Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 37 in total

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  1. Fulltext Adaptive localization of focus point regions via random patch probabilistic density from whole-slide, Ki-67-stained brain tumor tissue
    Alomari YM, Sheikh Abdullah SN, MdZin RR, Omar K
    Comput Math Methods Med, 2015;2015:673658.
    PMID: 25793010 DOI: 10.1155/2015/673658
    Analysis of whole-slide tissue for digital pathology images has been clinically approved to provide a second opinion to pathologists. Localization of focus points from Ki-67-stained histopathology whole-slide tissue microscopic images is considered the first step in the process of proliferation rate estimation. Pathologists use eye pooling or eagle-view techniques to localize the highly stained cell-concentrated regions from the whole slide under microscope, which is called focus-point regions. This procedure leads to a high variety of interpersonal observations and time consuming, tedious work and causes inaccurate findings. The localization of focus-point regions can be addressed as a clustering problem. This paper aims to automate the localization of focus-point regions from whole-slide images using the random patch probabilistic density method. Unlike other clustering methods, random patch probabilistic density method can adaptively localize focus-point regions without predetermining the number of clusters. The proposed method was compared with the k-means and fuzzy c-means clustering methods. Our proposed method achieves a good performance, when the results were evaluated by three expert pathologists. The proposed method achieves an average false-positive rate of 0.84% for the focus-point region localization error. Moreover, regarding RPPD used to localize tissue from whole-slide images, 228 whole-slide images have been tested; 97.3% localization accuracy was achieved.
  2. Adolescent pregnancy outcomes and risk factors in Malaysia
    Omar K, Hasim S, Muhammad NA, Jaffar A, Hashim SM, Siraj HH
    Int J Gynaecol Obstet, 2010 Dec;111(3):220-3.
    PMID: 20800837 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijgo.2010.06.023
    OBJECTIVE: To assess the outcomes and risk factors of adolescent pregnancies in 2 major hospitals in Malaysia.
    METHODS: We conducted a case-control study of pregnant girls aged 10 through 19 years. The controls were women aged 20 through 35 years who did not become pregnant in their adolescence. Cases and controls were matched for parity and place of delivery. Data were collected from questionnaires and the hospitals' medical records.
    RESULTS: The study included 102 cases and 102 controls. There were significant associations between adolescent pregnancy and low education level, low socioeconomic status, being raised by a single parent, not engaging in extracurricular school activities, engaging in unsupervised activities with peers after school, and substance abuse (P<0.05 for all); being anemic, being unsure of the expected delivery date, and having few antenatal visits and a late delivery booking; and low Apgar scores and perinatal complications.
    CONCLUSION: Adolescent pregnancies are high-risk pregnancies. Better sexual health strategies are required to address the associated complications.
  3. Fulltext Assessing wellbeing: Profiling and socioeconomic status of Kenyir Lake side community, Malaysia
    Ab Manaf N, Sa'at NH, A Rahim NAA, Kamaruddin SNAA, Abdullah SS, Omar K
    Heliyon, 2023 Jun;9(6):e16399.
    PMID: 37303545 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16399
    The Kenyir Lake side community offers numerous advantages to the local community. However, the problems of backwardness and poverty have been identified as the government's main challenges in its efforts to develop the community and maximise the advantages. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the Kenyir Lake community's profile and assess its well-being. The study was conducted in three sub-districts near Tasik Kenyir, namely Kuala Berang, Hulu Telemong, and Jenagor, with a total of 510 respondents, who are heads of households (HOH). This study was carried out using a quantitative approach using questionnaire with a simple random sampling method. The findings of this study offered demographic profiling and discovered nine indicators of well-being, namely 1) Life Achievement, 2) Health Level, 3) Family Relationship, 4) Community Relationship, 5) Spiritual Level, 6) Safety Level and Social Problems, 7) Income or Finance, 8) Basic Facilities, and 9) Communication Technology. The study found that most respondents are satisfied with their lives now compared to 10 years ago. This study will help many parties to develop the Kenyir Lake Side Community, starting from the local authorities to the highest administration in the country.
  4. Atomic Force Microscopy of Hydrolysed Polyacrylamide Adsorption onto Calcium Carbonate
    Lew JH, Matar OK, Müller EA, Luckham PF, Sousa Santos A, Myo Thant MM
    Polymers (Basel), 2023 Oct 10;15(20).
