AIMS: A qualitative study to explore the knowledge, current dietary practices, and the barriers and enablers for dietary self-care management in persons with T2DM.
METHODS: In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews were conducted among 35 participants with T2DM who scored minimally and optimally in the Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire (DSMQ). Interviews were conducted using a validated interview guide. In-depth interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed to verbatim and thematically analysed.
RESULTS: The study included 20 males and 15 females. The three major themes derived in the study. Firstly, "Knowledge, Interpretation and Information" the majority of the participants have understood the influence of diet on control of blood glucose level includes food choices and quantum of food. Secondly, "Current Dietary Practices-Preferences, Availability of food and Convenience influence dietary practices': All participants had their own belief on the side effects and benefits of certain food items. Most of the participants followed a three-meal pattern: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Finally, Barriers and Enablers in dietary self-management practice. Knowledge, physical and emotional factors, behaviour, planning were the intrinsic factors. Elements of the research, social support, season and climate, food environment were the extrinsic factors and communication, and financial management was the intermediate influences observed.
CONCLUSION: The themes generated by this research provide insight into self-management and patient expectations in dietary matters. It would be desirable for physicians and health care providers to be aware of these practices when advising people with T2DM on dietary self - management.
DESIGN: Exploratory cross-sectional survey administered by trained interviewers among participants of a health screening program.
SETTING: A rural plantation estate in the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia.
PARTICIPANTS: One hundred and thirty out of 142 adults above 18 years old who attended the program.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Percentages of respondents reporting realised access and unmet need to health care, determinants of both access indicators and reasons for unmet need. Realised access associated with need but not predisposing or enabling factors and unmet need not associated with any variables were considered equitable.
RESULTS: A total of 88 (67.7%) respondents had visited a doctor (realised access) in the past 6 months and 24.8% (n = 31) experienced unmet need in the past 12 months. Using logistic regression, realised access was associated with presence of chronic disease (OR 6.97, P RM 2000 per month) (OR 51.27, P
METHODS: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional survey, conducted through face-to-face interviews using prevalidated structured questionnaire. Returned questionnaires were double-checked for accuracy. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23 was used for statistical analysis.
RESULTS: Total of 301 valid questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 100% in which 73.4% men and 26.6% women participated. More than half of the respondents were university graduates. Interestingly, 83.4% of the interviewees purchased medicines on the prescription of which 47.2% were university graduates, while 14.6% purchased medicine over the counter. Among the respondents, 46.5/100 purchased antibiotics and the remaining purchased NSAIDs, anti-hypertensive and anti-diabetic medicines. Significantly, 97/100 checked the expiry date of medicine before buying. Majority (95.3%) of the respondents' stored medicines at home. 77.7% of the respondents discarded the expired medicines in household trash. Majority of respondents held government responsible for creation of awareness for proper medicine disposal. Almost entire sample (98%) felt that improper disposal of unused and expired medicines can affect the environment and health.
CONCLUSION: Gaps exist in practices, therefore robust, safe and cost-effective pharmaceutical waste management program supported with media campaign is needed. Healthcare practitioners and community pharmacists should offer training to educate customers on standard medicine disposal practices.
METHODS: An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study design was used to recruit a purposive sample of foster carers in Tower Hamlets, United Kingdom, from a range of backgrounds (maximum variation sampling). Participants were aged 21 years and older and provided full-time foster care for children for a minimum of 1 year. The foster carers took part in focus groups that were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis followed a five-step IPA process, which included reading the transcripts, note taking, identifying emerging themes, connecting related themes and writing up the final themes. Iterative data gathering and analysis continued to reach thematic saturation.
