Study of Resistance to Stress and Burnout among Public Health Professionals: The Case of Nurses and Physicians at Ibn Sina Hospital in Rabat Morocco

Occupational stress presents a major public health problem. It is the subject of many works in Morocco and in the world. Our work focuses on the study of stress resistance among nurses and physicians working in services at Ibn Sina Hospital in Rabat, Morocco. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between resistance status, burnout and level of psychological distress. A self-questionnaire is provided to all respondents. It includes questions about socio-demographic and professional, clinical, also neuropsychological tests such as the stress resistance test (CTRS), the burnout scale (MBI) and the general health questionnaire (GHQ12). This study shows that 42% of nurses and physicians have a high level of emotional exhaustion, high level of depersonalization affects 49% of nurses and physicians and subjects with low professional achievement account for 67% and 54% of nurses and physicians suffer from psychological distress. The stress test reveals that 88% of subjects have a low or moderate level of stress resistance and only 12% have good resistance. Thus, our study sheds new light on the understanding of stress at work by using new measurement and evaluation methods such as TRS, with the aim of reducing or eliminating the impact of occupational stress in hospitals.

Epidemiological Approach to the Use of Psychotropic Medications at Moulay El Hassan Hospital, in the Gharb Region of Morocco

The use of psychotropic drugs is important in Morocco related to the large amount of sufferers by psychiatric disorders, according to a survey of the Moroccan Ministry of Health (2010). A prevalence of 26.5% of depressive disorders, and 9% for generalized anxiety disorder, and 5.6% of psychotic disorders was recorded within population, hence the importance to describe the use and assess the prevalence of psychotropic and socio-economic factors was associated with their use. Our research is a retrospective study, carried out between February 2010-December 2013, holding a sample of 5618 patients aged between 1 and 90 years old. The study is concerned with drawing social and clinical data from patients’ records. The different classes of psychotropic drugs prescribed to patients in the psychiatric department Moulay El Hassan Hospital, vary between antidepressants (36%), antipsychotics (32%), anxiolytics (10%), anti-epileptics (9%), the class of diverse “sulpiride” (7%), anti-parkinsonian (6%), and hypnotics were prescribed in rare cases. The relationship between socio-economic factors and the take of a psychotropic treatment was very strong in Morocco. In contrast, the patients support showed by close families and the health care staff remain a challenge for Moroccan population.

Study of Psychological Resilience among Health Care Professionals, in Ibn Sina Hospital/Rabat/Morocco

Psychological resilience is the ability to maintain personal and professional wellbeing in the face of on-going work stress and adversity. The aim is to investigate the state of the psychological resilience of Health Care Professionals (HCP) and the potential risk factors. The study that we conducted carries out a sample of 230 persons (150 nurses and 80 doctors) belonging to the different services of Ibn Sina Hospital of Rabat/Morocco, using two scales. One is a questionnaire containing most of the socio-demographic characteristics, and clinical characteristics. The second is the Dispositional Resilience Scale-15 (DRS15). Otherwise, our results indicate a relatively low rate of resilience of health staff practicing at Ibn Sina Hospital in Rabat/Morocco. 81% of HCP have “low resilience”, 16% have shown “moderate resilience” and only 3% are in the “good resilience” range, based on analyzes of resilience scale results DSR15. The results of the DRS15 validation study indicate a positive correlation between engagement, control and challenge, as well as improved inter and intra-item correlation. Our study also indicates a statistically significant relationship between resilience and socio-economic difficulties of HCP. Sex, marital status, seniority, work schedule and medical history are risk factors. Indeed, women are more resilient than men, single people are more vulnerable than married couples, and new recruits are less resistant than older ones. In addition, the 12/36 continuous work schedule has a protective factor for HCP. These results go in the same direction as those found by some studies. Thus, the results of our study are encouraging and can be used for decision-making in this case.