    PMID: 37896286 DOI: 10.3390/polym15204037
    In this work, the interaction of hydrolysed polyacrylamide (HPAM) of two molecular weights (F3330, 11-13 MDa; F3530, 15-17 MDa) with calcium carbonate (CaCO3) was studied via atomic force microscopy (AFM). In the absence of polymers at 1.7 mM and 1 M NaCl, good agreement with DLVO theory was observed. At 1.7 mM NaCl, repulsive interaction during approach at approximately 20 nm and attractive adhesion of approximately 400 pN during retraction was measured, whilst, at 1 M NaCl, no repulsion during approach was found. Still, a significantly larger adhesion of approximately 1400 pN during retraction was observed. In the presence of polymers, results indicated that F3330 displayed higher average adhesion (450-625 pN) and interaction energy (43-145 aJ) with CaCO3 than F3530's average adhesion (85-88 pN) and interaction energy (8.4-11 aJ). On the other hand, F3530 exerted a longer steric repulsion distance (70-100 nm) than F3330 (30-70 nm). This was likely due to the lower molecular weight. F3330 adopted a flatter configuration on the calcite surface, creating more anchor points with the surface in the form of train segments. The adhesion and interaction energy of both HPAM with CaCO3 can be decreased by increasing the salt concentration. At 3% NaCl, the average adhesion and interaction energy of F3330 was 72-120 pN and 5.6-17 aJ, respectively, while the average adhesion and interaction energy of F3530 was 11.4-48 pN and 0.3-2.98 aJ, respectively. The reduction of adhesion and interaction energy was likely due to the screening of the COO- charged group of HPAM by salt cations, leading to a reduction of electrostatic attraction between the negatively charged HPAM and the positively charged CaCO3.
  5. Fulltext Automatic detection and quantification of WBCs and RBCs using iterative structured circle detection algorithm
    Alomari YM, Sheikh Abdullah SN, Zaharatul Azma R, Omar K
    Comput Math Methods Med, 2014;2014:979302.
    PMID: 24803955 DOI: 10.1155/2014/979302
    Segmentation and counting of blood cells are considered as an important step that helps to extract features to diagnose some specific diseases like malaria or leukemia. The manual counting of white blood cells (WBCs) and red blood cells (RBCs) in microscopic images is an extremely tedious, time consuming, and inaccurate process. Automatic analysis will allow hematologist experts to perform faster and more accurately. The proposed method uses an iterative structured circle detection algorithm for the segmentation and counting of WBCs and RBCs. The separation of WBCs from RBCs was achieved by thresholding, and specific preprocessing steps were developed for each cell type. Counting was performed for each image using the proposed method based on modified circle detection, which automatically counted the cells. Several modifications were made to the basic (RCD) algorithm to solve the initialization problem, detecting irregular circles (cells), selecting the optimal circle from the candidate circles, determining the number of iterations in a fully dynamic way to enhance algorithm detection, and running time. The validation method used to determine segmentation accuracy was a quantitative analysis that included Precision, Recall, and F-measurement tests. The average accuracy of the proposed method was 95.3% for RBCs and 98.4% for WBCs.
  6. Fulltext Clinical and Sociodemographic Predictors of the Quality of Life among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia
    Jusoh Z, Tohid H, Omar K, Muhammad NA, Ahmad S
    Malays J Med Sci, 2018 Feb;25(1):84-95.
    PMID: 29599638 MyJurnal DOI: 10.21315/mjms2018.25.1.10
    Background: The quality of life (QoL) describes the multidimensional self-perceived well-being of a person, which is an important diabetes outcome. This study aimed to measure the QoL scores among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), as well as their clinical and sociodemographic predictors.

    Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 180 randomly sampled patients at a primary care clinic on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. A self-administered questionnaire containing the Audit of Diabetes Dependent Quality of Life-18 (ADDQoL-18) was used.

    Results: Most of the respondents (96.7%) were Malay, with a median (interquartile range, IQR) age of 54.0 (14.0) years old. The majority of them were females (60.0%), married (81.1%) and from low-income families (63.3%), who attained a secondary education or lower (75.6%). Only 49.4% of them were employed. The mean (standard deviation, SD) ADDQoL-18 average weighted impact score was -4.58 (2.21) and all 18 domains were negatively affected, particularly the living condition, family life and working life. The multiple linear regression analysis showed that the age (adjusted B = 0.05,P= 0.004) and insulin use (adjusted B = -0.84,P= 0.011) were QoL predictors.

