Pammla Petrucka

Verified

Pammla verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Pammla verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD, RN
• Professor at University of Saskatchewan

Objective: This scoping review protocol outlines the steps to conduct a scoping review to understand the health experiences of female head porters, assessing their unique health challenges and needs. The review aims to broaden our understanding of the occupational health challenges facing head porters in sub-Saharan Africa and identify any gaps in...

Intimate partner violence is uniquely posited as both a public health challenge and an affront to human rights that spares no social group with women, as victims, constitute two thirds of all instances worldwide. Intimate partner violence is a ‘wicked’ problem that requires an upstream approach that demonstrates awareness of the multitude of inters...

Maternal health services are provided to women worldwide during pregnancy, delivery and after delivery to reduce maternal complications and death. However, due to the lack of access and inefficient use of these services worldwide, 287,000 women died in 2020, equivalent to a daily maternal death of 800. In sub-Saharan Africa, cultural beliefs and pr...

Objectives This study aims to explore the perceptions of patients affected by COVID-19 and their families regarding the challenges faced, coping strategies used and lessons learnt in Pakistan. Design A qualitative exploratory descriptive approach was used to explore the real-time experiences of the participants. Setting The study was carried out...

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines vaccine hesitancy as reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite availability. Contributing factors in visible minority populations include vaccine safety, effectiveness, mistrust, socioeconomic characteristics, vaccine development, information circulation, knowledge, perceived risk of COVID-19, and percei...

Background Explicit and implicit cultural patterns are critical cultural norms, beliefs, and practices that determine women’s health-seeking behaviour. These cultural patterns could limit women’s use of maternal health services, resulting in maternal health complications. The study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of explicit and implicit...

Background Cultural and religious structures encompass a set pattern of values, beliefs, systems and practices that define a community's behaviour and identity. These structures influence women's health-seeking behaviour and access to maternal health services, predisposing women to preventable maternal health complications. However, most maternal h...

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the most common health problems worldwide and is associated with high mortality and heavy economic burdens. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and associated risk factors among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics at Adigrat Gene...

Background The quality of patient discharge teaching and information influences most patients’ readiness for discharge and perceptions of care. Planned patient discharge positively impacts patient health outcomes and post-discharge care management. However, some patients withdraw from care before being formally discharged, often termed discharge ag...

Aim Research is key to the development of any nation, with health research being of high value to society. Research provides data that is useful for the generation and provision of knowledge needed for policy making, planning and strategic management to develop nations. Despite the African population accounting for nearly 14% of the world’s populat...

Background While studies have explored various aspects of menstruation, an evident gap remains in the literature concerning the perspectives of young women and female health workers. By shedding light on this unexplored terrain, the study provides novel insights that can inform targeted interventions and foster a more inclusive understanding of men...

Check the open access lab to laptop book by ALN netowrk to access this chapter https://openpress.sussex.ac.uk/fromlabtolaptop/chapter/chapter-8-covid-19-lockdowns-a-catalyst-for-rethinking-assessments-in-skill-based-nursing-courses/

Background Facilitating factors are potential factors that encourage the uptake of maternal health services, while limiting factors are those potential factors that limit women’s access to maternal health services. Though cultural norms or values are significant factors that influence health-seeking behaviour, there is a limited exploration of the...

Background In 1995, the World Health Organization launched its Global School Health Initiative intending to expand this health promotion approach throughout schools globally. In this study, we aim to assess the preparedness of preschools in the adoption of intervention packages under the Nutrition Friendly School Initiative (NFSI) checklist. Metho...

Introduction: Globally, reproductive aged girls and women experience personal and social barriers to access the simplest of supplies or menstrual friendly hygiene facilities, exclusion from full participation, and even violation of their human rights, simply because they are experiencing the biological event of menstruation. In Malawi, Africa speci...

This paper explores nursing leadership practices and how they affect patient-centered care (PCC) and nurse-patient relationships and interactions. Among the critical findings impacting poor PCC outcomes were nurse managers' bureaucratic practices, poor communication with their staff, and lack of motivation and interest in nurses' personal and profe...

