This study aims to understand the scope of educational information and current practices on newborn care from the perspectives of prenatal mothers and health workers.\n\nMethods: A qualitative descriptive methodology was used. In-depth interviews were conducted with lactating mothers (n = 31) of babies younger than five months old across Masindi in western Uganda. Additional interviews with health workers (n = 17) and their employers or trainers (n = 5) were conducted to strengthen our findings. GSK2879552 Data were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. A thematic content analysis was performed using NVivo 8.\n\nResults: Vertical programmes received more attention

than education for newborn care during prenatal sessions. In addition, attitudinal and communication problems existed among health workers thereby largely ignoring the fundamental principles of patient autonomy and patient-centred care. The current newborn care practices

were largely influenced by relatives’ cultural beliefs rather than by information provided during prenatal sessions. There is a variation in the training curriculum for health workers deployed to offer recommended prenatal and immediate newborn care in the different tiers of health care.\n\nConclusions: Findings revealed Selleck CBL0137 serious deficiencies in prenatal care organisations in Masindi. Pregnant mothers remain inadequately prepared for childbirth and newborn care, despite their initiative to follow prenatal sessions. These findings call for realignment of prenatal care by integrating education on newborn care practices into routine antenatal care services and be based on principles of patient-centred care.”
“In this paper, we compare the Generalised Linear Model (GLM) and Generalised Additive Model (GAM) for modelling the particle number concentration (PNC) of outdoor, airborne ultrafine particles in Helsinki, Finland. We examine temporal trends in PNC and examine the relationship between PNC and rainfall, wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature and solar insolation. Model choice is via the Vorinostat molecular weight Akaike

Information Criterion (AIC).\n\nWe have shown that the Generalised Additive Model provides a better fit than the equivalent Generalised Linear Model (ELM) when fitting models with the same covariates with equivalent degrees of freedom (AIC and BIC for the GAM are 10266.52 and 10793.04, AIC and BIC for the ELM are 10297.19 and 10885.97, both have an R-2 value of 0.836). We also present results that show that modelling both temporal trends and the effect of rainfall, wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature and solar insolation yields a better fitting model, according to the AIC, than either temporal trends or meteorological conditions by themselves.\n\nThe model is applicable to any longitudinal monitoring-type measurement campaign where long time series are recorded. Use of this technique may be inappropriate for very short measurement campaigns.