    Conclusion: T2DM negatively impacts the patient's QoL in all aspects of their life. The QoL improvement with age suggests that the older patients had accepted and adapted to their illness. The need to improve the QoL among insulin users was also highlighted.
    Study site: Klinik Kesihatan, Malaysia
  7. Correlates of depression, anxiety and stress among Malaysian university students
    Shamsuddin K, Fadzil F, Ismail WS, Shah SA, Omar K, Muhammad NA, et al.
    Asian J Psychiatr, 2013 Aug;6(4):318-23.
    PMID: 23810140 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2013.01.014
    University students face not only challenges related with independent living, but also academic challenges. This predisposes them to depression, anxiety and stress, which are fairly common.
  8. Fulltext Degraded Historical Document Binarization: A Review on Issues, Challenges, Techniques, and Future Directions
    Sulaiman A, Omar K, Nasrudin MF
    J Imaging, 2019 Apr 12;5(4).
    PMID: 34460486 DOI: 10.3390/jimaging5040048
    In this era of digitization, most hardcopy documents are being transformed into digital formats. In the process of transformation, large quantities of documents are stored and preserved through electronic scanning. These documents are available from various sources such as ancient documentation, old legal records, medical reports, music scores, palm leaf, and reports on security-related issues. In particular, ancient and historical documents are hard to read due to their degradation in terms of low contrast and existence of corrupted artefacts. In recent times, degraded document binarization has been studied widely and several approaches were developed to deal with issues and challenges in document binarization. In this paper, a comprehensive review is conducted on the issues and challenges faced during the image binarization process, followed by insights on various methods used for image binarization. This paper also discusses the advanced methods used for the enhancement of degraded documents that improves the quality of documents during the binarization process. Further discussions are made on the effectiveness and robustness of existing methods, and there is still a scope to develop a hybrid approach that can deal with degraded document binarization more effectively.
  9. Fulltext Dysmenorrhoea and its effects on school activities among adolescent girls in a rural school in Selangor, Malaysia
    Liliwati I, Lee VKM, Omar K
    Medicine & Health, 2007;2(1):42-47.
    MyJurnal
    The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of dysmenorrhoea, its associated factors and its effects on school activities among adolescent girls in a secondary school in a rural district of Selangor, Malaysia. This is a cross-sectional study conducted in a public secondary school. A stratified random sampling of 300 female students (12 to 17 years old) from Form one to Form five classes were selected. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of 20-items was used to collect sociodemographic and menstrual data. Pain intensity for dysmenorrhoea was measured by numerical rating scale. The prevalence of dysmenorrhoea was 62.3%. It was significantly higher in the middle adolescence (15 to 17 years old) age group (p=0.003), girls with regular menstrual cycle (p=0.007) and a positive family history (p
  10. Fulltext Emotional and behavioral problems among adolescent smokers and their help-seeking behavior
    Muthupalaniappen L, Omar J, Omar K, Iryani T, Hamid SN
    Southeast Asian J. Trop. Med. Public Health, 2012 Sep;43(5):1273-9.
    PMID: 23431837
    We carried out a cross sectional study to detect emotional and behavioral problems among adolescents who smoke and their help-seeking behavior. This study was conducted in Sarawak, East Malaysia, between July and September 2006. Emotional and behavioral problems were measured using the Youth Self-Report (YSR/11-18) questionnaire; help seeking behavior was assessed using a help-seeking questionnaire. Three hundred ninety-nine students participated in the study; the smoking prevalence was 32.8%. The mean scores for emotional and behavioral problems were higher among smokers than non-smokers in all domains (internalizing, p = 0.028; externalizing, p = 0.001; other behavior, p = 0.001). The majority of students who smoked (94.7%) did not seek help from a primary health care provider for their emotional or behavioral problems. Common barriers to help-seeking were: the perception their problems were trivial (60.3%) and the preference to solve problems on their own (45.8%). Our findings suggest adolescent smokers in Sarawak, East Malaysia were more likely to break rules, exhibit aggressive behavior and have somatic complaints than non-smoking adolescents. Adolescent smokers preferred to seek help for their problems from informal sources. Physicians treating adolescents should inquire about smoking habits, emotional and behavioral problems and offer counseling if required.
