METHODS: A cross-sectional survey using a self-administered questionnaire was conducted with 300 community pharmacists in the Klang Valley, Malaysia using a stratified sampling approach. The questionnaire consisted of 36 questions with three sections: demographic data, adoption of mHealth applications and perception towards mHealth applications. Descriptive and inferential tests as well as exploratory factor analysis were used to analyse the data.
KEY FINDINGS: Adoption of mHealth applications by community pharmacists for both professional and personal use was relatively high at 79.7%. Utilised mHealth applications were primarily from the medical references category, while applications for patient monitoring, personal care and fitness were used to a lesser degree. Among mHealth application users, only 65.7% recommended them to their patients. Overall perception towards mHealth applications was positive, but perception towards the benefits and favour of mHealth applications for their patients was lower. This was corroborated by the factor analysis, which identified four main factors explaining 59.9% of variance in the dataset. These factors were perception towards use in their own professional practice, perception on benefits and use in their patients, perception on specific features of mHealth applications, and reliability of mHealth applications.
CONCLUSIONS: Adoption of mHealth applications among community pharmacists in Malaysia is high. Community pharmacists are more likely to use mHealth applications professionally and personally but less likely to recommend them to patients due to less favourable perceptions on how patients will benefit from mHealth applications.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the clinical characteristics, culprit drugs and outcome of patients with AGEP.
METHODS: A retrospective note review of all AGEP patients seen from 2001-2015.
RESULTS: Among 21 AGEP patients, 76% were Malays, 9.5% Chinese, 9.5% Indians, and 5% Iban. Sixteen were females and 5 were males. Median age of patients was 40 years (IQR: 26). The main culprit drug was amoxicillin (10 cases), followed by cloxacillin (three cases), phenytoin (two cases) and one case each of carbamazepine, sulphasalazine, allopurinol, cephalexin, ceftriaxone, celecoxib and herbal product. The median time from drug initiation to onset of AGEP was 3 days (IQR: 5.5). Fever was documented in 52.4 %, mucosal involvement 9.5%, purpura 4.7% and blisters 4.7%. Neutrophilia was observed in 63.6% of patients and eosinophilia in 28.5%. While most patients required admission (67%), all achieved complete recovery within 15 days without any sequela.
CONCLUSIONS: AGEP predominantly affects Malay females in this study. The most common culprit drug was amoxicillin. Our patients exhibited the classic clinical manifestations of AGEP and confirmed the generally benign nature of this reaction upon drug withdrawal. Although the overall prognosis is good, prompt diagnosis of AGEP is important because drug withdrawal is the mainstay therapy.
SUBJECTS/METHODS: We used a cross-over designed feeding trial in 53 healthy Asian men and women (20-50 years) to test this hypothesis by exchanging 20% energy of palm olein (PO; control) with randomly interesterified PO (IPO) or high oleic acid sunflower oil (HOS). After a 2-week run-in period on PO, participants were fed PO, IPO and HOS for 6 week consecutively in randomly allocated sequences. Fasting (midpoint and endpoint) and postprandial blood at the endpoint following a test meal (3.54 MJ, 14 g protein, 85 g carbohydrate and 50 g fat as PO) were collected for the measurement of C-peptide, insulin, glucose, plasma glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide and glucagon-like peptide-1, lipids and apolipoproteins; pre-specified primary and secondary outcomes were postprandial changes in C-peptide and plasma glucose.
RESULTS: Low density lipoprotein cholesterol was 0.3 mmol/l (95% confidence interval (95% CI)) 0.1, 0.5; P<0.001) lower on HOS than on PO or IPO as predicted, indicating good compliance to the dietary intervention. There were no significant differences (P=0.58) between diets among the 10 male and 31 female completers in the incremental area under the curve (0-2 h) for C-peptide in nmol.120 min/l: GM (95% CI) were PO 220 (196, 245), IPO 212 (190, 235) and HOS 224 (204, 244). Plasma glucose was 8% lower at 2 h on IPO vs PO and HOS (both P<0.05).
CONCLUSION: Palmitic acid in the sn-2 position does not adversely impair insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 226 respondents, using a questionnaire which had 4 sections: socio-demographic data, personal information, family information and social information. Data was analyzed using SPSS® version 16. For categorical variables, comparisons were made using Chi-square and for numerical variables a t-test was performed.
RESULTS: The current smoker prevalence rate was 20.8% which showed a significant association between smoking and individual factors: level of knowledge on the effects of smoking (p < 0.05), significant association was seen between smoking and marital status of parents, smoking status of male siblings and various other aspects of the individuals themselves.