Introduction Early diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and universal access to drug-susceptibility testing (DST) are critical elements of the WHO End TB Strategy. Current rapid tests (e.g., Xpert® MTB/RIF and Ultra-assays) can detect rifampicin resistance-conferring mutations, but cannot detect resistance to Isoniazid and second-line anti-TB agents. Alt...

Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to: i) determine the pooled prevalence of acute diarrhea; and ii) synthesize and summarize current evidence on factors of acute diarrheal illnesses among under-five children in Ethiopia. Methods: A comprehensive systematic search was conducted in PubMed, SCOPUS, HINARI, Science Direct, Goog...

Background Poor sanitation and/or open defecation are a significant public health problem in Ethiopia, where access to improved sanitation facilities is still limited. There is a growing body of literature about the effect of open defecation on children’s linear growth failure. However, very few studies about the effects of open defecation on child...

Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to: i) determine the pooled prevalence of acute diarrhea; and ii) synthesize and summarize current evidence on factors of acute diarrheal illnesses among under-five children in Ethiopia. Methods: A comprehensive systematic search was conducted in PubMed, SCOPUS, HINARI, Science Direct, Goog...

Background Simulation is increasingly being adopted by healthcare educators throughout the developed world as it offers a safe environment to practice skills. While there is literature on learning via simulation in healthcare in the developed world, more studies are required to investigate the factors influencing this approach in the developing wor...

Introduction In 1995, the World Health Organization launched its Global School Health Initiative to expand the Health Promoting School (HPS). The objective of this study was to explore the perception of the school community in implementing nutrition-friendly school initiatives in preschool settings. Methods This paper delineates the exploratory ph...

OBJECTIVES Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the most common health problems worldwide and is associated with high mortality and heavy economic burdens. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and associated risk factors among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in Adigrat Genera...

OBJECTIVES Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the most common health problems, causing high mortality and heavy economic burden worldwide. The aim of this study was to determine the sero-prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) and associated risk factors among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in Adigrat General Hospital...

Purpose Burns are among the top five cause of unintentional injuries among youth. We aimed to determine the incidence and risk factors of burns in select youth from Pakistan and also explored their perceptions about burns. Methods A sequential explanatory mixed methods study was conducted which comprised of two phases. Phase 1 consisted of a cross...

Choosing an appropriate qualitative methodology in nursing research is a researcher’s first step before beginning a study. Such a step is critical as the selected qualitative methodology should be congruent with the research questions, study assumptions, data gathering and analysis to promote the utility of such research in enhancing nursing knowle...

Ethiopia is currently known to be the most food-insecure country in sub-Saharan Africa, where childhood undernutrition remains endemic. While attention is increasingly being paid to childhood undernutrition in Ethiopia, a current surge of "triple burden of malnutrition" (TBM) has received less attention. The purpose of this study was to determine t...

This paper reports the gathered information from an international environmental scan of university-baseline information for the creation of a Nursing Knowledge Network. An online environment scan of organizational context (February to October 2021) explored the identification of research areas, existing resources, expected benefits, innovations in...

Youth refugees and asylum seekers are vulnerable to mental health conditions. Although their mental health needs are well documented, evidence reveals that they are underutilizing mental health services. This integrative literature review aims to examine the evidence on barriers to mental health access experienced by youth refugees and asylum seeke...

Communication during a crisis can affect crisis management and health outcomes. Only a few studies in Africa have examined political leaders’ speeches on Covid-19 pandemic preventive and restrictive lockdown measures. The purpose of this study is to examine the discourse strategies employed in President Nana Addo’s speeches delivered to Ghanaians o...

Data were collected for a cluster-randomized clinical trial of the Konga community-based intervention using a validated questionnaire for children and caregivers. The raw and analyzed data include 82 participants with the following information: sociodemographic characteristics (caregiver's age, sex, and level of education, income, and caregiver's m...

Trust is known to be an important factor in vaccine decisions for parents of young children, but there has been a lack of Canadian data measuring the determinants and impact of trust. Using data from the 2017 Canadian Childhood National Immunization Coverage Survey (cNICS), this study analyzed the relationships between sources that parents trust fo...

Engaging in sexual relationships is part of adulthood, but doing so in a foreign country can be risky because unsafe sexual experiences can have severe consequences for international students. This review explored sexual and reproductive health (SRH) experiences and needs of international university students in Western countries to identify challen...

