Search results

This was a cross-sectional study to assess the psychological response to quarantine during COVID-19 pandemic and knowledge level about the disease among inmates of a Custodial Center in Enugu, Nigeria. A total of 66 new prison inmates were assessed for psychological distress using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10); and inmates’ knowledge about COVID-19 using a COVID-19 Knowledge Questionnaire developed by the researchers.

Participants had a mean age of 28.39±8.71 years; 63 (95.5%) were male inmates and 3 (4.5%) were female inmates. Sixty-one (92.4%) were awaiting-trial inmates, 43 (65.1%) had psychological distress, and 35 (53%) had completed at least secondary school. COVID-19 questionnaire mean score was 3.82±3.33. Thirty-one (21.8%) had adequate knowledge of COVID-19 (7-10 score), while 35 (53%) and 10 (15.2%) had poor (0-3) and average (4-6) knowledge, respectively. Adequate COVID-19 knowledge level was significantly higher among those that completed at least secondary school (48.6%) than those who did not (12.9%). Though not statistically significant, adequate COVID-19 knowledge level was commoner among those without psychological distress (43.5%) than those with psychological distress (25.6%).

Considering responses to specific questions contained in the questionnaire, knowledge about some questions was relatively high. For example, a majority of the participants 45 (68.2%) correctly responded that death can be a complication of COVID-19; whereas half of them 33 (50%) correctly responded that regular hand washing with soap and water can help prevent the spread of the disease. Nevertheless, responses to some questions showed poor knowledge about the disease as 18 (27.3%) correctly answered that COVID-19 can affect the lungs, while 20 (30.3%) correctly responded that COVID-19 is caused by a virus.

Our study highlighted the need to have all quarantined persons educated about the disease for which they are being quarantined. It also provided the opportunity to raise awareness of COVD-19 among the inmates.

COVID-19 remains a public health emergency of international concern. Efforts at the global and national levels are being made to control its spread. The Nigerian Correctional Service is also proactive in the fight against the disease by organizing COVID-19 awareness training for correctional officers. We conducted a pre- and post-test assessment of COVID-19 knowledge among correctional officers in Enugu State Command to determine the impact of awareness training on their knowledge level. The study also assessed correctional officers’ attitude and preventive practices towards the disease.

The mean knowledge score was 19.34 out of 25, and the awareness training significantly improved the participants’ COVID-19 knowledge. We found a significant moderate, positive correlation between knowledge and attitude/practice, and a significantly higher knowledge level among those with higher educational qualifications.

Regular hand washing with soap and water (87.9%), wearing face masks (84.4%), and social distancing (83%) were practiced by the majority of the participants. The majority of the participants (53.2%) received COVID-19 information from multiple sources including the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of psychological distress of offenders newly brought into prison custody in a Nigerian prison and investigate the relationship with socio-demographic and penal characteristics.

A cross-sectional study involving 236 new prison entrants who were assessed for psychological distress using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).

A total of 267 prison inmates were newly brought to prison custody over a three-month period. Out of this, 236 (88.4 per cent) of them participated in the study. Majority of the inmates were males 225 (95.3 per cent), awaiting-trial inmates 208 (88.1 per cent), single 144 (61 per cent), Christian 224 (94.9 per cent), first time offenders 218 (92.4 per cent) and charged with violent offences 136 (57.6 per cent). Majority of the inmates scored above cut-off points on the GHQ-12 and the HADS. In total, 157 (66.5 per cent) on HADS anxiety subscale, 201 (85.2 per cent) on HADS depression subscale and 199 (84.3 per cent) on GHQ-12. Significant relationship was observed between GHQ-12 “caseness”, prison category and type of offence. Prison situation and type of offence were significantly associated with HADS depression subscale, whereas age was associated with HADS anxiety subscale.

Some limitations were encountered in the course of the study. First, the study relied on self-report questionnaires for collection of data. Second, information given by the respondents could neither be corroborated by family members, who were not present during the interview, nor by the officers and men of the Nigeria Prisons Service, who knew little or nothing about the respondents. Participants in this study had spent maximum of three days in prison during the interview, thus certain levels of distress within three days after incarceration may not entail “caseness” in the sense of the presence of a psychiatric disorder. Therefore assessment over a longer period is needed.

