(1) Background: Following natural disasters, women have a higher prevalence of adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Given that the South and Southeast Asia regions are highly disaster prone, a review was undertaken to identify the potential health impact and key risk factors affecting women after disasters in the countries located in South and Southeast Asia regions. (2) Methods: A systematic literature search of four databases yielded 16 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. The review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidance, between July 2008 and March 2021. (3) Results: The majority of studies reported women's negative/poor mental health, identifying a significant association of socio-demographics, during disaster exposure, post-disaster, and pre-existing risk factors. The six most-cited influences on women's mental health found in the reviewed literature were being female, adult age group, having no formal education, poverty or low economic status, poor physical health/physical injuries, and death of family members. Women's health during the post-disaster period was generally reported as poor among all the countries of the South and Southeast Asia regions. (4) Conclusions: Appropriate social support and the availability of free healthcare access for women are warranted in disaster-affected areas. This review offers a valuable contribution to the knowledge of women's health complications/challenges and associated risk factors related to disasters, essential for the development of strategies to help reduce this burden in the future. Further research is required on natural disasters to identify ways to reduce women's health impacts after natural disasters, especially in the context of low-income and lower-middle-income countries.

Background: The objective of this review is to examine the evidence for the interdisciplinary approach in treatment of persistent post-concussion symptoms in adults.

Methods: This systematic literature search was undertaken according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Five electronic databases were searched: CINAHL, Informit, ProQuest, PubMed and Scopus. After screening and quality assessment, the review included six studies published in English and peer-reviewed journals, between 2011 and 2021 to return contemporary evidence.

Results: The results revealed that there was significant variation between measures used and the timing of the pre- and post-treatment assessment. The studies found an interdisciplinary approach to be beneficial, however, the challenges of inherent heterogeneity, lack of clarity for definitions and diagnosis, and mixed results were apparent. The interdisciplinary interventions applied in all identified studies were found to reduce post-concussion symptoms across the symptom subtypes: headache/migraine, vestibular, cognitive, ocular motor and anxiety/mood.

Conclusions: The results demonstrated evidence for a reduction in persistent post-concussion symptoms following interdisciplinary intervention. This evidence will inform health services, clinicians, sports administrators and researchers with regard to concussion clinic and rehabilitation team design and service delivery.

Background

COVID-19 is a highly contagious infectious disease that emerged in 2019. This disease is causing devastating health, socio-economic, and economic crises. More specifically COVID-19 is affecting both the quality and length of human life. The overall health impact of this disease is measured by the disability-adjusted life years which is the sum of the life years lost due to disability (the effect on the health quality) and the years life lost due to premature death (effect on the length of life). The purpose of this review is to summarise DALYs-based health impact publications and produce compiled and informative literature that can aid the health regulators to make evidence-based decisions on mitigating COVID-19.

Methods

The review will be conducted using the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The DALYs-based original observational and cross-sectional studies will be collected for assessing the health impact of COVID-19. Both the life quality and length impacts of COVID-19 will be reviewed. The life quality impact of COVID-19 will be measured using the life years lost due to disability (pre-recovery illness, pre-death illness, and post-acute consequences), and its impact on the length of life will be measured with years of life lost due to premature death (shortening of life expectancy). The combined health impact of COVID-19 on the quality and length of life will be measured in disability-adjusted life years.

Discussion

The impacts of COVID-19 on the two health outcomes (quality and length of life) will indicate the level of COVID-19 health burden. The increase or decrease of COVID-19 health impact might be due to the sample size differences of different studies and the omission of years lost due to post-acute consequences in some studies. After having a summarized systematic review health decision-makers will apply an impact-based response to COVID-19.

Background

Disasters are emergency events that overwhelm the resources of the region or location in which it occurs, resulting in substantial human suffering, loss of life, and severe economic harm. Disaster preparedness and management refer to the measures taken before a disaster, aiming to minimise life loss, critical services disruption, and damage when the disaster occurs. Disasters occur rarely but have significant adverse consequences when they do. Recent statistics suggest that 1.23 million lives and 2.97 trillion dollars have been lost in the last two decades due to disaster events globally. Hospitals provide essential primary emergency healthcare to the victims of disasters to ensure their recovery. It is crucial that hospitals are well prepared for disasters to minimise their effects.

Aim

The primary aim of the study was to investigate disaster preparedness among hospitals in the Eastern Region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The specific objectives are: to assess disaster preparedness of hospitals in the Eastern region of Saudi Arabia" to compare the disaster preparedness between private and government hospitals in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia" and to determine factors influencing the preparedness for disasters among hospitals in the Eastern Region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

Methods

A descriptive cross-sectional study of all hospitals in the Eastern Region of KSA was conducted between July 2017 and July 2018. The included hospitals were selected using convenience sampling. The survey was adapted according to World Health Organization (WHO) National Health Sector Emergency Preparedness and Response Tool and Hospital Emergency response checklist. It was distributed together with an official letter providing information about the aim and objectives of the study as well as ethical issues guiding their participation in the exercise. Out of 72 hospitals in the region, 63 responded to the survey and were included in the analysis. Before data collection, ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of New England (HE17-155) and the Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia (IRB00010471).

Results

All 63 participating hospitals had disaster plans and reported to have multidisciplinary planning committees. About 70% of the included hospitals established an educational program on disaster preparedness once per year. Assessment of hospital disaster preparedness was mostly conducted using disaster drills. However, only 9.5% of the hospitals had post-disaster recovery assistance programs like counseling and support services. In all responding hospitals, the level of disaster preparedness was acceptable in most indicators of preparedness, however, some hospitals to some extent fell short of preparedness in surge capacity, equipment and logistic services, and post-disaster recovery. Government and privately-owned hospitals were generally comparable in disaster preparedness. However, government hospitals were more likely to have hospital disaster preparedness (HDP) plans that cover World Health Organization (WHO)'s "all-hazard" approach (p = 0.01), both internal and external disasters (p = 0.002), compared to private hospitals. Also, a three-factor structure was identified as key predicators of hospital disaster preparedness capacity. The first factor was the most highly weighted factor which includes: education and training (0.849)" monitoring and assessing HDP (0.723)" disaster planning (0.721)" and, command and control (0.713). The second factor included surge capacity (0.708)" triage system (0.844)" post-disaster recovery (0.809)" and, communication (0.678). The third factor represented safety and security (0.638)" and, logistics, equipment and supplies (0.766).

Conclusion

Hospital disaster preparedness in ther Eastern province of KSA was generally acceptable, however preparedness in surge capacity, equipment and logistic services and post-disaster recovery fell short. Government and private hospitals were comparable in preparedness with regards to all indicators except surge capacity, post-disaster recovery and availability of some equipment. Some recommendations to improve hospitals' disaster preparedness should be proposed, including improved staff training and testing, better communications and safety procedures, and adoption of a holistic approach for disaster management. The identified threefactor structure provides an innovative approach to assist the operationalization of the concept of disaster preparedness capacity building and service improvement as well as serving as a groundwork to further develop instrument for assessing hospital disaster preparedness in future studies.