Management and Prevention of Traveler’s Diarrhea: A Cross-Sectional Study on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices in Italian Occupational Physicians (2019 and 2022)

Abstract

Even though Italian Occupational Physicians (OP) are increasingly involved in the managing of overseas workers, their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in travel medicine are mostly undefined. We, therefore, permed a KAP study specifically targeting the management of travelers’ diarrhea (TD) by OP. A total of 371 professionals (43.4% males; mean age 40.8 ± 10.9 years) completed in 2 rounds (2019 and 2022) a specifically designed web questionnaire that inquired participating OP on their knowledge status (KS), risk perception, and management of TD through pre- and post-travel advice and interventions. Multivariable odds ratios (aOR) for predictors of a better knowledge status were calculated through regression analysis. Eventually, the majority of participants (53.4%) had participated in the management of cases of TD in the previous months, but only 26.4% were reportedly involved in pre-travel consultations. The overall knowledge status was unsatisfying (potential range: 0–100%, actual average of the sample 59.6% ± 14.6), with substantial uncertainties in the management of antimicrobial treatment. Interestingly, only a small subset of participants had previously prescribed antimicrobial prophylaxis or treatment (3.5% and 1.9%, respectively). Main effectors of a better knowledge status were: having a background qualification in Hygiene and Public Health (aOR 14.769, 95%CI 5.582 to 39.073), having previously managed any case of (aOR 3.107, 95%CI 1.484 to 6.506), and having higher concern on TD, reported by acknowledging high frequency (aOR 8.579, 95%CI 3.383 to 21.756) and severity (aOR 3.386; 95%CI 1.741 to 6.585) of this disorder. As the adherence of participating OP to official recommendations for TD management was unsatisfying, continuous Education on Travel Medicine should be improved by sharing up-to-date official recommendations on appropriate treatment options for TD.

Vaccine Hesitancy in Women of Childbearing Age and Occupational Physicians: Results from a Cross-Sectional Study (Italy, 2022)

“…Finally, our study deliberately assessed the KAP of recruited participants on a selected set of immunizations, but women of childbearing age could be targeted by other interventions of some occupational interest, including but not limited to vaccines for Neisseria meningitidis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (i.e., BCG) for healthcare workers, Hepatitis A virus, typhoid vaccines, and tick-borne encephalitis vaccine for workers traveling to parts of the world where these pathologies are common, and even rabies vaccines for professionals involved in laboratory and veterinary practice [30,31,[121][122][123][124][125][126][127]. Moreover, workplaces may represent an appropriate setting for improving the acceptance of immunizations with a more limited occupational interest, such as pneumococcus, and mostly human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines.…”

Legionnaires’ Disease in Occupational Settings: A Cross-Sectional Study from Northeastern Italy (2019)

“…As a consequence, the questionnaire was not deliberately designed through the usual hierarchy of thinking skills (i.e., remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create). Using the Health Belief Model, our instrument was focused on the perceptions of disease susceptibility and severity, barriers to health practices, benefits, self-efficacy, and cues to action [ 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 ]. In fact, we postulated that participants’ belief in the health threat represented by LD, as well as the belief in the effectiveness of preventive intervention [ 78 ], would be modelled by individual experience and understanding of the assessed topic, representing the main predictors for the likelihood that the person adopted the assessed behavior (i.e., contributing to LD prevention) [ 79 ].…”

“…The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https: //www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/tropicalmed8070364/s1, Supplementary File S1: Translation of Gazzetta -Ufficiale no. 76 Institutional Review Board Statement: All participants received a copy of the questionnaire shortly before the CME seminar and were invited to participate in the present survey. Before they gave their consent, they were informed that all information would be gathered anonymously, handled confidentially, and stored only for the time needed for a collective and anonymous analysis (translation of the informed consent is provided in Table A2).…”

Nitrous Oxide Inhalant Abuse: Preliminary Results from a Cross-Sectional Study on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Italian Physicians (2023)

“…Despite the acknowledged reliability and cost effectiveness, this design is affected by several shortcomings. Among the main limitations of web-based studies, the most notable one is represented by a certain "self-selection" of participants [43,[85][86][87][88][89][90], with the eventual oversampling of certain subgroups, particularly those subjects with a greater familiarity with the internet and social media and the resulting attitude toward sharing personal information [42][43][44]87]. For instance, despite the recent impact of the "great resignation phenomenon" [83,91], the Italian medical workforce includes a large share of individuals aged 50 years or more [92,93], which in our study did not exceed a very limited proportion of 15.91%, limiting the eventual representativity of the final sample over the total population of Italian medical professionals.…”