  11. Fulltext Factors influencing insulin acceptance among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in a primary care clinic: a qualitative exploration
    Abu Hassan H, Tohid H, Mohd Amin R, Long Bidin MB, Muthupalaniappen L, Omar K
    BMC Fam Pract, 2013;14:164.
    PMID: 24164794 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2296-14-164
    BACKGROUND: Many Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) patients refuse insulin therapy even when they require this modality of treatment. However, some eventually accept insulin. This study aimed to explore the T2DM patients' reasons for accepting insulin therapy and their initial barriers to use insulin.
    METHODS: This qualitative study interviewed twenty-one T2DM patients at a primary care clinic who had been on insulin for more than a year through three in-depth interviews and three focus group discussions. A semi structured interview protocol was used and the sessions were audio-recorded. Subsequently, thematic analysis was conducted to identify major themes.
    RESULTS: The participants' acceptance of insulin was influenced by their concerns and beliefs about diabetes and insulin. Concerns about complications of poorly controlled diabetes and side effects of other treatment regime had resulted in insulin acceptance among the participants. They also had a strong belief in insulin benefits and effectiveness. These concerns and beliefs were the results of having good knowledge about the diabetes and insulin, experiential learning, as well as doctors' practical and emotional support that helped them to accept insulin therapy and become efficient in self-care management. These factors also allayed their negative concerns and beliefs towards diabetes and insulin, which were their barriers for insulin acceptance as it caused fear to use insulin. These negative concerns were related to injection (self-injection, needle phobia, injection pain), and insulin use (inconvenience, embarrassment, lifestyle restriction, negative social stigma, and poor self-efficacy), whereas the negative beliefs were 'insulin could cause organ damage', 'their diabetes was not serious enough', 'insulin is for life-long', and 'insulin is for more severe disease only'.
    CONCLUSIONS: Exploring patients' concerns and beliefs about diabetes and insulin is crucial to assist physicians in delivering patient-centered care. By understanding this, physicians could address their concerns with aim to modify their patients' misconceptions towards insulin therapy. In addition, continuous educations as well as practical and emotional support from others were found to be valuable for insulin acceptance.
    TRIAL REGISTRATION: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia FF-214-2009.
    Study site: Primary Care clinic, Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (PPUKM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  12. Fulltext Factors influencing late consultation among patients with rectal bleeding in University Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre
    Hashim SM, Omar K, Fah TS, Rashid RA, Daud TI, Shah SA, et al.
    Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2010;11(5):1335-9.
    PMID: 21198288
    BACKGROUND: Patients' delay in the presentation with rectal bleeding had been identified as a factor for late diagnosis of colorectal cancer. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of delay in consulting a medical practitioner and identifying associated factors.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 80 patients with rectal bleeding, aged 40 and above, was conducted between December 2008 and June 2009 in the endoscopy unit, University Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre. The self-administered questionnaire included data on sociodemographic, concern of rectal bleeding, whether patients sought initial advice, any self treatment prior to medical consultation and patients' opinion on causes of their own rectal bleeding.

    RESULTS: The prevalence of delay in the presentation of rectal bleeding was 60%. Patients who were less worried (OR 9.6; 95% CI 3.3-27.5), who did not seek anyoneandapos;s advice (OR 11.8; 95% CI 3.8-36.8) and took some treatment before seeking medical consultation (OR 5.0; 95% CI 1.0-24.1) were significantly more likely to delay. Multiple logistic regression revealed that less worry of rectal bleeding and not seeking anyoneandapos;s advice were important predictors (p<0.05). The majority of patients attributed their bleeding to benign causes.

    CONCLUSION: A high proportion of patients with rectal bleeding in the high risk group delayed in seeking medical advice. Public education needs to focus on interventions to reduce the delay in presenting and diagnosis of colorectal carcinoma.
  13. Fulltext Gaussian smoothing and modified histogram normalization methods to improve neural-biomarker interpretations for dyslexia classification mechanism
    Usman OL, Muniyandi RC, Omar K, Mohamad M
    PLoS One, 2021;16(2):e0245579.
