Browsing by Author "Ekem-Ferguson, G."

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Coping strategies and resilience among patients with hypertension in Ghana
(Frontiers in Psychology, 2023) Boima, V.; Yorke, E.; Ganu, V.; Gyaban-Mensah, A.; Ekem-Ferguson, G.; Kretchy, I.A.; Mate-Kole, C.C.
Background: Hypertension is associated with high morbidity and mortality and this has been linked to poor treatment and control rates. To optimize drug treatment, patient-centered strategies such as coping, resilience, and adherence to medication may improve control rates and decrease the morbidity and mortality associated with hypertension. This study, therefore, assessed coping skills and resilience among patients with hypertension in Ghana. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. 224 consented patients with a diagnosis of hypertension were consecutively selected from the outpatient clinic. Questionnaires comprising socio-demographic characteristics, clinical parameters, Adult Resilience Measure, and the Africultural Coping Systems Inventory were administered. Data were analyzed using Stata version 16.1 and significance level was set at p-value of ≤ 0.05. Results: The mean age of participants was 62.03 ± 11.40 years and the majority were female (63%). The overall coping strategy mean score was 43.13 ± 13.57. For resilience, median relational and personal resilience (PR) scores were 32 (IQR-7) and 39 (IQR-9), respectively. Increased systolic BP significantly increases the overall coping strategy score. Collective coping strategy and systolic BP significantly increased coping scores (95%CI = 0.05–3.69 vs. 95%CI = 0.58–5.31). Overall coping strategy significantly increased personal and relational resilience (RR) domain scores by 0.004 (95%CI = 0.002–0.01) and 0.005 (95%CI = 0.003–0.006) units, respectively. This study demonstrated that Cognitive and emotional debriefing coping strategy was mostly used by patients with hypertension. Conclusion: Coping strategies had a positive and significant correlation with personal and RR, specifically collective and cognitive debriefing had a significant positive association with resilience among study participants. There is a need to actively put in measures that can improve the coping strategies and resilience among patients with hypertension to adjust to the long-term nature of the illness and treatment as this will promote better treatment outcomes.
Determinants of semantic and episodic memory decline among older adults in Ghana: Evidence from the WHO study on global AGEing and adult health Ghana wave 2
(Dialogues in Health, 2023) Ekem-Ferguson, G.; Tetteh, J.; Malm, K.; Yawson, A.G.; Biritwum, R.; Mensah, G.; Yawson, A.E.
Objective: Determined factors associated with semantic (SM) and episodic memory (EM) among older adults aged 50 years and older in Ghana. Methods: Data from WHO Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE) Ghana Wave 2 was used for this study. Semantic memory (SM) and Episodic memory (EM) were the main study outcomes separately. The study employed Nested Ordinary Least Square regression analysis by sequentially adding 6 blocks of variables and comparison tests be tween the nested models. Results: The study involved 3575 adult Ghanaians aged 50 years and older with a mean ± standard deviation of 62.6 ± 18.4 years. The overall mean ± SD of EM and SM were 5.86 ± 2.51 and 11.69 ± 8.59 respectively. Overall, analysis from block 6 showed a significant variation in SM by approximately 16.9%(ΔR2 = 1.17%) where increasing age, never married (β = −1.55; 95% CI = −2.41–0.69), being resident in Greater Accra (regional disparity) (β = −3.45; 95% CI = −4.73–2.20), underweight (β = −0.81;95% CI = −1.34–0.27), and moderate self-rated health (SRH) (β = −0.98; 95% CI = −1.52–0.45) significantly decreased SM. Similarly, increasing age, separated/divorced (β = −0.22; 95% CI = −0.35–0.87), being resident in Greater Accra (β = −0.53; 95% CI = −0.80–0.26), and mod erate SRH (β = −0.20; 95% CI = −0.36–−0.04) significantly decrease EM with an overall significant variation of approximately 22.9%(ΔR2 = 2.7%). Conclusions: Increasing age, sex, marital status, regional disparity, and poor SRH significantly decreased both Semantic memory and Episodic memory. Higher educational attainment and life satisfaction significantly influenced SM and EM. These provide pointers to important socio-demographic determinants of SM and EM with implications for the im plementation of the Ghana national ageing policy 2010, ‘ageing with security and dignity’, and as a key consideration for healthy ageing towards 2030.
