Aim: The objective of the present study was to assess the validity and reliability of Malay version of the QOLLTI-F questionnaire.
Methods: A total of 80 Malay caregivers of cancer patients in an outpatient oncology clinic were enrolled in this study. A translated QOLLTI-F questionnaire of 16 items was used in order to assess their quality of life. Demographic characteristics were recorded. Both face and content validity of the translated version were carried out by professionals and the construct validity of the questionnaire was assessed by exploratory factor analysis.
Results: Exploratory factor analysis led to the extraction of seven factors and this was consistent with the English version. Cronbach Alpha coefficient showed good consistency of the questions within the sub-scales (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7).
Conclusion: This study was confined to a Malay population, and the analyses were potentially limited by a small sample size .Nevertheless, the translated questionnaire demonstrated valid and reliable psychometric properties when administered to Malay caregivers. Future studies are needed to see if this instrument can fit other samples in different settings and populations.
Study site: Oncology clinic, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM), Kelantan, Malaysia
Peripheral vestibular disorder (PVD) is serious and common. Clinically, giving an accurate diagnosis of PVD can be challenging. Vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) is an objective test to evaluate the integrity of vestibular organs, particularly saccule and/or inferior vestibular nerve. This study was performed to determine the sensitivity and specificity of VEMP using different stimuli. Fourty normal and 65 PVD subjects who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were recruited. While sitting comfortably, VEMP waveforms were recorded with active electrode on sternocleidomastoid muscle and negative electrode on upper forehead. Tone bursts (500, 750 and 1000 Hz) were delivered via headphones at 90 dBnHL and 5/s presentation rate. VEMP parameters for each stimulus (amplitude and latency of P1 and N1 peak) were analyzed accordingly. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) was performed to determine the sensitivity and specificity of VEMP at different test frequencies. N1 amplitude of 750 Hz stimulus produced the most ideal sensitivity (65% on right and 63% on left) and specificity (83% on right and 78% on left). The importance of using a few tone bursts in VEMP test in order to minimize the false negative in cases might be encountered in clinics as the certain tone burst had inadequate sensitivity in detecting PVD cases. The 750 Hz stimulus produced the most ideal VEMP with adequate values of sensitivity and specificity, at least in this study.
Evaluating the satisfaction of caregivers is a highly subjective procedure and there is a need for a culturally appropriate, validated and sufficiently tested measurement tool to identify their needs in a clinical setting in order to improve the quality of care. FAMCARE is a self-report scale assessing patient/ caregivers’ satisfaction with outpatient care. This study evaluated the validity and internal consistency of a Malay-language version of the FAMCARE scale amongst Malaysian informal caregivers. A total of 45 Malaysian informal caregivers in the outpatient oncology clinic, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia completed the questionnaire. Responses were checked for construct validity (including exploratory factor analysis to check the factor structure of the scale) and internal reliability. The 20 items of the FAMCARE scale were subjected to principal axis factoring (PAF) using SPSS, starting with assessing suitability of the data for factor analysis. Correlation matrix showed the presence of many coefficients of 0.3 and above. The Kaiser–Mayer-Olkin value was 0.79 and the Barlett’s Test of sphericity was highly significant (p< .001). PAF showed the presence of four components with eigenvalues exceeding 1, explaining 60.8% of the cumulative variance. The items were loaded in four domains with satisfactory inter-factor correlations. The general FAMCARE questionnaire as a whole was found to have high internal reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.93). The Malay-language version of the FAMCARE scale appeared as a valid and reliable tool for assessing informal caregiver’s satisfaction in outpatient settings, although it would be preferable to eliminate weak items which have low factor loading.
Introduction: Group B Streptococcus (GBS), infection and recurrence in newborns and pregnant women can lead to
chronic medical illness resulting in significant morbidity, and mortality. Pathogenesis of GBS may be due to reasons
such as activation of the immune system, followed by the production of inflammatory markers and toxic components
by immune cells including macrophages. Methods: The studies on invasive and colonizing GBS strains inoculated
either with peripheral or brain macrophages, the expression of nitric oxide (NO), cell viability, and CD40 were
also measured by Griess assay, methyl tetrazolium assay (MTT), and flow cytometry, respectively. Furthermore, the
clinical manifestations of the selected patients were also assessed for this study. Results: Outcome of inflammatory
markers studies, after GBS inoculation indicated that, invasive GBS strains induced higher inflammatory markers
in comparison to colonizing GBS strains. Furthermore, patients’ clinical data showed that patients with invasive
GBS infections had severe condition unlike among patients with colonizing GBS strains. The fatality rate in patients
with invasive GBS strain were 30.8% while there was no death among carriers. Conclusion: This study, aimed to
understand the immune response to GBS, and strengthen the knowledge on GBS pathogenesis. It was concluded
that invasive GBS strains not only showed higher expression of inflammatory markers on immune cells but also had
higher pathogenesis effect in comparison to colonizing GBS strains.
Induction of c-fos in the spinal cord due to pain is well established. This study aims to look at the effects of acute swim stress on Fos-like immunoreactivity (FLI) induced by formalin and how it is modulated by ketamine and morphine. Acutely-stressed and non-stressed adult male Sprague Dawley rats were pretreated with intraperitoneal injection of ketamine 5 mg/kg (Ketava, Atlantic Lab), morphine 10 mg/kg (Rhotard, Custom Pharmaceutical), or saline, 5 minutes prior to experimentation. Rats were acutely stressed by swimming for 3 min in 20 degrees C water. Dilute formalin (Formaldehyde, Merck) was injected to the hindpaw and the formalin score recorded. Rats were then sacrificed and spinal cords (L4-L5) removed for immunohistochemical analysis of FLI. Two-way ANOVA showed significant effects of stress, drug and stress-drug interactions in formalin test and FLI. Both morphine and ketamine produced analgesia in the formalin test. In the saline stressed group, FLI was suppressed on the ipsilateral side (p<0.01) but increased on the contralateral side (p<0.01) compared with non-stressed saline. In morphine and ketamine stressed groups, FLI was increased on both ipsilateral and contralateral sides for morphine (ipsilateral: p<0.05; contralateral: p<0.001) and ketamine (ipsilateral: p<0.05, contralateral: p<0.05) compared with their corresponding non-stressed groups. In conclusion, presence of stress may lead to discrepancy between behavioural manifestation of pain and c-fos induction in the spinal cord.