    PMID: 33630876 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245579
    Achieving biologically interpretable neural-biomarkers and features from neuroimaging datasets is a challenging task in an MRI-based dyslexia study. This challenge becomes more pronounced when the needed MRI datasets are collected from multiple heterogeneous sources with inconsistent scanner settings. This study presents a method of improving the biological interpretation of dyslexia's neural-biomarkers from MRI datasets sourced from publicly available open databases. The proposed system utilized a modified histogram normalization (MHN) method to improve dyslexia neural-biomarker interpretations by mapping the pixels' intensities of low-quality input neuroimages to range between the low-intensity region of interest (ROIlow) and high-intensity region of interest (ROIhigh) of the high-quality image. This was achieved after initial image smoothing using the Gaussian filter method with an isotropic kernel of size 4mm. The performance of the proposed smoothing and normalization methods was evaluated based on three image post-processing experiments: ROI segmentation, gray matter (GM) tissues volume estimations, and deep learning (DL) classifications using Computational Anatomy Toolbox (CAT12) and pre-trained models in a MATLAB working environment. The three experiments were preceded by some pre-processing tasks such as image resizing, labelling, patching, and non-rigid registration. Our results showed that the best smoothing was achieved at a scale value, σ = 1.25 with a 0.9% increment in the peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). Results from the three image post-processing experiments confirmed the efficacy of the proposed methods. Evidence emanating from our analysis showed that using the proposed MHN and Gaussian smoothing methods can improve comparability of image features and neural-biomarkers of dyslexia with a statistically significantly high disc similarity coefficient (DSC) index, low mean square error (MSE), and improved tissue volume estimations. After 10 repeated 10-fold cross-validation, the highest accuracy achieved by DL models is 94.7% at a 95% confidence interval (CI) level. Finally, our finding confirmed that the proposed MHN method significantly outperformed the normalization method of the state-of-the-art histogram matching.
  14. Fulltext Is it safe to prescribe triple drugs therapy for lymphatic filariasis infection in Epidermolysis Bullosa patient? a case report
    S. Izuddin, Nur Dalila Zakaria, Nur L. A., Omar K. K.
    Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2019;15(106):85-85.
    MyJurnal
    Introduction:Filariasis is an endemic infection in tropical and subtropical countries. The disease is caused by para-sites from the group filarodidae. Epidermolysis Bullosa, on the other hand is a group of rare genetic skin diseases that characterize by skin blister and erode facilely. Due to rarity of Epidermolysis Bullosa and uncommon occurrence of Filariasis, there is extremely limited case or paper reporting on safety profile of medication that are used to treat Filariasis patient with underlying Epidermolysis Bullosa.Serious adverse event that is anticipated in this cohort of patient are Stevens-Johnson syndrome and Mazotti reaction. Case description: Surveillance activity is necessary in high endemic localities in Sabah in order to control the spread of this mosquitoes-borne disease. The available tool is Brugia RapidTM kit, a test kit that detects filarial antibodies.A 13 year-old boy with underlying Epidemolysis Bullosa Simplex was detected during surveillance activities. It was further confirmed with night blood on microscopic slide that depicted high density of parasite (microfilaria count: 31). The WHO specifically exempted the following groups from the treatment - children under 5 years of age; pregnant women; and seriously ill individuals i.e. those who are having acute or chronic illness that makes them too sick or weak to get out of bed; and those with an illness who are life-dependent on medical intervention. This is because ingestion of the medications can result in adverse events due to the destruction of killed parasites. No guideline is available for treatment of lymphatic filariasis in rare genetic disorders. Conclusion: The recommended dosage for IDA is Ivermectin 3mcg/kg, Diethylcarbamazine 6mg/kg and Albendazole 400mg for positive patient yearly. Patient was admitted in hospital for observation treatment with the suggested dose. From the case study it shows it is safe to treat this cohort patient. However, it is advisable to treat such rare cases by case basis and in comparison to others where treatment is given in the community this patients should be treat in more control environment such in the hospital.
  15. Fulltext Knowledge of colorectal cancer among patients presenting with rectal bleeding and its association with delay in seeking medical advice
    Mohd Hashim S, Tong SF, Omar K, Abdul Rashid MR, Shah SA, Sagap I
    Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2011;12(8):2007-11.
    PMID: 22292642
    BACKGROUND: Knowledge is believed to be a driving factor for patients' early presentation for healthcare. This study was conducted to assess knowledge of colorectal cancer among subjects presenting with rectal bleeding and to determine its association with late presentation.

    METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 80 patients with rectal bleeding, aged 40 and above, was conducted between December 2008 and June 2009 in the endoscopy unit, University Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre. The research instruments used in this study was a self-administered questionnaire including data on duration of rectal bleeding, first medical consultation and knowledge of colorectal cancer.