Biochemical and Neurobiological Study of Moroccan Autists

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. Its diagnosis is very difficult and consists of only clinical criteria. The aim of this study is to confirm autism disorder, among three children (2 girls and 1 boy), recruited in a social association of children in a precarious situation, located in Rabat, Morocco, and to evaluate some biological and neurobiological parameters among these children. The confirmation of autistic status is realized using Questionnaire (E2) and the evaluation of biological parameters (organic acids, urinary peptides, toxic metals and essential elements) is done in urine and hair of these children. Obtained children’s scores of E2 Questionnaire, is found in the favor of autism. Moreover, abnormal levels of urinary organic acids, urinary peptides, toxic and essential metals are observed.

The Importance of Auditory Discrimination in the Acquisition of Mental Lexicon and Reading Automation in Arabic-Speaking Students in Kenitra (Morocco)

Auditory discrimination is the ability to discriminate between words and sounds. Auditory discrimination can affect reading, spelling and writing. Several studies examined the correlation between auditory discrimination and reading performance. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of auditory discrimination in the acquisition of mental lexicon and consequently the automation of reading in a sample of 101 students in their fourth year of primary education coming from four different schools in Kenitra (Morocco). The results analysis shows that reading scores correlated significantly with the auditory discrimination scores (r = 0.30, p 0.01). This proves that the inability to discriminate words causes a disability to store them in the mental lexicon, which makes it difficult to identify these words at a later encounter. This conclusion is supported by the significant correlation between reading and auditory and visual lexical decision tasks. In this study we were able to emphasize the importance of having good acoustic discrimination capacities for language development. Students who were successful at the auditory discrimination task are more successful at reading. A remediation program based on improving auditory discrimination capacities using the language assessment battery LABBEL could see reading performance improvement in these students.

Association between Malnutrition and Cognitive Impairment among Morocco’s Older Adults

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the association between the malnutrition and risk of cognitive impairment among Morocco older adults. Materials and methods: A sample of 237 older adults aged above 60 years were recruited from three nursing homes belonging to three different cities, Rabat, Kenitra and Sidi Kacem City and from one health center in Sidi Kacem City. From them, 172 subjects (56.4% men) were included in our study for their completion. Cognitive functions were assessed by the Mini-Mental State Examination. Nutritional status, depression and physical activity were assessed using respectively: MNA, GDS-15 and GPAQ. The binary logistic regression was performed where the cognitive function was taking as the dependent variable and all other outcomes as independent variables. Results: Our results showed that 69.8% of total simple were classed as having cognitive impairment while only 30.2% were normal. The binary logistic regression assessed showed that the malnutrition (OR = 3.03, 95% CI: 1.34 - 6.85), gender (OR = 2.22, 95% CI: 1.03 - 5.71) and low education (OR = 8.35, 95% CI: 1.32 - 52.83) were risk factors for cognitive impairment, when moderate level of physical activity (OR = 0.19, 95% CI: 0.06 - 0.54) was a protective factor compared to the limited level. Conclusions: Our study supported past literature that malnutrition and low level of physical activity were risk factors of cognitive impairment. These indicate that nutritional status monitoring and the practice of regular physical activities can prevent it from leading to Alzheimer’s disease.

Study of Visual Perception and Working Memory in Moroccan Adolescents Attending School

Visual Perception and working memory are essential neuropsychological skills for any learning. The objective of this research is to study these skills, by analyzing numerical plots, according to gender, age, level of study and the stream by evaluating perceptive and memory deficits in Moroccan adolescents attending school. Our sample contains 146 high school students, including 78 boys and 68 girls participated in this study and we used the numerical version of The Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test (ROCF-A) to assess visual perception and working memory. The results of this study showed that, on the one hand, more than 34% of the subjects examined show signs of perceptual deficit and more 21% show signs of memory deficit and, on the other hand, that the scores of the visual perception are significantly associated with age and that working memory scores are significantly associated with age, level of education, and stream.