Marijuana use and suicidal behaviours among school-going adolescents in Africa: assessments of prevalence and risk factors from the Global School-Based Student Health Survey
(BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH, 2021) Tetteh, T.; Ekem-Ferguson, G.; Quarshie, E.N.B; Swaray, S.M.; Ayanore, M.A.; Seneadza, N.A.H.; Asante, K.O.; Yawson, A.E.
Background Marijuana use among adolescents, including high school students, has been consistently reported to be associated with a high incidence of suicidal behaviours. Little empirical research has been conducted on the propensity impact of marijuana use on suicidal behaviours in Africa. Aims To assess factors associated with marijuana use and further quantify marijuana use as an associated factor of suicidal behaviours, including repeated attempted suicide, suicidal ideation and suicide planning, among high school students in Africa. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 32 802 school-going adolescents using the Global School-Based Student Health Survey data from 10 African countries grouped into West Africa, North Africa, South-East Africa, South Africa and East Africa subregions. Marijuana use and repeated attempted suicide were the main outcome variables. We employed double selection least absolute shrinkage and selection operator poisson regression model to assess risk factors associated with marijuana use and dominance analysis to establish ranked important and common risk factors. Inverse probability weighting poisson regression adjustment was applied to assess impact. Results The prevalence of marijuana use and repeated attempted suicide were 3.7% (95% CI: 3.1 to 4.3) and 6.6% (95% CI: 5.9 to 7.4), respectively. The most important risk factor for marijuana use generally across the countries and specifically in three subregions was alcohol consumption, which constituted approximately 40% of the impact. The average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) indicated that marijuana use significantly increased the risk of suicidal ideation, suicide planning and repeated attempted suicide by 12% (ATT=0.12 (95% CI: 0.02 to 0.22)), 18% (ATT=0.18 (95% CI: 0.13 to 0.22)) and 31% (ATT=0.31 (95% CI: 0.20 to 0.41)), respectively. Conclusions Marijuana use was significantly associated with suicidal behaviours (suicidal ideation, planning and repeated attempted suicide) among the students. To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.5 (to strengthen prevention and treatment of substance abuse), school-based psychosocial interventions should be streamlined to adequately assess and manage marijuana use. Targeting the most dominant risk factors in this population could translate into the reduction of suicidal behaviours in countries within Africa.
Sex differences and factors associated with disability among Ghana’s workforce: a nationally stratified cross-sectional study
(BMJ, 2021) Tetteh, J.; Asare, I.O.; Adomako, I.; Udofia, E.A.; Seneadza, N.A.H.; Adjei-Mensah, E.; Calys-Tagoe, B.N.L.; Swaray, S.M.; Ekem-Ferguson, G.; Yawson, A.
Objective This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of disability and associated factors and further quantify the associated sex differential among Ghana’s workforce aged 15+ years. Design A nationally stratified cross-sectional study. Setting Ghana. Participants Individuals aged 15 years and above. Outcome measure Disability that limits full participation in life activities. Methods Three predictive models involving Poisson, logistic and probit regression were performed to assess the association between disability and covariates. Modified Poisson multivariate decomposition analysis method was employed to assess sex differential and associated factors using Stata V.16. Results The prevalence of disability was 2.1% (95% CI 1.2 to 2.4), and the risk of disability among males was approximately twice compared with females (Poisson estimate: adjusted prevalence ratio (95% CI)=1.94 (1.46 to 2.57); logistic estimate: aOR (95%CI)=2.32 (1.73 to 3.12)). Male sex increased the log odds of disability by 0.37 (probit estimate, aβ (95%CI)=0.37 (0.23 to 0.50)). The variability in age group, marital status, household (HH) size, region, place of residence, relationship to HH head, hours of work per week and asset-based wealth were significantly associated with disability-based sex differential. (Significant increased endowment: β×10−3 (95% CI×10−3)=−37.48 (−56.81 to −18.16) and significant decreased coefficient: β×10−3 (95% CI×10−3)=42.31 (21.11 to 63.49).) All disability participants were challenged with activities of daily living, limiting them in full participation in life activities such as mobility, work and social life. Conclusion The magnitude of experiencing disability among working males was nearly twice that of females. Sex differentials were significantly associated with age groups, marital status, HH size, region of residence, relationship to HH head, hours of work per week and wealth. Our findings amass the provisional needs of persons living with a disability that are indicators to consider to achieve the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 10. In addition,formulation of workplace policies should adopt a gender sensitive approach to reduce disparities and eliminate disability in the target population.