Head porters working in markets in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are one of the world’s most vulnerable and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. They consist predominantly of uneducated women and girls seeking to escape poverty, early marriage, and other issues of domestic violence. Most female head porters are in their reproductive years and often l...

Background Despite effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage in other groups living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Tanzania, virologic suppression among HIV-positive children receiving ART remains unacceptably low. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a community-based intervention (Konga model) in addressing the factor contr...

Introduction: Stunting and anaemia, two severe public health problems, affect a significant number of children under the age of five. To date, the burden of and predictive factors for coexisting forms of stunting and anaemia in childhood have not been well documented in Ethiopia, where both the conditions are endemic. The primary aims of the prese...

Gaining ethical approval for qualitative health research and implementing all the planned research processes in a proposed study are not straightforward endeavours. The situation becomes more complex when qualitative research is conducted in a cross-national healthcare and academic context. Also, it is even exhausting when the study is student-base...

Background: Induction of labor is the initiation of uterine contractions by artificial methods once the fetus has reached viability and prior to spontaneous onset of labor with the aim of achieving vaginal delivery. Although induction of labor is a critical life-saving intervention that potentially reduces adverse pregnancy outcomes, sometimes it...

Vaccine hesitancy is a barrier to improving childhood vaccination rates in Canada, but the scope of this problem is unclear due to inconsistent measurement of vaccine uptake indicators. Using 2017 data from a Canadian national vaccine coverage survey, this study analyzed the impact of demographics and parental knowledge, attitudes and beliefs (KAB)...

Introduction The World Health Organization and partners developed and evaluated a maternity-specific sepsis care bundle called ‘FAST-M’ for low-resource settings. However, this bundle has not yet been studied in Asia. Our study sought to evaluate the perceptions of healthcare providers about the implementation of the FAST-M intervention in Pakistan...

Background Despite substantial antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage among individuals with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Tanzania, viral load suppression (VLS) among HIV-positive children receiving ART remains intolerably low. This study was conducted to determine factors affecting the nonsuppression of VL in children with HIV re...

Despite substantial antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage in other groups with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Tanzania, there is a progressive decline in ART enrollment among HIV-infected children. This study aimed to determine the factors affecting the enrollment of children with HIV in ART and to identify an effective, sustainable inte...

Purpose This qualitative case study aims to investigate how current services meet the emotional needs of young women growing up with perinatally acquired human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Young women (15–19 years old), caregivers and service providers were recruited through three multidisciplinary HIV management centres in Malawi. Design/methodo...

Background Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of the most common forms of violence against women and includes physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. The most common IPV victims are women whose partners were financially insecure, uneducated, or substance users. Substance use has been related to an increase in the frequency and severity of IPV. T...

Background: The burden of unintentional injuries among youth 15-24 years is high. There is paucity of data on unintentional injuries in youth working in Vocational Training Institutes. Objective: To determine the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors of non-fatal self-reported unintentional injuries among youth. Methods: Design: This was a r...

Background: The burden of unintentional injuries among youth (15-24 years) is high. There is paucity of data on unintentional injuries in youth working in Vocational Training Institutes. Objective: To determine the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors of unintentional injuries among youth. Methods: Design: A retrospective cross-sectional su...

Background: The burden of unintentional injuries among youth (15-24 years) is high. There is paucity of data on unintentional injuries in youth working in Vocational Training Institutes. Objective: To determine the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors of unintentional injuries among youth. Methods: Design: A retrospective cross-sectional su...

Concurrent wasting and stunting (WaSt) is a condition where both wasting and stunting exist in a child at the same time. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of WaSt and to identify potential associated factors in Ethiopia. A total of 33,650 children aged between 0 and 59 months were included in the analysis from the four waves of the Ethiopia...

Objectives The main objective of this study was to assess the roles of traditional healers and the challenges they face in the of prevention and control of both local disease outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic, with a special emphasis on the work of traditional healers and healing centers in the East Gojjam Zone in northwestern Ethiopia, between 2...

Introduction Ethiopia launched an Appointment Spacing Model in 2017, which involved a six-month clinical visit and medication refill cycle. This study aimed to assess the uptake of the Appointment Spacing Model of care and associated factors among stable adult HIV clients on ART in Ethiopia. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from Octob...

