Browse publications by year: 2022

  1. Yang J, Chuan TB
    Comput Math Methods Med, 2022;2022:5088630.
    PMID: 35747130 DOI: 10.1155/2022/5088630
    Today's rule of law construction in China is walking between the conflict and coordination of factors such as reality and ideals, tradition and modernity, local and foreign, and local knowledge and universal principles, all while continuing to strengthen the unification of the legal system and advance the modernization of the rule of law. Traditional customary law, which is the most representative local resource culture, is unquestionably one of the most important themes in the formation of the rule of law. It has far-reaching significance for the development of ethnic jurisprudence, the reunderstanding of traditional culture, and the construction of ethnic unity and harmonious society. Based on this background, this paper uses big data technology to collect relevant experimental data and proposes a traditional customary law value assessment based on BPNN. The completed work is as follows: (1) this paper clarifies the concept of customary law and the difference between it and related concepts and introduces the domestic relevant research on traditional customary law and the interactive relationship between customary law and national law in dynamic legal practice and puts forward the status and influence of customary law in contemporary legal practice. (2) The related technologies of neural network are introduced, and a traditional customary value evaluation system that can be used for experiments is constructed. (3) Experiment with the designed data set to see if the BP model is feasible. The experimental results suggest that the model proposed in this study has a low error rate and performs well while evaluating traditional common law values.
    MeSH terms: China; Humans; Knowledge*
  2. Chong YP, Peter EP, Lee FJM, Chan CM, Chai S, Ling LPC, et al.
    Sci Rep, 2022 Jul 19;12(1):12315.
    PMID: 35853996 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-16671-9
    As pancreatic cancer cells (PCCs) and pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) are the two major cell types that comprise the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer, we aimed to investigate the role of conditioned medium derived from PCCs and PSCs co-culture on the viability of lymphocytes. The conditioned medium (CM) collected from PCCs and/or PSCs was used to treat peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to determine CM ability in reducing lymphocytes population. A proteomic analysis has been done on the CM to investigate the differentially expressed protein (DEP) expressed by two PCC lines established from different stages of tumor. Subsequently, we investigated if the reduction of lymphocytes was directly caused by CM or indirectly via CM-induced MDSCs. This was achieved by isolating lymphocyte subtypes and treating them with CM and CM-induced MDSCs. Both PCCs and PSCs were important in suppressing lymphocytes, and the PCCs derived from a metastatic tumor appeared to have a stronger suppressive effect than the PCCs derived from a primary tumor. According to the proteomic profiles of CM, 416 secreted proteins were detected, and 13 DEPs were identified between PANC10.05 and SW1990. However, CM was found unable to reduce lymphocytes viability through a direct pathway. In contrast, CM that contains proteins secreted by PCC and/or PSC appear immunogenic as they increase the viability of lymphocytes subtypes. Lymphocyte subtype treated with CM-induced MDSCs showed reduced viability in T helper 1 (Th1), T helper 2 (Th2), and T regulatory (Treg) cells, but not in CD8+ T cells, and B cells. As a conclusion, the interplay between PCCs and PSCs is important as their co-culture displays a different trend in lymphocytes suppression, hence, their co-culture should be included in future studies to better mimic the tumor microenvironment.
    MeSH terms: Humans; Leukocytes, Mononuclear/metabolism; Culture Media, Conditioned/metabolism; Culture Media, Conditioned/pharmacology; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes/metabolism; Proteomics; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Proliferation; Pancreatic Stellate Cells/metabolism; Tumor Microenvironment
  3. Zhang H, Feng Y, Wang L
    Comput Intell Neurosci, 2022;2022:3948221.
    PMID: 35909867 DOI: 10.1155/2022/3948221
    With the rapid development of image video and tourism economy, tourism economic data are gradually becoming big data. Therefore, how to schedule between data has become a hot topic. This paper first summarizes the research results on image video, cloud computing, tourism economy, and data scheduling algorithms. Secondly, the origin, structure, development, and service types of cloud computing are expounded in detail. And in order to solve the problem of tourism economic data scheduling, this paper regards the completion time and cross-node transmission delay as the constraints of tourism economic data scheduling. The constraint model of data scheduling is established, the fitness function is improved on the basis of an artificial immune algorithm combined with the constraint model, and the directional recombination of excellent antibodies is carried out by using the advantages of gene recombination so as to obtain the optimal solution to the problem more appropriately. When the resource node scale is 100, the response time of EDSA is 107.92 seconds.
    MeSH terms: Cloud Computing*; Algorithms
  4. Mohamad RH, Hakim BNA, Mitra AK, Shahril MR, Mohamed WMIW, Wafa SWWSST, et al.
    J Gizi Pangan, 2022 Mar;17(1):11-18.
    PMID: 37559878 DOI: 10.25182/jgp.2022.17.1.11-18
    This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the determinants of underweight among preschool children. A total of 218 preschool children were enrolled. Their sociodemographic data were collected using self-reported questionnaires whilst body weight and height were measured, recorded and the BMI for-age z-score was calculated using WHO AnthroPlus software. Of all preschool children participants, 47.7% were male and 53.3% were female. Most of them were Malays (99.5%), aged 4 to <5 years (40.8%) and came from low-income household (92.7%). Overall, the prevalence of underweight, normal, overweight and obese was 17.9%, 73.8%, 4.6% and 3.7% respectively. The underweight prevalence was higher than the national prevalence (13.7%). Of all parent participants, 12.4% were male and 87.6% were female. Most of them aged 30-39 years (55.5%) and did not hold a degree (89.4%). Multivariate logistic regression showed that parental age and their level of education were the determinants of childhood underweight. The risk of being underweight increased with the age of parents (p=0.033) and lower level of education of parents (p=0.042). In conclusion, this study found that underweight among preschool children was mainly associated with parental factors. Hence, designing a special nutritional intervention program involving older parents and lower education levels could overcome this problem.
  5. Mohammed S, Khuan L, Durai RPR, Ismail IZB, Garba SN
    Belitung Nurs J, 2022;8(6):538-545.
    PMID: 37554233 DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2227
    BACKGROUND: Maternal mortality reduction remains a world health priority. One of the causes of maternal death is bleeding after childbirth. However, little is known regarding barriers to reporting for postpartum hemorrhage care among postnatal women in Nigeria.

