skills in assisting women in labour, and poor use of guidelines and understaffing were the main contributing factors to high perinatal mortality rates in the selected public hospitals of Vhembe district. Midwife attitudes were not a contributory factor. / NRF

The objectives of this study are to provide a comprehensive assessment of inequalities in infant and under-five years' child survival, access to and utilisations of child health services among different socio-economic groups in Ethiopia; and identify issues for policies and programmes at national and sub-national levels. This thesis examines the effect of parental socioeconomic status, maternal and delivery care services, mothers' bio-demographic and background characteristics on the level of differences in infant and under-five years' child survival and access to and utilisation of child health services. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were carried out for selected variables in the literature which were consider as the major determinants of infant mortality rate (IMR) and under-five years' child mortality rate (U5MR); access to and utilisations of child health services based on data from Ethiopian demographic and health survey (EDHS), covering the years 2000-2005. In the multivariate analysis a logit regression model was used to estimates inequalities in infant and under-five years' child survival, and inequalities in access to and utilisation of child health services. In Ethiopia, little was known about inequalities in IMR and U5MR, and inequalities in access to and utilisation of child health services. Besides, there is no systematic analysis of health inequalities and into its determinants using logistic regression. According to the available literature, this is the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of inequality of health in Ethiopia. The findings show that compared to under-five years' children of mothers' partners with no work, mothers' partners in professional, technical and managerial occupations had 13 times more chance of under-five years child survival for 2000 weighted observations. In addition, compared to infants of mothers who were gave birth to one child in last 5 years preceding the survey, infants of mothers who were gave birth to 2 children in last 5 years preceding the survey had 70% less chance of infant survival while infants of mothers who were gave birth to 3 or more children had 89% less chance of infant survival for 2000 weighted observations. Moreover, this study finding also indicates that inequalities increased significantly in the five years period between 2000 and 2005 among mothers with different birth interval. Most of the relations between birth interval and receiving childhood immunisation for vaccine-preventable diseases were statistically significant. Moreover compared to non-educated mothers, mothers who completed secondary and higher education were nearly 10 times more likely to receive DPT3 immunisation for their young children. This study concludes that policy measures that tackle health inequalities will have a positive impact in the implementation of health sector strategy of Ethiopia. Health inequalities studies in Ethiopia and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries should focus on systematic analysis of different socio-economic groups. The finding of this study support investing in the Ethiopia's health extension package (HEP) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for addressing rural poor health problem. HEP is successful in increasing primary health care coverage in rural Ethiopia to 89.6% (FMOH, 2009) but unable to reduce Ethiopia's higher level of IMR and U5MR. HEP is one of the success stories that address the rural poor health problem and can also be adapted to developing countries of SSA. The finding also shows that the success stories such as health insurance programs like Rwanda (World Bank, 2008a) and Ethiopia (FMOH, 2009/10) will play a key role in achieving country's health care financing goal of universal coverage. This can also be replicated in the developing SSA countries.

La mortalité aux jeunes âges devenant de plus en plus faible, l’augmentation de l’espérance de vie est de plus en plus dépendante des progrès en mortalité aux âges avancés. L’espérance de vie à 65 ans et à 85 ans n’a cependant pas connu un rythme de progression continu depuis les trois dernières décennies. Ces changements dans l’évolution de l’espérance de vie proviennent de changements dans les tendances de certaines causes de décès et de leurs interactions. Ce mémoire analyse la contribution des causes de décès aux changements qu’a connus l’espérance de vie, mais aussi l’évolution spécifique des taux de mortalité liés aux principales causes de décès au Canada entre 1979 et 2007. Finalement, une analyse de l’implication de ces changements dans un contexte de transition épidémiologique sera réalisée, par un questionnement sur le fait que l’on assiste ou non au passage de certaines pathologies dominantes à d’autres. La réponse à ce questionnement se trouve dans l’étude de l’évolution par âge et dans le temps des causes de décès. Les résultats montrent que les progrès en espérance de vie à 65 ans et à 85 ans sont encore majoritairement dus à la diminution de la mortalité par maladies cardiovasculaires. Toutefois, ces dernières causes de décès ne sont pas les seules à contribuer aux progrès en espérance de vie, puisque les taux de mortalité dus aux dix principales causes de décès au Canada ont connu une diminution, bien qu’elles n’aient pas toutes évolué de la même manière depuis 1979. On ne semble ainsi pas passer d’un type de pathologies dominantes à un autre, mais à une diminution générale de la mortalité par maladies chroniques et à une diversification plus importante des causes de décès à des âges de plus en plus avancés, notamment par la diminution des «grandes» causes de décès. / With the decrease of mortality at younger ages, gain in life expectancy is heavily dependent on the progress in old age mortality. However, over the last three decades, life expectancies at 65 and 85 years old have not experienced a constant rate of progress. Changes in life expectancy progress come from changes in specific causes of death trends and their interactions. The present thesis studies the contribution of causes of death on the changes in life expectancies and the trends in death rates of specific causes of death in Canada between 1979 and 2007. An analysis of those changes in an epidemiological transition context has also been done by questioning whether or not we are witnessing a shift from certain dominant diseases to others. This questioning will be answered by studying variation in the causes of death by age and over time. The results of this study show that progress in life expectancies at 65 and 85 years old are still mainly due to the decrease in cardiovascular mortality. However, cardiovascular diseases are not the only causes of death to contribute to the progress in life expectancy. Since 1979, mortality rates from the ten leading causes of death in Canada have all declined but in different ways. Thus, there does not seem to be a shift in the dominant causes of death towards others in Canada, but there is a general mortality decline from chronic diseases and a greater diversification of causes of death at older ages.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of high neonatal mortality rates in Migori County, Kenya. The neonatal mortality cases were utilised as the target population to the study. A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, non-experimental research design was used. A systematic sampling technique was employed to draw a sample of 201 archived neonatal cases out of 420 neonatal mortality medical records, which constituted the study population. Data were collected by means of a developed questionnaire. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 21 was used to analyse data. The main findings revealed the leading determinants of neonatal mortality were early neonatal period, prematurity, poor 1st Apgar score, low birth weight and neonates with intrapartum complications. Obstetrical haemorrhage and HIV were the main maternal complications associated to neonatal mortalities, while the leading direct causes of death in this study were birth asphyxia and sepsis. Other determinants were gender, rural residence, lowly educated and informally employed mothers. To reduce mortalities, a multifaceted approach is needed to establish quality improvement in neonatal intensive care, reduce preterm birth incidences, and empower mothers socio-economically. / Health Studies / M.A. (Nursing Science)