    RESULTS: Sixty percent of subjects with rectal bleeding delayed seeking medical advice. Subjects were more aware of symptoms of non-colorectal cancers compared to symptoms of colorectal cancer. The majority of subjects (63.8%) correctly identified rectal bleeding as a symptom but were not aware of the best screening method to detect colorectal cancer. Half of the subjects knew increasing age and genetic background to be risk factors for colorectal carcinoma. However, knowledge of colorectal cancer was not found to be significantly associated with delay in seeking help.

    CONCLUSION: Findings indicate poor awareness of colorectal cancer among the subjects. Although public education of colorectal cancer is important for early presentation on rectal bleeding, further studies are advocated to evaluate other factors influencing patients' help seeking behavior other than knowledge.
  16. Fulltext Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Oral Hygiene Among Students of a Private University
    Iqbal MZ, Rathi R, Prajapati SK, Omar K, Bahari MB, Rajan S, et al.
    J Pharm Bioallied Sci, 2021;13(1):123-128.
    PMID: 34084058 DOI: 10.4103/jpbs.JPBS_298_20
    OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice among pre-final and final year students of pharmacy, medicine, biotechnology, and business faculties about oral hygiene.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of students towards oral hygiene at a private university in Malaysia. Validated questionnaires were distributed to a convenient stratified sample of 324 students studying in the different selected faculties, namely pharmacy, medicine, biotechnology, and business, respectively. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Version 24.0 was used to analyze the data.

    RESULTS: With regard to knowledge, upon evaluation, it was seen that the students of the Faculty of Pharmacy had the highest percentage of adequate knowledge, which was statistically significant with a P-value of 0.001 and the effect size of 0.246. On the evaluation of attitudes, it was seen that the Faculty of Biotechnology had the highest positive attitudes. According to race, Malay students had the highest positive attitude among all the races that participated in the study, which showed a P-value of 0.037 with the effect size of 0.034. Regarding practice, the Faculty of Pharmacy had the lowest practice compared with the other faculties. This variable had a P-value of 0.001 and showed to have significance against the practice with an effect size of 0.193.

    CONCLUSION: Overall, a good attitude was seen amongst the students on their oral hygiene. It was also observed that the attitude, knowledge, and practice of the students in a private university increased with an increasing level of education.

  17. Knowledge, attitude and practice in breast-feeding among working mothers in Temerloh, Pahang
    Omar, K.
    Malaysian Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 1998;10(2):40-45.
    MyJurnal
    A cross-sectional study using structured questionnaires was conducted to determine the level of knowledge, attitude and practice on breast-feeding among working mothers. A total of 200 working mothers who attended the Child Health Clinics in Temerloh, for their chil-dren's third DPT/Polio vaccination were interviewed. Eighty-nine percent of the mothers successfully initiat-ed breast-feeding. However, there was a rapid decline in breast-feeding each month especially during the period when the mothers returned to work. Only 33.5% of the mothers had at least one experience in expressing and feeding expressed breast milk to their babies and only 47% reported that they had been taught by health work-ers. The mothers scored highest on the 'benefits of breast-feeding' with a mean knowledge score of 77.9% and lowest on "storage of expressed breast milk" (35.4%). Overall the mothers showed a positive attitude towards breast-feeding. The two main reasons given for stopping breast-feeding were "work" (61.4%) and "insufficient milk" (57.9%). In conclusion, other areas of breast-feeding besides benefits such as "expressing and storing breast milk" and "how" to practise breast-feeding while working away from home are also impor-tant for working mothers.
  18. Fulltext Medicines information provided by pharmaceutical representatives: a comparative study in Australia and Malaysia
    Othman N, Vitry AI, Roughead EE, Ismail SB, Omar K
    BMC Public Health, 2010;10:743.
    PMID: 21118551 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-743
    BACKGROUND: Pharmaceutical representatives provide medicines information on their promoted products to doctors. However, studies have shown that the quality of this information is often low. No study has assessed the medicines information provided by pharmaceutical representatives to doctors in Malaysia and no recent evidence in Australia is present. We aimed to compare the provision of medicines information by pharmaceutical representatives to doctors in Australia and Malaysia.