This study aims to examine the effect of undernutrition on loss to follow-up (LTFU) in adults living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Ethiopia. We conducted an institution-based retrospective cohort study using medical records of 844 adults living with HIV receiving ART between June 2014 and June 202...

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is uniquely posited as both a public health challenge and an affront to human rights that spares no social group. Women, as victims, constitute two thirds of all instances of IPV worldwide (United Nations, 2013), though it is likely that this number is much higher as it speaks nothing of the women who are...

Background Amid COVID-19, soon after the closure of academic institutions, academia was compelled to implement teaching and assessments virtually. The situation was not the same for all countries. This transition was much more challenging in low-resource settings like Pakistan, where the students were geographically distant with minimal connectivit...

Abstract Ethiopia is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the highest burden of childhood undernutrition. Despite the high burden of this scourge, little is known about the magnitude and contributing determinants to anthropometric failure among children aged 0–23 months, a period regarded as the best window of opportunity for interventio...

Introduction: Body mass index (BMI) is a simple and cost-effective tool for monitoring the clinical responses of patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation, especially in resource-limited settings where access to laboratory tests are limited. Current evidence on the association between lon...

Background In Ethiopia, quality of maternal and newborn care is poor. This situation has persisted, despite the wide implementation of several capacity building-oriented interventions including clinical mentoring for skilled birth attendants that were anticipated to translate in to high–quality maternal and newborn care on each encounter. The effec...

Objective Insufficient levels of physical activity are a well-known modifiable risk factor for a number of chronic conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and certain malignancies. Little is known about the status of physical activity and its associated factors among adults in low-income countries, including Ethiopia....

Background Undernutrition is a significant public health challenge and one of the leading causes of child mortality in a wide range of developing countries, including Ethiopia. Poor access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities commonly contributes to child growth failure. There is a paucity of information on the interrelationship betw...

Introduction Stroke is the second-leading global cause of death next to ischemic heart disease. The burden of stroke mortality, morbidity, and disability is increasing across the world. In Ethiopia, evidence on the survival status of adult stroke patients is insufficient. The purpose of this study is to estimate in-hospital mortality and its predic...

Background: This qualitative exploratory study explores smokers’ perspectives regarding smoking cessation processes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Purposive sampling was employed to conduct semi-structured interviews with cigarette smokers visiting cardiac and pulmonary clinics at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Thematic analys...

Background Screening for gestational diabetes mellitus in Tanzania is challenged by limited resources. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a simple method for identification of women at risk of gestational diabetes mellitus in Arusha urban, Tanzania. Methods This study used data from a cross sectional study, that was conducted between March and...

Background: Maternal health services are healthcare services such as antenatal care, a skilled attendant at delivery, and postnatal care, provided for women during pregnancy, delivery, and six weeks after birth to reduce maternal mortality (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017). However, due to inadequate use of these services, 810 women died glob...

Background Cigarette smoking is one of the most preventable causes of morbidities and mortalities. Since 2005, the World Health Organization Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) provides an efficient strategic plan for tobacco control across the world. Many countries in the world have successfully reduced the prevalence of cigarette...

Background Studies in Africa have examined the association between helmet use and injury prevention, however, there has been no systematic review to synthesize the literature within an African context nor has there been any meta-analysis examining the effect of helmet use on injury prevention. Methods The review was performed in accordance with th...

Background Anemia is the reduction of red blood cells in size and numbers and an indicator of both poor nutrition and poor health. It is a major global public health problem. Anemia in adolescents and young adults can have negative effects on their cognitive performance and growth. In Ethiopia, previous studies yielded variable prevalence. This rev...

Healthcare problems are complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary, especially when promoting patient-centered care and communication or honouring patients’ rights during clinical interactions and communications. Healthcare institutional culture and structures, everyday healthcare practices, and the diverse cultural orientations nurses, patients, and...

The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by world leaders on September 25, 2015, aimed to end poverty and hunger, promote gender equity, empower women and girls, and ensure human dignity and equality by all human beings in a healthy environment. These development goals were premised on international human rights norms and institutions, thereby ack...

Background Opportunistic infections (OIs) are the leading causes of hospitalization, morbidity, and mortality (accounting for 94.1% of all deaths) in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV). Despite evidence suggested that undernutrition significantly increases the risk of OIs in PLHIV, to our knowledge, no study has examined the ac...

