Illness Perception, Perceived Social Support and Quality of Life in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients

The objective of the current study is to determine the relationship between illness perception, perceived social support and quality of life in pulmonary tuberculosis patients. To this end, the World Health Organization Quality of life scale, the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support were used to measure the relationship between variables. The quantitative approach was used, with purposive sampling. A total of 150 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis were part of the final sample. Hierarchical multiple regression results indicate that social support of family, friends, and significant others, are significant positive predictors of quality of life in pulmonary TB patients. This study has implications for designing better health and social policy for pulmonary tuberculosis patients with respect to (i) advancing support from significant others, (ii) strengthening quality of life through daily activities and work opportunities, and (iii) provision of medical and treatment information consistently.

Emerging Trends and Challenges in the Use of Icts for Better Access to Agricultural Information in the Punjab, Pakistan

Being informed about agricultural innovations is imperative for farmers to cope with complex challenges of farming. Information dissemination from research to farmers is an integral phenomena to lead technological awareness among farmers. Therefore, access to timely and accurate information is a need of farmers to become aware of the latest agricultural information for agricultural development. There are different information sources including traditional and modern media being utilized by farmers to nurture themselves with updated information. Among traditional sources, fellow farmers, extension field staff, radio and TV are more prominent as perceived by farmers. However, information received through these sources is considered partially effective and surrounded with constraints of cost, broadcasting, efficacy and relevancy. Inception of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) rendered a new horizon to the information dissemination process bearing potential of sharing information among large communities in no time. This esteemed technology reduces the cost and enhances the access and efficacy ultimately. With the passing moments, users of these technologies are uprising. integration of ICTs in extension services could uplift the standards of services and access to information as compared to traditional sources. However, farmers may be facing many challenges in the use of these ICTs because of illiteracy or other factors. Therefore, it was considered essential to investigate the emerging trends and challenges in the use of ICTs and training needs of the users. For this purpose, a total of 400 respondents were selected through simple random sampling technique from two districts of the Punjab province. Data were collected through face to face interviews. Collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the findings regarding information sources, fellow farmers (71%) and mobile (60.3%) were prominent while websites, helplines and newspapers were least choices. Possession of ICTs appeared varied, however, mobile phones at highest possession and extensive utilization (mean=4.61). Use of websites, helplines, internet and computers was negligible. Awareness of ICT based services appeared average, however, information on crop production, protection, marketing, weather updates and livestock management was preferably accessed by farmers. Moreover preference of mobile phone was unveiled dominating (mean=3.86) because of being more effective as better agricultural information source (mean=4.17), source of improving farming skills (mean=4.12), source of accurate information (mean=3.96), better communication (mean=4.05) and timely information (mean=4.32,) as compared to all other ICT tools. Effectiveness of other tools was restricted due to extensive cost (mean=3.75), inadequate education (mean=3.65) and accessibility to internet (mean=3.23). Study further highlighted highest training needs of farmers regarding use of helplines, internet, websites (mean=3.21) and computers (mean=2.83). Study summarized that overall use of ICTs was below average except mobile phone. It can be stated that ICTs have a great potential which has not been achieved so far. There existed negative relationship between age of respondents and use of internet, computer, social media, landline phone, agri. helpline and agri. website for obtaining agricultural information. Furthermore, a significant positive relationship was found between education of farming community and use of various ICTs. Pearson correlation coefficient shows significant and negative relation between age of farmers and their preference to TV and agri. helpline for obtaining agricultural information in future. In addition, a significant positive relationship was found between education of farming community and future use of various ICTs.