La mortalité aux jeunes âges devenant de plus en plus faible, l’augmentation de l’espérance de vie est de plus en plus dépendante des progrès en mortalité aux âges avancés. L’espérance de vie à 65 ans et à 85 ans n’a cependant pas connu un rythme de progression continu depuis les trois dernières décennies. Ces changements dans l’évolution de l’espérance de vie proviennent de changements dans les tendances de certaines causes de décès et de leurs interactions. Ce mémoire analyse la contribution des causes de décès aux changements qu’a connus l’espérance de vie, mais aussi l’évolution spécifique des taux de mortalité liés aux principales causes de décès au Canada entre 1979 et 2007. Finalement, une analyse de l’implication de ces changements dans un contexte de transition épidémiologique sera réalisée, par un questionnement sur le fait que l’on assiste ou non au passage de certaines pathologies dominantes à d’autres. La réponse à ce questionnement se trouve dans l’étude de l’évolution par âge et dans le temps des causes de décès. Les résultats montrent que les progrès en espérance de vie à 65 ans et à 85 ans sont encore majoritairement dus à la diminution de la mortalité par maladies cardiovasculaires. Toutefois, ces dernières causes de décès ne sont pas les seules à contribuer aux progrès en espérance de vie, puisque les taux de mortalité dus aux dix principales causes de décès au Canada ont connu une diminution, bien qu’elles n’aient pas toutes évolué de la même manière depuis 1979. On ne semble ainsi pas passer d’un type de pathologies dominantes à un autre, mais à une diminution générale de la mortalité par maladies chroniques et à une diversification plus importante des causes de décès à des âges de plus en plus avancés, notamment par la diminution des «grandes» causes de décès. / With the decrease of mortality at younger ages, gain in life expectancy is heavily dependent on the progress in old age mortality. However, over the last three decades, life expectancies at 65 and 85 years old have not experienced a constant rate of progress. Changes in life expectancy progress come from changes in specific causes of death trends and their interactions. The present thesis studies the contribution of causes of death on the changes in life expectancies and the trends in death rates of specific causes of death in Canada between 1979 and 2007. An analysis of those changes in an epidemiological transition context has also been done by questioning whether or not we are witnessing a shift from certain dominant diseases to others. This questioning will be answered by studying variation in the causes of death by age and over time. The results of this study show that progress in life expectancies at 65 and 85 years old are still mainly due to the decrease in cardiovascular mortality. However, cardiovascular diseases are not the only causes of death to contribute to the progress in life expectancy. Since 1979, mortality rates from the ten leading causes of death in Canada have all declined but in different ways. Thus, there does not seem to be a shift in the dominant causes of death towards others in Canada, but there is a general mortality decline from chronic diseases and a greater diversification of causes of death at older ages.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze two major indicators representing the processes of natural changes in population, which are not influenced by age structure -- age specific fertility rate and age specific mortality rate and to introduce functional data analysis, which has recently become increasingly applied in many scientific fields. The functional data analysis is introduced on the Czech demographic data set for more than last sixty years. The thesis briefly describes historical development of mortality and fertility and also describes selected methods of functional data analysis by using statistical program R. Functional data analysis provides a wide variety of graphics tools to explore the data which we called functional and help us to explore all typical and atypical features, identify outliers etc.