    OBJECTIVE: This research aimed to understand the perceived barriers to reporting postpartum hemorrhage care experienced by women and healthcare workers in Birnin Kebbi, North west-Nigeria.

    METHODS: Qualitative case research was employed in this study with face-to-face interviews among ten postnatal women who experienced bleeding and six healthcare workers. Data were collected from September to November 2021. The interviews were all audio-taped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis. NVivo Pro Version 12 was applied to organize further and manage the data.

    RESULTS: Six themes were developed: (1) knowledge deficit, (2) poor attitudes, behaviors, and performances, (3) low socioeconomic status, (4) lack of healthcare personnel, (5) cultural norms, and (6) lack of access to healthcare facilities.

    CONCLUSION: The study findings might serve as input for healthcare policymakers and healthcare workers to improve health and reduce maternal mortality. Enhancing knowledge and awareness about reporting process is necessary to improve reporting for postpartum hemorrhage care among women. Training and continuous professional development of health care workers are also highly suggested to enhance the quality of care.

  6. Nain RA, Thomas DC
    Belitung Nurs J, 2022;8(6):521-528.
    PMID: 37554235 DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2246
    BACKGROUND: Insulin-treated diabetes patients are at high risk of developing lipohypertrophy, which can negatively impact treatment outcomes. Early detection of lipohypertrophy is crucial to preventing blood glucose fluctuation. Unfortunately, this clinical issue is often overlooked by nurses, causing the development of vascular complications, which leads to an increase in the morbidity and mortality of the type 2 diabetes mellitus population.

    OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to identify lipohypertrophy prevalence and to establish the association between the presence of lipohypertrophy and its associated risk factors, including years on injection, total injection in a day, total insulin unit per day, often change needle, insulin injection site and move to a different area.

    METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 128 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who received insulin therapy in an outpatient diabetic clinic. Questionnaires on socio-demographic and lipohypertrophy-associated risk factors were distributed among patients, and lipohypertrophy-assessment was done using a checklist. Descriptive statistics and Pearson Chi-square were used for statistical analysis.

    RESULTS: The prevalence of lipohypertrophy was 51.6% (95% CI: 42.6, 60.5). Swelling on fatty tissue (46.1%) exhibited the highest percentage of lipohypertrophy features during the assessment. Pearson Chi-Square revealed a significant relationship between the presence of LH and BMI categories (χ2 = 10.059, df = 3, p = 0.018), duration of injection (χ2 = 15.001, df = 3, p = 0.002), frequency of needle replacement (χ2 = 9.525, df = 3, p = 0.023) and rotation of injection site (χ2 = 5.914, df = 1, p = 0.015).

    CONCLUSION: The high prevalence of lipohypertrophy indicates a need for a prevention strategy. Thus, nurses should play an important role in educating patients regarding the proper administration of insulin injections and performing a routine lipohypertrophy assessment and health education on the correct method of insulin injection.

  7. Burhan A, Khusein NBA, Sebayang SM
    Belitung Nurs J, 2022;8(6):470-480.
    PMID: 37554236 DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2220
    BACKGROUND: Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) is considered an effective treatment in facilitating the healing of chronic wounds. However, its effect remains inconsistent, which allows for further investigation.

    OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the NPWT program in improving the management of chronic wound healing.

    DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis was used.

    DATA SOURCES: The search strategy ranged from 2016 to 2021 in PubMed, CINAHL, ProQuest, and ScienceDirect.

    REVIEW METHODS: Risk of bias was done based on the Risk of Bias 2.0 guideline using RevMan 5.4.1, and meta-analysis was done using Jeffreys's Amazing Statistics Program (JASP) software version 0.16.3. Critical appraisal of the included articles was done according to Joanna Briggs Institute's (JBI) appraisal checklist.

    RESULTS: A total of 15 articles were included, with 3,599 patients with chronic wounds. There was no publication bias in this study seen from the results of the Egger's test value of 0.447 (p >0.05), symmetrical funnel plot, and fail-safe N of 137. However, heterogeneity among studies was present, with I2 value of 66.7%, Q = 41.663 (p <0.001); thus, Random Effect (RE) model was used. The RE model showed a significant positive effect of the NPWT on chronic wound healing, with z = 3.014, p = 0.003, 95% CI 0.085 to 0.400. The observed effects include decreased rate of surgical site infection, controlled inflammation, edema, and exudate, as well as increased tissue with varying forest plot size, as demonstrated by the small effect size (ES = 0.24, 95% CI -0.26 to 0.79, p <0.05).

    CONCLUSION: The analysis results show that the standard low pressure of 80-125 mmHg could improve microcirculation and accelerate the healing process of chronic wounds. Therefore, applying the NPWT program could be an alternative to nursing interventions. However, it should be carried out by competent wound nurses who carry out procedure steps, implement general patient care, and give tips on overcoming device problems and evaluation.

    PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42022348457.

  8. Abdul Hamid SH, Fallon D
    Belitung Nurs J, 2022;8(5):438-445.
    PMID: 37554494 DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2223
    BACKGROUND: Adolescents' sexual health is vital to overall health and well-being to achieve sustainable development goals. Yet, research on the strategies used by Malaysian school health teams regarding their experiences of providing sexual health information to adolescents is sparse.

    OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to explore the experiences of school health teams in Malaysia who provide unmarried adolescents with sexual health information either during school health visits or at health clinics, with a particular interest in the strategies they use to educate these young people.

    METHODS: This qualitative study used semi-structured interview data from twenty participants from four multidisciplinary school health teams. The participants included staff nurses, medical officers, and family medicine specialists. The transcripts were analysed for common themes.

