Browsing by Author "Mensah, A.A."
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Item The Junior Graphic and Reading Habits of Young Teenagers(University of Ghana, 2019-10) Mensah, A.A.Reading is a skill that is vital to the development of an individual’s mind and for that matter the growth and progression of one’s life. It is even more beneficial for children when they are in their most impressionable stage of development, to develop good reading habits in them as they progress through the various stages of life as pupils, students, and into the adult life of career-hood. Reading for leisure has been seen as an effective way to cultivate the creative and critical thinking skills of children, and to enable them develop strong social skills. Furthermore, recreational reading contributes to the development of literary skills, vocabulary expansion, and memory improvement. This study was designed to find out the reading habits of teenagers from Star International Preparatory School in Teshie, and the Ministry of Health Basic School in Korle Bu. The choice of these two schools was informed by the intuition that pupils from the two schools would differ substantially in terms of their projected socio-economic backgrounds, and this difference should produce differences in terms of access to information generally, and in their leisure reading habits. It used the Junior Graphic newspaper, a leisure (non-academic) reading material, as an indicator of reading habits. A sample size of sixty students was chosen from each school, totalling a hundred and twenty. The study was based on the mass media theories of uses and gratifications and media systems dependency. The research applied quantitative methodology and the survey method of data collection by administering close-ended questionnaires to the sampled students to find out their engagement with the Junior Graphic. The study ascertained why the selected teenagers chose to read the Junior Graphic, what content they normally read in the newspaper, and the reasons for their reading practices. The study found that a majority of respondents read the Junior Graphic for no more than an hour a day, and in effect, that leisure reading was not a habitual or routine part of the media and information habits of teenagers. However, when they read, the reasons have tended to be for purposes of news/information, social validation, and education or knowledge acquisition.Item The prevalence of malaria among HIV seropositive individuals and the impact of the co- infection on their hemoglobin levels(Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials, 2015-03) Tay, S.C.K.; Badu, K.; Mensah, A.A.; Gbedema, S.Y.Background: Malaria and HIV/AIDS are the two most common infections in sub-Sahara Africa. There are hypotheses and study reports on the possible association between these two infections, hence the prevalence and outcome of their co-infection in an endemic population will be important in defining healthcare strategies. A cross sectional study was carried out at the Holy Family Hospital in Techiman, Ghana, between November 2011 and January 2012, to determine the prevalence of malaria among HIV sero-positive patients and its impact on hemoglobin levels. Method: A total of 400 HIV sero-positive participants (292 females and 108 males) aged between 1 and 73 years were randomly sampled for the study. A questionnaire was administered and 2 ml of venous blood samples were drawn for malaria parasites detection, CD4 count and haemoglobin level estimations. Results: Malaria parasites were detected in 47 (11.75%) of the participants. There was no statistically significant difference between the malaria prevalence rate of females (12.1%) and males (10.2%) P = 0.6047. An overall anaemia prevalence of 67% was observed. Among participants with malaria the anaemia prevalence was 93.6%. The CD4 cell count of all the participants ranged between 3 and 1604 cells/μl with a mean of 386.2 (±274.3) cells/μl. Participants with malaria had CD4 cell count ranged 3 and 512 Cells/μl with the mean being 186.33 (±133.49) Cells/μl. Out of 377 participants (all above 15 years) interviewed on knowledge of malaria transmission and prevention, 87.0% had knowledge on transmission but only 8.5% use in bed nets. Conclusion: It was revealed that almost all the patients with malaria infection were anemic. © Tay et al.