Screening prison inmates on reception into prison custody provides a vista of opportunity to identify mental health problems and socio-demographic and forensic correlates of psychological distress among new entrants into prison custody. This will facilitate early identification and management of prison inmates with health needs. Health screening on reception will also help in identifying the various penal or forensic characteristics of prison inmates, which will be put into consideration during selection of appropriate rehabilitation and reformation activities that best fit a particular prison inmate. Early screening of prison inmates upon reception in the prison will also help in identifying prison inmates who have high risk of suicide and self-harm, thus preventing cases of death that may arise as a result of these mental health problems. Findings from this study will also enrich the body of knowledge on mental health problems of prison inmates entering the prison; this will also help the criminal justice system in decision making, especially with emphasis on psychological evaluation of prison inmates before dispensing judgment. On the part of the prison authority, the prison inmates identified to have psychological distress and some forensic characteristics can be properly classified, and kept in cells that will not aggravate their distress. Finally, this is the first study of prison inmates on reception into Enugu Maximum Security Prison, Enugu State Nigeria. The implication of this is that findings from this research will form a baseline on which further research on prison inmates upon reception in the prison can be conducted.

This study demonstrated that prison inmates are faced with high level of psychological distress during their early days in prison, and that some socio-demographic and forensic variables had significant association with psychological distress as itemised in Tables III and IV. Therefore, screening new inmates on prison reception will help in early identification and treatment of vulnerable groups. This will also help in proper classification and allocation into appropriate cells of prison inmates by the prison authority.

The purpose of this study is to identify and review strategic government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. Four factors dictated the choice of these countries. In the first place, the study is set in African emerging markets – and the four countries are the widely acknowledged emerging markets in Africa (Onyiriuba, 2015). Secondly, the spread of the countries, to a large extent, mirrors Africa in general – Egypt and Morocco are in North Africa; Nigeria is a West African country; and, of course, South Africa. Thirdly, other countries in Africa tend to look up to the four countries, apparently as the largest economies in their respective regions. Needless to say, Nigeria alternates with South Africa as the largest economy in Africa. In this capacity, the two countries influence – indeed, mirror – continental Africa's emerging economic progress. Fourthly, lessons from agricultural policy and financing experiences of the four countries will certainly be useful to the other African countries. The specific objective of this paper is to determine how the government seeks to address the financing issues attendant on the risk-laden nature of agriculture through policy interventions. With this end in view, the paper analyses the strategic goals, objectives and beneficiaries of the agriculture financing policies of the government, as well as the constraints on access to finance by the farmers and the policy response.

The study involves a review of empirical literature and government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The high risks in agriculture (Onyiriuba, 2015; Mordi, 1988), risk aversion behaviour of banks towards agricultural financing (Onyiriuba, 2015, 1990), and the reluctance of insurers to take on agricultural risks (World Bank, 2018; Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2016; Onyiriuba, 1990; Mordi, 1988) underpin this methodology. There are two other considerations: the needs to find out how government seeks to address the financing issues in agriculture through policy intervention, and to avoid unwieldy research, one that combines government and institutional policy perspectives on agriculture financing. Thus the study is not approached from the perspective of banks and other lending institutions; neither does it combine government and institutional policy perspectives. It rather focuses on government policy in order to properly situate implications of the findings.

The authorities seek to get rid of bottlenecks, ease participation and redress constraints on access to finance in agriculture through policy interventions as a means of sustainable economic growth. The findings are characteristic of emerging markets, rooted in the transitional challenge of opening economies, economic reforms and the March of progress. However, with agriculture and natural resources – rather than industrialisation – as the main stay of their economies, the African emerging markets face an uphill task in their development efforts. This is evident in the divergent and gloomy pictures in which the literature paints their agricultural economies.

Government should gear financing policies to boost output as a means of ensuring food security. It should address risk aversion tendencies among the lenders and feeble credit guarantee, subsidies and budgetary allocations to agriculture. This will ensure effective commitment of the lenders to agriculture and underpin agricultural insurance. However, it demands strengthening links in the chain of access to, and monitoring of, credit for agricultural production. A realistic policy response should target the rural economy – with youth, women and smallholder farmers as ultimate beneficiaries. These actions should be intensified as measures to boost farming and the rural economy.

Current literature fails to situate the empirical findings in emerging markets context, reflecting economies in transition. Besides, in its current state, the literature does not explicitly clarify that agriculture, like most other sectors in such economies, is bound to experience the observed financing constraints. Neither does it clearly reflect how and why the findings should be seen as fleeting realities of the March of progress in transitional economies. This study will help to fill the gap.

Sourcing decisions are important considerations in organizations’ strategic and policy resolutions. Given sometimes conflicting factors such as cost and financial implications, individual perceptions and motivation, health and safety of facility users, and organizational objectives, finding a balance and basis for making such decisions, presently and in future, is crucial. This paper aims to investigate the quality of services delivered by an insourced cleaning service team in a higher learning institution. The objective of the study is to establish the condition of the facilities (restrooms) in the institution, and thus the quality of services delivered by the insourced team.

The study adopted a descriptive approach including observation and scoring to obtain and analyse information about the state of five restrooms on two campuses of the institution.

Findings revealed that the condition of the restrooms inspected over a period of five weeks was good, except for a week where there was low water supply on the sampled campuses. Further findings revealed that restrooms provided in the library were paid more attention to.