    RESULTS: Four main themes were identified: discourse on risk, being selective, using scare tactics and maintaining own honour. The findings indicate that the interactions between school health teams and unmarried adolescents were not always 'adolescent friendly'. The school health teams tended to use discourses of 'risk' or scare tactics to encourage abstinence in the adolescents they advised. Staff were also selective about the information they gave, prioritising notions of 'maintaining honour' over 'safer sex' messages.

    CONCLUSION: This study revealed how school health teams perceived sexual health education to be about moral issues and social attitudes. Influenced by both culture and religion, the sexual health services provided were underpinned by a 'moral' approach and promoted abstinence. However, most of the nurses in this study held the belief that sexual health knowledge acts as an encouragement for sexual activity. Thus, as part of school health teams, nurses need to embrace evidence that improved sexual health education may delay sexual initiation and prevent unintended pregnancy and HIV/STDs.

  9. Ismail FF, Md Redzuan A, Wen CW
    Asian Biomed (Res Rev News), 2022 Oct;16(5):214-236.
    PMID: 37551316 DOI: 10.2478/abm-2022-0026
    BACKGROUND: Dyslipidemia management is crucial to reduce mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Patients must be educated and empowered to enable them to manage their own diseases. Various methods of patient education, such as patient-centered education (PCE) or non-PCE (such as didactic education or any traditional form of education), have been implemented.

    OBJECTIVE: To review and determine the effectiveness of PCE for dyslipidemia management compared with usual care. The primary outcome chosen was cholesterol level. Other measures, such as psychosocial or cognitive, behavioral, and other relevant outcomes, were also extracted. Additionally, underlying theories and other contributing factors that may have led to the success of the intervention were also reviewed and discussed.

    METHODS: We conducted searches in PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Scopus, and Google Scholar from inception until April 2021. All studies involving randomized controlled trials were included. Study quality was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) checklist specifically for randomized controlled trials.

    RESULTS: The search identified 8,847 records. Of these, 20 studies were eligible for inclusion. Interventions using a PCE approach were largely successful. Contributing factors extracted from the included studies were underlying theories, instant reward system, dietary education, collaborative care, duration of intervention with systematic follow-ups, social support, adherence assessment method, and usage of e-health.

    CONCLUSIONS: PCE is successful in achieving the desired outcomes in dyslipidemia management. Future studies may incorporate the elements of PCE to improve the management of dyslipidemia in hospital or community settings where appropriate.

  10. Halim-Fikri H, Syed-Hassan SR, Wan-Juhari WK, Assyuhada MGSN, Hernaningsih Y, Yusoff NM, et al.
    Asian Biomed (Res Rev News), 2022 Dec;16(6):285-298.
    PMID: 37551357 DOI: 10.2478/abm-2022-0032
    Rapid technological advancement in high-throughput genomics, microarray, and deep sequencing technologies has accelerated the possibility of more complex precision medicine research using large amounts of heterogeneous health-related data from patients, including genomic variants. Genomic variants can be identified and annotated based on the reference human genome either within the sequence as a whole or in a putative functional genomic element. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) and the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) mutually created standards and guidelines for the appraisal of proof to expand consistency and straightforwardness in clinical variation interpretations. Various efforts toward precision medicine have been facilitated by many national and international public databases that classify and annotate genomic variation. In the present study, several resources are highlighted with recognition and data spreading of clinically important genetic variations.
  11. Firdaus MKZH, Jittanoon P, Boonyasopun U
    Belitung Nurs J, 2022;8(4):365-371.
    PMID: 37546497 DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2127
    BACKGROUND: Technology-based intervention showed a promising approach to health promotion strategies. There had been limited knowledge of the existing program for technology-based intervention in promoting foot care and dietary behavior modification. Thus, a mobile app was developed as an alternative strategy for promoting foot care and dietary behavior modification.

    OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to elaborate on the process of developing, validating, and examining the Diabetic Care Self-Management Mobile Health Application (Diabetic Care).