    METHODS: Following a pharmaceutical representative's visit, general practitioners in Australia and Malaysia who had agreed to participate, were asked to fill out a questionnaire on the main product and claims discussed during the encounter. The questionnaire focused on provision of product information including indications, adverse effects, precautions, contraindications and the provision of information on the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) listings and restrictions (in Australia only). Descriptive statistics were produced. Chi-square analysis and clustered linear regression were used to assess differences in Australia and Malaysia.
    RESULTS: Significantly more approved product information sheets were provided in Malaysia (78%) than in Australia (53%) (P < 0.001). In both countries, general practitioners reported that indications (Australia, 90%, Malaysia, 93%) and dosages (Australia, 76%, Malaysia, 82%) were frequently provided by pharmaceutical representatives. Contraindications, precautions, drug interactions and adverse effects were often omitted in the presentations (range 25% - 41%). General practitioners in Australia and Malaysia indicated that in more than 90% of presentations, pharmaceutical representatives partly or fully answered their questions on contraindications, precautions, drug interactions and adverse effects. More general practitioners in Malaysia (85%) than in Australia (60%) reported that pharmaceutical representatives should have mentioned contraindications, precautions for use, drug interaction or adverse effects spontaneously (P < 0.001). In 48% of the Australian presentations, general practitioners reported the pharmaceutical representatives failed to mention information on PBS listings to general practitioners.
    CONCLUSIONS: Information on indications and dosages were usually provided by pharmaceutical representatives in Australia and Malaysia. However, risk and harmful effects of medicines were often missing in their presentations. Effective control of medicines information provided by pharmaceutical representatives is needed.
  19. Fulltext Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Polyacrylamide Adsorption on Calcite
    Hue KY, Lew JH, Myo Thant MM, Matar OK, Luckham PF, Müller EA
    Molecules, 2023 Aug 31;28(17).
    PMID: 37687196 DOI: 10.3390/molecules28176367
    In poorly consolidated carbonate rock reservoirs, solids production risk, which can lead to increased environmental waste, can be mitigated by injecting formation-strengthening chemicals. Classical atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is employed to model the interaction of polyacrylamide-based polymer additives with a calcite structure, which is the main component of carbonate formations. Amongst the possible calcite crystal planes employed as surrogates of reservoir rocks, the (1 0 4) plane is shown to be the most suitable surrogate for assessing the interactions with chemicals due to its stability and more realistic representation of carbonate structure. The molecular conformation and binding energies of pure polyacrylamide (PAM), hydrolysed polyacrylamide in neutral form (HPAM), hydrolysed polyacrylamide with 33% charge density (HPAM 33%) and sulfonated polyacrylamide with 33% charge density (SPAM 33%) are assessed to determine the adsorption characteristics onto calcite surfaces. An adsorption-free energy analysis, using an enhanced umbrella sampling method, is applied to evaluate the chemical adsorption performance. The interaction energy analysis shows that the polyacrylamide-based polymers display favourable interactions with the calcite structure. This is attributed to the electrostatic attraction between the amide and carboxyl functional groups with the calcite. Simulations confirm that HPAM33% has a lower free energy than other polymers, presumably due to the presence of the acrylate monomer in ionised form. The superior chemical adsorption performance of HPAM33% agrees with Atomic Force Microscopy experiments reported herein.
  20. Fulltext Norms for eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE-Q) among secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Musa, R., Haniff, J., Bujang, M.A., Mohamad, N.A., Omar, K., Radeef, A.S.
    International Medical Journal Malaysia, 2016;15(2):57-61.
    MyJurnal
    Introduction: The Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) has been widely used as a tool to
    detect eating disorders. We aimed to identify the EDE-Q normative data among secondary school students in
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving four secondary schools in an
    urban area. The respondents of secondary school students were selected using stratified sampling. Results:
    There were 298 teenagers 12 to 17 years of age who participated in the study. The EDE-Q mean scores ±
    standard deviation was 1.27 ± 1.08 for the total score (Global Score), 0.78 ± 0.95 for Restraint Domain, 1.02
    ± 1.03 for Eating Concern, 1.76 ± 1.55 for Shape Concern and 1.54 ± 1.43 for Weight Concern. Conclusion:
    Mean values obtained from this study were relatively lower when compared to western populations. Shape
    Concern and Weight Concern had higher scores compared to the other domains. These values are useful for
    EDE-Q interpretation in Malaysia.
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