CONCLUSIONS: Concerted efforts involving various parties should be taken to curb or prevent this problem or the number of teenage smokers in the country will increase. This in the long run will invite problems to the well being of the adolescents themselves, their families, community and the nation as a whole.
OBJECTIVE: This study was looking at the acceptance towards using social network information system among public health workers.
MATERIALS AND METHOD: This study was done on 205 Malaysian One Health University Network (MyOHUN) members through email and physical survey.
RESULTS: Results show that 62.4% public health workers accepted the use technology. The acceptance was shown to be associated with performance expectancy (p<0.05). However, unlike the very famous Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, the acceptance of social network information system was not associated with effort expectancy, social factors, facilitating conditions and socio-demographic factors. Therefore, it is suggested that social network information system be developed by the authorities in Malaysia, and be developed in a way that the system could strongly increase performance in detection of outbreak earlier than the current normal pathways. As such the system to be accepted and used, it must be sensitive, specific and be able to detect influenza outbreak early CONCLUSION: The development of social network information system is feasible as it is highly accepted and it's potential to improve early detection of influenza outbreak.
METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 269 older persons with diabetes in all government health clinics in Kuantan using Diabetes Quality of Life questionnaire. SPSS version 23 was used for the statistical analysis.
RESULTS: Majority of the respondents were females (61%), Malays (84.8%), pensioners (54.3%) with education up to primary school (52%) and are staying with family members (93.7%). Most of the patients were on two antidiabetic agents (48%) followed by a single antidiabetic agent (32%). Despite the risk of hypoglycaemia, 0.4% of them are on glibenclamide. The use of insulin is still common among 21% of them that are on intermediate-acting insulin, 15.6% on premixed insulin and 7.8% on short-acting insulin. Those taking a higher number of antidiabetic agents were found to be associated with poorer quality of life (p=0.001) compared to those taking one or two antidiabetic medications. Those on insulin also have significantly poorer quality of life score (p=0.012).
CONCLUSION: Despite aiming for controlled diabetes, older persons suffer poor quality of life with further intensification of their antidiabetic medications according to the guidelines. This includes the complexity of insulin usage and polypharmacy, which contribute to the low quality of life score.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study employed a validated, self-administered questionnaire which was administered to 543 first-year pharmacy students from nine different private universities. Factor analysis was utilised to extract key factors from the responses. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data.
KEY FINDINGS: Eight factors motivating students' decision to study pharmacy emerged from the responses, accounting for 63.8% of the variance observed. Students were primarily motivated by intrinsic interests, with work conditions and profession attributes also exerting significant influence. In terms of choice of private university, nine factors were identified, accounting for 73.8% of the variance observed. The image of the school and university were most influential factors in this context, followed by university safety, programme attributes and financial factors.
CONCLUSIONS: First-year pharmacy students in the private higher education sector are motivated by intrinsic interest when choosing to study pharmacy over other courses, while their choice of private university is influenced primarily by the image of the school and university.
METHODOLOGY: A total of 700 maxillary premolars were examined using CBCT in an Egyptian subpopulation. The number of roots was identified, and root canal configurations were classified according to Vertucci's classification and a new system for classifying root and canal morphology. In addition, the position where roots bifurcated and the levels where canals merged or diverged were identified. Fisher's exact test and independent t-test were used for statistical analysis, and the level of significance was set at 0.05 (P = 0.05).
RESULTS: More than half of maxillary first premolars were double-rooted, and the majority of maxillary second premolars were single-rooted (P
METHODS: The study was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire. Knowledge of PIMs was assessed using 10 clinical vignettes based on the 2015 Beers Criteria. Practice behaviour towards older customers was assessed using 10 items with a 5-point Likert scale. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data.
RESULTS: A total of 277 community pharmacists participated in the study. Only 27.1% of the pharmacists were aware of Beers Criteria, and of these, only 37.3% were aware of the latest 2015 update. The respondents demonstrated moderate knowledge of PIMs with a mean total score of 5.46 ± 1.89 out of a maximum of 10. Pharmacists who were aware of Beers Criteria had significantly higher scores (6.31 vs 5.14, P
CASE REPORT: We reported a rare case of Ewing Sarcoma in a 62-year-old woman who had an unusual clinical presentation. She had right painless buttock swelling only for a month. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed soft tissue sarcoma originated from right gluteal muscle. The diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma (ES) was made in a limited diagnostic material in an initial tru-cut biopsy, followed by an excision supported by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization (FISH).
DISCUSSION: The purpose of this study is to document ES in an adult woman and its diagnostic challenges in histopathologic perspective.