    METHODS: There are two phases conducted. The first phase is the process of developing and validating Diabetic Care. Intervention Mapping (IM) Framework was used to guide the process of developing Diabetic Care, while in assessing validity, guidance from Kassam-Adams et al. was used. A team of experts was appointed to validate the mobile app developed. Next, the usability of Diabetic Care was conducted among ten conveniently chosen patients with diabetes in a governmental primary care clinic.

    RESULTS: The process of developing Diabetic Care was clearly explained. The Diabetic Care app showed a good I-CVI score (1.00) and general CVI score (1.00) after the expert team assessed. During the trial, two drawbacks were identified and explored to find solutions.

    CONCLUSION: The Diabetic Care app is proven appropriate to be employed in the study. Even though there were two drawbacks encountered, however, possible solutions were able to be explored in addressing the issues. Further research should be conducted to examine the effectiveness of this mobile app in modifying foot care behavior and dietary behavior. Hence, it will assist in the translation of advanced technology in nursing care.

  12. Chong ASS, Mahadir A, Hamidah A, Rizuana IH, Afifi L, Chan CMH
    Belitung Nurs J, 2022;8(3):204-212.
    PMID: 37547110 DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2083
    BACKGROUND: Cancer is one of the major leading causes of childhood death, and the most common type is acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The survival rate has increased in recent years; however, the long patient trajectory may trigger psychological distress among caregivers as they play an active role in ensuring that the child's basic needs are met. Being in a patient-focused system, the needs of caregivers may be neglected.

    OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the caregivers' beliefs on children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia caregiving experiences in order to promote their well-being.

    METHODS: Caregivers from thirteen families of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia participated in this phenomenological study. NVivo 12 was used for the thematic analysis of the data. Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) were used in this study.

    RESULTS: Overall, five main themes for caregivers' beliefs were identified from their responses: 1) dietary intake with emphasis on its importance in aiding recovery and its potential influence on cancer complications, 2) childcare which emphasized the need to be strong and self-sacrifice, 3) treatment which reflected the use of home or natural remedies and caregivers' negative perception towards chemotherapy, 4) causes of cancer believed to be linked to early childcare choices on food, beverage, and stress imposed on the child, and 5) source of beliefs that included doctors, online platforms, personal encounters and information on food labels.

    CONCLUSION: Caregivers' beliefs are varied and nuanced, formed in a multicultural social background of Malaysia. These findings provide knowledge for future supportive cancer care for patients, their caregivers, and the treatment outcome in the Malaysian context. Nurses, who play an essential role between healthcare professionals and patients and/or their caregivers, can be empowered to provide psychological support, early detection of psychological distress, and exploration of caregiver beliefs, given that the number of clinical psychologists in Malaysia is lacking, and there is greater preference for care to be provided by doctors or nurses.