RESULTS: Three focus groups were conducted, involving a total of 12 foster carers. Eight of the 12 participants had fostered children for more than 10 years and they were currently fostering 22 children aged five to 18 years old. Four themes emerged from within the context of the supportive and nurturing foster family environment that described how foster carers' responded to and managed the oral health of their foster children. Foster carers had adopted an oral health caregiving role, "in loco parentis" responding to the poor oral health of their vulnerable foster children. They were hypervigilant about establishing and monitoring children's oral health routines and taking their children to see a dentist; these were seen as an integral part of being good foster carers. They were knowledgeable about the causes of children's oral ill health, gained from their own dental experiences and from looking after their own children. Foster carers had experienced tensions while adopting this oral health caregiving role with dentists who had refused to see younger children. Foster carers had also experienced tensions with teenage foster children who questioned their parental authority and legitimate right to set rules about smoking and healthy eating.
CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to explore foster carers' oral health perspectives and the foster family environment within the oral health context. It highlights the unrecognized and important role that foster carers have in improving the oral health of vulnerable children. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between foster carers and dentists and to support the development of health and social care interventions to improve foster children's oral health.
METHODS: The scoping review was conducted based on the framework by Arksey and O'Malley. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analysis (PRISMA) diagram was used as a guide to record the review process. Articles from year 2008 until 2017 on overweight and obesity among adults aged 18 years and above were retrieved based on the keywords using electronic databases (Embase/Ovid, Pubmed, Cochrane library and Google Scholar). Local journals, Nutrition Research in Malaysia Biblography (2011 and 2016), online local theses databases, virtual library databases were also included in the searches. Consultations with relevant key informants from the National Institutes of Health and local universities were also conducted. Search activities were managed using Endnote software and MS Excelsheet.
RESULTS: The characteristics of the results were described based on the objectives of the review. A total of 2004 articles and reports were retrieved, and 188 articles related to obesity in Malaysia were included in the final review. Scopes and topics of obesity research based on the Nutrition Research Priorities in Malaysia (NRPM) for 11th Malaysia Plan were obesity prevalence, weight loss intervention, association of physical activities and dietary factors with obesity. The majority of obesity research among adults in Malaysia was cross sectional studies and only a small number of intervention studies, qualitative studies and systematic review were indentified. Research gaps were identified in order to make useful recommendations to the stakeholders.
CONCLUSIONS: In the past decade, there has been an emerging evidence on obesity research among adults in Malaysia. More obesity research needs to be conducted particularly on obesity intervention among specific gender, qualitative studies, economic cost and genetic factors of obesity.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study design with mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches was employed and data collection was carried out primarily using self-administered questionnaire.
RESULTS: Approximately half (52.5%, n = 74) of all respondents (n = 141) reported having personally encountered at least one case of academic dishonesty involving their peers. The results also revealed the significantly higher prevalence of various forms of academic misconduct among healthcare academics compared to their non-healthcare counterparts. Although respondents were generally conscious of the negative implications associated with academic dishonesty, more than half of all cases of misconduct were not reported due to the indifferent attitude among academics. Low levels of self-discipline and integrity were found to be the major factors leading to academic misdeeds and respondents opined that university managements should be more proactive in addressing this issue.
CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of this study should serve as a clarion call for all relevant stakeholders to start making immediate amends in order to improve the current state of affairs in academia.
METHODS: We randomly sampled 351 people with localised melanoma [American Joint Cancer Committee (AJCC) substages 0 - II] who had not had recurrent or new primary melanoma diagnosed from a total of 902 people diagnosed and treated for localised melanoma at a specialist centre in 2014. We interviewed participants by telephone about their experience of follow-up in the past year, and documented the proportion of patients who were undertaking shared care follow-up with a GP. We also recorded the frequency and type of investigations during follow-up. We calculated weighted estimates that are representative of the full inception cohort.
RESULTS: Of the 351 people who were invited to participate, 230 (66%) people consented to the telephone interview. The majority undertook shared care follow-up with a GP (61%). People who choose to have shared care follow-up with a GP are more likely to be male (p = 0.006), have lower AJCC stage (p for trend = 0.02), reside in more remote areas (p for trend