The findings from the study are envisaged to assist facilities management stakeholders and organizations’ management in making decisions on sourcing services and supporting core business functions.

Better decision-making can be made to improve the quality of services provided by sourcing teams, which will contribute to supporting core strategies and increasing value-add and image of organizations.

How people spend their time is an indicator of how they live their lives, with time use over the life course conditioned both by age and by participation in age-graded institutions. This chapter uses nationally representative data from the pooled 2008–2020 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to evaluate how time use in 12 activity categories varies by age, gender, and disability status among 137,266 respondents aged 15 and older. By doing so, we quantify the “disability gap” in time use between men and women with and without disabilities, identifying at what age and by how much people with disabilities experience time differentials in activities of daily living (ADLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and other indicators of social participation. Results indicate that – at many ages – patterns of time use for people with disabilities deviate from those of people without disabilities, with more pronounced differences in midlife. Further, the magnitude of women's disability gaps equals or exceeds men's for sleeping, and nearly all ADLs and IADLs, indicating that disability gaps are also gendered.

In this meta-analysis, the authors investigate the relationship between self-construal and conflict management strategies and shed light on the inconsistent findings in the literature. Moreover, they examine the mediating role of face concerns in this relationship. Importantly, the present meta-analysis is the first to test the assumptions of face-negotiation theory with the meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM), which enabled the authors to test the hypothesized relationships in one single model.

The authors used the method of MASEM to test the relationship between self-construal and conflict management and assess the mediating role of face concerns. In this regard, the authors employed one-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling to perform MASEM and its moderators.

Two hundred fifty-four effect sizes based on thirty-three studies were pooled in this meta-analysis. The authors found that individuals with stronger independent self-construal and stronger self-face concerns were more likely to use forcing. Moreover, the relationship between independent self-construal and forcing was mediated by self-face concerns. Individuals with a stronger interdependent self-construal and individuals with stronger other-face concerns were more likely to use problem-solving and yielding. The relationship between interdependent self-construal and problem-solving and yielding was mediated by other-face concerns. Finally, interdependent self-construal also had an indirect effect, via other-face concern, on avoiding and compromising.

The present meta-analysis is the first effort that the authors are aware of to test the assumptions of face-negotiation theory (FNT) using MASEM method. The authors used one-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling viewed as the state of the methods to perform MASEM and its moderators. They employed full information meta-analytic structural equation modeling to show the generalizability and heterogeneity of structural equation modeling parameters. They applied studentized deleted residuals to assess outlier analysis and also conducted different methods to perform MASEM to check the robustness of the findings resulted. Finally, the current study adds multiple methods of assessing for publication bias.

Educational researchers have long experienced increasing rates of Nigerians educated to the graduate levels going overseas as a way to leave Nigeria. For the last 25 years, research has shown a rapid increase in the brain-drain syndrome in Nigeria (Akomas, 2006; Oji, 2005). From the history of expatriate Nigerians, research showed that the return rate of Nigerians who studied and obtained Ph.D.s in foreign countries shares a noticeable portion of the university educational outcomes and cannot be ignored. Pires, Kassimir and Brhane (1999), Oji (2005), West (2005), and Akomas (2006) agreed that brain-drain syndrome in Nigeria is increasing. Many Nigerian professors teaching in the universities in Nigeria have either gone overseas or are looking for ways to leave the country for greener pastures (West, 2005). In South Africa, one would find hundreds of Nigerian professors educating South Africans (West, 2005). Many are in Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Holland, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and many more places beyond the shores of Nigeria (West, 2005). Therefore, both educational leaders in the universities in Nigeria, in general, and Niger Delta region, in particular, and expatriate Nigerians educated to the graduate levels play a substantial role in the country's educational leadership effectiveness and success.

Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.

In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.

We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.

The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.

We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, this study aims to understand whether and how sales employee clothing style would influence consumers' perceptions of store image through their expectations of service quality. Second, this study hopes to uncover how fashion orientation would influence the aforementioned relationship.

A 3 (formality of employee clothing: formal vs moderate vs casual) × 2 (level of fashion orientation: low vs high) between‐subject experiment design was conducted. Data were collected from 105 university students in a laboratory setting.

Results indicated that formality of employee clothing (i.e. formal business, moderate, or casual attire) served as a cue in the retail environment for consumers to make inferences about the service quality expected to be provided by the sales employee. Furthermore, formality of employee clothing both directly and indirectly influenced consumers' perceptions of store image.

This study adds to existing literature by uncovering the moderating role of fashion orientation in consumers' service quality expectations and confirms the function of service quality as an antecedent to store image.

Retailers should pay attention to the design of their salespeople's clothing because different clothing styles draw forth different evaluations from customers about the service quality provided in retail stores.

This study investigates the role of clothing formality in influencing consumers' service quality expectations.