  13. Khan ZA, Naz S, Khan R, Teo J, Ghani A, Almaiah MA
    Comput Intell Neurosci, 2022;2022:5112375.
    PMID: 35449734 DOI: 10.1155/2022/5112375
    Data redundancy or fusion is one of the common issues associated with the resource-constrained networks such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Internet of Things (IoTs). To resolve this issue, numerous data aggregation or fusion schemes have been presented in the literature. Generally, it is used to decrease the size of the collected data and, thus, improve the performance of the underlined IoTs in terms of congestion control, data accuracy, and lifetime. However, these approaches do not consider neighborhood information of the devices (cluster head in this case) in the data refinement phase. In this paper, a smart and intelligent neighborhood-enabled data aggregation scheme is presented where every device (cluster head) is bounded to refine the collected data before sending it to the concerned server module. For this purpose, the proposed data aggregation scheme is divided into two phases: (i) identification of neighboring nodes, which is based on the MAC address and location, and (ii) data aggregation using k-mean clustering algorithm and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Furthermore, every CH is smart enough to compare data sets of neighboring nodes only; that is, data of nonneighbor is not compared at all. These algorithms were implemented in Network Simulator 2 (NS-2) and were evaluated in terms of various performance metrics, such as the ratio of data redundancy, lifetime, and energy efficiency. Simulation results have verified that the proposed scheme performance is better than the existing approaches.
    MeSH terms: Machine Learning; Computer Communication Networks*; Cluster Analysis; Internet; Wireless Technology*
  14. Ding J, Yu L
    J Environ Public Health, 2022;2022:5907900.
    PMID: 35655950 DOI: 10.1155/2022/5907900
    The development trend of tourism performance networking, although convenient for audience consumption, also makes the performance information present the development trend of big data. In the mass of information, how to accurately locate products and improve audience satisfaction is an urgent problem to be solved. In order to better explore the evaluation of tourism performance by the customer satisfaction evaluation model, analyze the development prospect of tourism in Jiangxi Province in the future, improve the customer satisfaction evaluation model with rough set, and propose a composite customer satisfaction evaluation model. By setting the adjustment value of the evaluation index, the model not only avoids the "false eigenvalue" of the satisfaction evaluation result but also simplifies the calculation process of the model and improves the accuracy, calculation efficiency, and single data processing capacity of the satisfaction evaluation. According to the MATLAB simulation results, the composite customer satisfaction evaluation model constructed in this study is better, the calculation accuracy is >97%, and the calculation time is 40 seconds, which are better than the original customer satisfaction evaluation model. Therefore, the composite customer satisfaction evaluation model can be applied to the evaluation of tourism performance products to provide data support for the evaluation price of audience satisfaction in Jiangxi Province.
    MeSH terms: Consumer Behavior; Personal Satisfaction*
  15. Liu Y, Abdul Karim Z, Khalid N, Said FF
    J Environ Public Health, 2022;2022:5635853.
    PMID: 35719856 DOI: 10.1155/2022/5635853
    Wind is a renewable energy source. Overall, using wind to produce energy has fewer effects on the environment than many other energy sources. Wind and solar energy provide public health and environmental benefits to the social. Wind turbines may also reduce the amount of electricity generation from fossil fuels, which results in lower total air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. In order to better optimize the effect of social energy economic management and facilitate the multiobjective decision making of coordinated development of energy and socioeconomic environment, a modeling and analysis method of economic benefits of wind power generation based on deep learning is proposed. In this paper, based on the principle of deep learning, the evaluation indicators of wind power economic benefits are excavated, a scientific and reasonable economic benefit evaluation system is constructed, a wind power economic benefit analysis model supported by public management is constructed, and the steps of wind power economic benefit analysis are simplified. It is concluded that the modeling and analysis method of wind power economic benefits based on deep learning has high practicability in the actual application process, which is convenient for the prediction and analysis of energy demand for social and economic development.
    MeSH terms: Air Pollution*; Electricity; Fossil Fuels; Public Health*; Renewable Energy
  16. Ohara H, Shimizu H, Kasamatsu T, Kajita A, Uno K, Lai KW, et al.
    Neuroradiology, 2022 Oct;64(10):2085-2089.
    PMID: 35809100 DOI: 10.1007/s00234-022-03010-y
    A 23-year-old previously healthy man (Patient 1) and a 33-year-old woman with a past history of depression (Patient 2) developed neurological symptoms approximately 1 week after receipt of the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and deteriorated over the next week. Patient 1 reported nausea, headache, a high fever, and retrograde amnesia. Patient 2 reported visual disturbance, headache, dysarthria, a left forearm tremor, dysesthesia of the mouth and distal limbs, and visual agnosia. PCR test results for SARS-CoV-2 were negative. Complete blood cell count, biochemistry, and antibody test and cerebrospinal fluid test findings were unremarkable. Diffusion-weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRI of the brain showed a high signal intensity lesion at the midline of the splenium of the corpus callosum compatible with cytotoxic lesions of the corpus callosum (CLOCCs). High-dose intravenous methylprednisolone improved their symptoms and imaging findings. CLOCCs should be considered in patients with neurological manifestation after COVID-19 vaccination.
    MeSH terms: Adult; Antineoplastic Agents*; Corpus Callosum/pathology; Encephalitis*; Female; Headache; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Vaccination; Young Adult
  17. Patel JJ, Hill A, Lee ZY, Heyland DK, Stoppe C
    Crit Care Med, 2022 Sep 01;50(9):1371-1379.
    PMID: 35853198 DOI: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000005602
    OBJECTIVES: Concise definitive review of how to read and critically appraise a systematic review.