The objectives of this study are to provide a comprehensive assessment of inequalities in infant and under-five years¿ child survival, access to and utilisations of child health services among different socio-economic groups in Ethiopia; and identify issues for policies and programmes at national and sub-national levels. This thesis examines the effect of parental socioeconomic status, maternal and delivery care services, mothers¿ bio-demographic and background characteristics on the level of differences in infant and under-five years¿ child survival and access to and utilisation of child health services. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were carried out for selected variables in the literature which were consider as the major determinants of infant mortality rate (IMR) and under-five years¿ child mortality rate (U5MR); access to and utilisations of child health services based on data from Ethiopian demographic and health survey (EDHS), covering the years 2000-2005. In the multivariate analysis a logit regression model was used to estimates inequalities in infant and under-five years¿ child survival, and inequalities in access to and utilisation of child health services. In Ethiopia, little was known about inequalities in IMR and U5MR, and inequalities in access to and utilisation of child health services. Besides, there is no systematic analysis of health inequalities and into its determinants using logistic regression. According to the available literature, this is the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of inequality of health in Ethiopia. The findings show that compared to under-five years¿ children of mothers¿ partners¿ with no work, mothers¿ partners¿ in professional, technical and managerial occupations had 13 times more chance of under-five years¿ child survival for 2000 weighted observations. In addition, compared to infants of mothers who were gave birth to one child in last 5 years preceding the survey, infants of mothers who were gave birth to 2 children in last 5 years preceding the survey had 70% less chance of infant survival while infants of mothers who were gave birth to 3 or more children had 89% less chance of infant survival for 2000 weighted observations. Moreover, this study finding also indicates that inequalities increased significantly in the five years period between 2000 and 2005 among mothers with different birth interval. Most of the relations between birth interval and receiving childhood immunisation for vaccine-preventable diseases were statistically significant. Moreover compared to non-educated mothers, mothers who completed secondary and higher education were nearly 10 times more likely to receive DPT3 immunisation for their young children. This study concludes that policy measures that tackle health inequalities will have a positive impact in the implementation of health sector strategy of Ethiopia. Health inequalities studies in Ethiopia and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries should focus on systematic analysis of different socio-economic groups. The finding of this study support investing in the Ethiopia¿s health extension package (HEP) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for addressing rural poor health problem. HEP is successful in increasing primary health care coverage in rural Ethiopia to 89.6% (FMOH, 2009) but unable to reduce Ethiopia¿s higher level of IMR and U5MR. HEP is one of the success stories that address the rural poor health problem and can also be adapted to developing countries of SSA. The finding also shows that the success stories such as health insurance programs like Rwanda (World Bank, 2008a) and Ethiopia (FMOH, 2009/10) will play a key role in achieving country¿s health care financing goal of universal coverage. This can also be replicated in the developing SSA countries.

台灣地區居民近年的死亡率下降速度加快，使得我國國民的平均壽命在公元2000年已超過美國，成為長壽的國家之一。其中我國國民死亡率的下降幅度因年齡而不同，且各個年代、世代也不相同，與APC（Age-Period-Cohort）模型採年齡、年代與世代三個因子分析死亡率頗為一致，因此本文計畫以APC模型研究台灣的死亡率。然而，由於「年代＝年齡＋世代」之線性相關，參數估計值有甄別問題（Identification Problem），使得參數估計值不唯一。 文獻中有不同方法解決APC模型的參數估計問題，近年又有Fu（2000）提出之本質估計量（Intrinsic Estimator），可直接解決參數估計及其變異數。因此本文首先以電腦模擬驗證本質估計量，以及過去其他估計方法，檢測這些方法是否可得出理論的結果。本文的第二部分則以西元1961至2005年的資料探討APC模型的實用性，分析APC與Lee-Carter模型的優劣；研究發現APC模型用於估計死亡率時，整體而言雖不如Lee-Carter模型，但可彌補Lee-Carter模型在高年齡有較大誤差的不足，唯在年輕族群則仍有改善空間，未來或可考慮APC與Lee-Carter模型的結合。 / The mortality rates in Taiwan area have been experiencing dramatic decreases in recent years. The life expectancy has surpassed that in the United States in 2000 and Taiwan has become one of the longevity countries. Besides, the falling of mortality rates varies in different age, period, and cohort groups, which corresponds to the APC (Age-Period-Cohort) model. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to study the mortality rates in Taiwan area with APC model. However, due to the linear dependency of age, period and cohort (Period = Age + Cohort), there is the identification problem, that is, the parameter estimates are not unique. A number of solutions to the identification problem in APC model have been provided in the literature. Fu (2000) introduce a new estimator, the Intrinsic Estimator (IE), which can solve parameter estimates and variance directly. In the first part of this research, computer simulation is conducted to examine the IE, compared with other methodologies. In the second part of this research, data from 1961 to 2005 are used for verifying the validity of APC model in fitting mortality rates, and we analyze the strengths and weaknesses between the APC and Lee-Carter model. The results from our study indicate that the APC model in estimating mortality rates does not show as well as the Lee-Carter model as a whole. However, the APC model performs better than the Lee-Carter model for the elderly mortality rates, but is still needed to be improved in young groups. In the future, it can be considered to combine the APC and Lee-Carter model.