Background: While there are a few studies have that examined the association between helmet use and injury prevention in Africa, there has been no systematic review to synthesize the literature within an African context nor has there been any study examining the effect of helmet use on injury prevention. Methods: We conducted the review in accordan...

Antiretroviral therapy lowers viral load only when people living with HIV maintain their treatment retention. Lost to follow-up is the persistent major challenge to the success of ART program in low-resource settings including Ethiopia. The purpose of this study is to estimate time to lost to follow-up and its predictors in antiretroviral therapies...

Objectives: The first objective was to explore weight change in the first 2 years after antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation in adults living with HIV. The second objective was to identify the predictors of weight change over time among adults living with HIV on ART. Design: An institution-based retrospective longitudinal study was conducted....

This study aims to test the effectiveness of a community-based intervention (Konga model) to improve viral-load suppression in children living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and enrolled in care and treatment centers in Tanzania mainland. The study will be a cluster-randomized clinical trial study designed with both intervention and contro...

Background Globally, type 2 diabetes has continued to increase, now accounting for over 90% of all diabetes cases. Though the magnitude of uncontrolled glycaemic levels in patients with type 2 diabetes is steadily rising, evidence showed that effectively controlled glycaemic levels can prevent complications and improve the quality of life of these...

Introduction Undernutrition is considered a marker for poor prognosis among people living with HIV (PLHIV), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where undernutrition and HIV are both highly prevalent. Evidence suggests that undernutrition (body mass index <18.5 kg/m ² ) is one of the main factors that significantly increases the risk of lost t...

Purpose This study aims at determining the risk of physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors on overweight and obesity among primary school children aged 10–13 years in Tanzania. Design/methodology/approach A case-control study was conducted from January to March 2020 involving 69 overweight/obese children as cases and 138 normal weight children...

Background One of the strategies to promote child health and reduce child mortality is growth monitoring and promotion services. But, there is limited information on determinants of Growth Monitoring and Promotion service utilization. Objective To identify determinants of growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) service utilization among children 0–2...

Background Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) is becoming more popular as an important HIV prevention strategy. Malawi, with a high HIV and AIDS prevalence rate of 8.8% and a low male circumcision prevalence rate of 28% in 2016, is one of the priority countries recommended for VMMC scale-up. This paper investigates the attitudes and key cha...

Introduction Female adolescents living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus are a unique population facing lifelong challenges in reproductive and sexual health ranging from relational, social and legal-ethical considerations. While HIV prevalence of young females is higher than the males (4.9% versus 1%), evidence show that these adolescents in Malaw...

Objectives The study explored the perceptions of adult smokers with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases regarding cigarette smoking cessation. We also explored factors that may hinder or facilitate smoking cessation process. Design Qualitative descriptive exploratory design Sample Purposive sample of 13 adult smokers with cardiovascular or re...

Background: Undernutrition is one of the most common problems among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), contributing to premature death and the development of comorbidities within this population. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the impacts of these often inter-related conditions appear in a series of fragmented and inconclusive stu...

Providing healthcare services that respect and meet patients' and caregivers' needs are essential in promoting positive care outcomes and perceptions of quality of care, thereby fulfilling a significant aspect of patient-centered care requirement. Effective communication between patients and healthcare providers is crucial for the provision of pati...

Purpose: Chronic kidney disease is a challenging disease and global public health problem. The burden of chronic kidney disease and hemodialysis is increasing in Ethiopia, but few studies explored the lived experiences of chronic kidney disease patients receiving hemodialysis. This study explored the lived experiences of chronic kidney disease pat...

Purpose The purpose of this research is to focus on work-based problems catalysed by the COVID-19 global pandemic, based on a case study of a multi-continental, multi-campus university distributed across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Pakistan. Higher education institutions (HEIs) in developing countries lacked pre-existing infrastructure to support o...

Background The majority of patients with epilepsy in resource-poor countries never receive proper treatment, and those who are started on anti-seizure medications quickly discontinue them. Medication noncompliance is extremely common, with estimates ranging from 26 to 79 percent. Non-adherence to antiseizure medications is associated with poor seiz...