    DATA SOURCES: None.

    STUDY SELECTION: Current literature describing the conduct, reporting, and appraisal of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

    DATA EXTRACTION: Best practices for conducting, reporting, and appraising systematic review were summarized.

    DATA SYNTHESIS: A systematic review is a review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant original research, and to collect and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. Critical appraisal methods address both the credibility (quality of conduct) and rate the confidence in the quality of summarized evidence from a systematic review. The A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews-2 tool is a widely used practical tool to appraise the conduct of a systematic review. Confidence in estimates of effect is determined by assessing for risk of bias, inconsistency of results, imprecision, indirectness of evidence, and publication bias.

    CONCLUSIONS: Systematic reviews are transparent and reproducible summaries of research and conclusions drawn from them are only as credible and reliable as their development process and the studies which form the systematic review. Applying evidence from a systematic review to patient care considers whether the results can be directly applied, whether all important outcomes have been considered, and if the benefits are worth potential harms and costs.

    MeSH terms: Humans; Publications; Bias (Epidemiology)
  18. Ohara H, Shimizu H, Kasamatsu T, Kajita A, Uno K, Lai KW, et al.
    Neuroradiology, 2022 Nov;64(11):2101-2102.
    PMID: 36138239 DOI: 10.1007/s00234-022-03057-x
    MeSH terms: Corpus Callosum/pathology; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Vaccines*
  19. Asawapaithulsert P, Flaherty GT, Piyaphanee W
    Am J Trop Med Hyg, 2022 Aug 17;107(2):492-494.
    PMID: 35895400 DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.22-0177
    Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a rapid increase in international travel. Travel medicine is a branch of preventive medicine focusing on risk assessment pre-travel, during travel and post-travel with the aim of promoting health and preventing adverse health outcomes. Travel medicine specialists inform travelers about potential health risks and mitigate infectious disease risks such as travelers' diarrhea, yellow fever, and malaria. Travel medicine topics were popular in the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conferences between 2016 and 2020, and now comprise approximately 2% of all presentations. Most topics related to the post-travel assessment (50%), followed by diseases contracted during travel (26%), and pre-travel assessment and consultation (24%). Our analysis of the 10 sub-domains of travel medicine issues found that malaria (26%) and immunization (12%) were represented to the greatest extent. We anticipate that both travel and tropical medicine fields will regain their popularity after recovery from the pandemic.
    MeSH terms: Diarrhea/prevention & control; Humans; Travel; Tropical Medicine*; United States; Travel Medicine; Pandemics/prevention & control
  20. Loong SK, Abd-Majid MA, Teoh BT, Cheh MJ, Khor CS, Chao CC, et al.
    Am J Trop Med Hyg, 2022 Aug 17;107(2):397-400.
    PMID: 35895409 DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.20-0656
    In recent years, the number of leptospirosis cases, including the number of deaths, has exponentially increased in Malaysia. From June 2016 to February 2018, blood samples of 321 febrile patients with the presumptive diagnosis of dengue-like illness were examined for possible exposure to Leptospira. Two hundred fifty-five blood samples were tested as negative for dengue. Seminested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and IgM ELISA for leptospirosis were performed. From the samples, an overall prevalence for leptospirosis based on PCR of 4.7% (12/255) was obtained. Eighteen percent (46/255) were positive for anti-Leptospira IgM antibodies. The genome sequences of six of 12 Leptospira PCR-positive samples showed > 97.0% similarity to Leptospira interrogans. One patient's sample consisted of Leptospira and chikungunya virus, suggesting a coinfection. Findings from the study suggest that leptospirosis is prevalent among dengue-negative febrile patients in Malaysia.
    MeSH terms: Antibodies, Bacterial; Fever/diagnosis; Humans; Immunoglobulin M; Malaysia/epidemiology
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