METHODS: This was a prospective multicenter study conducted in Sindh. Children aged ≤14 years enrolled from June to November 2016 were included. A structured data collection tool was used to gather information with respect to patients' socio-demographic, clinical and microbiological data. Additionally, to collect the information related to socio-economic and education level of caregivers, validated questionnaire was administered to the caregivers. Treatment outcomes were assessed according to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The relationship of unsuccessful treatment outcome with socio-demographic and clinical attributes of TB patients was analyzed using logistic regression model.
RESULTS: Childhood TB represented 19.3% (508/2634) of all TB cases in selected hospitals. Of these, 268/508 (52.8%) were females and one third of the children were aged ≤2 years (34.3%). In multivariate analysis, pulmonary smear positive TB (PTB+) (AOR = 5.910, 95%CI = 1.64-21.29), those with adverse drug reactions (AOR = 11.601, 95%CI = 4.06-33.12) and those who had known TB contacts (AOR = 3.128, 95%CI = 1.21-8.06) showed statistically significant association with unsuccessful treatment outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS: The high proportion of childhood TB cases (19.3%) demonstrates the continuation of TB transmission in the study setting. Furthermore, an increased focus on PTB+ patients, those with adverse drug reactions and household contact with TB is warranted.
METHODS: Data from a retrospective review of 13-year S.suis patient records in a tertiary hospital in Chiang Mai, Northern, Thailand was obtained. Univariate and multivariate logistic regressions were employed to develop a predictive model. The clinical risk score was constructed from the coefficients of significant predictors. Area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AuROC) was identified to verify the model discriminative performance. Bootstrap technique with 1000-fold bootstrapping was used for internal validation.
KEY RESULTS: Among 133 patients, the incidence of hearing loss was 31.6% (n = 42). Significant predictors for S. suis hearing loss were meningitis, raw pork consumption, and vertigo. The predictive score ranged from 0-4 and correctly classified 81.95% patients as being at risk of S.suis hearing loss. The model showed good power of prediction (AuROC: 0.859; 95%CI 0.785-0.933) and calibration (AuROC: 0.860; 95%CI 0.716-0.953).
CONCLUSIONS: To our best knowledge, this is the first risk scoring system development for S.suis hearing loss. We identified meningitis, raw pork consumption and vertigo as the main risk factors of S.suis hearing loss. Future studies are needed to optimize the developed scoring system and investigate its external validity before recommendation for use in clinical practice.
METHODS: This was a nationwide cross-sectional study using two-stage stratified random sampling. In total, 3977 older adults aged ≥60 years were involved in this study. Socio-demography characteristics were obtained using self-administered questionnaire. AO was measured using waist circumference and classified according to the cut-off values of ≥90 cm for men and ≥80 cm for women based on the WHO recommendation. Descriptive and multiple logistic regression analysis using a complex sample design were performed for data analysis.
RESULTS: Our findings showed that 2371 (67.3%) older adults had AO. Older adults who were from urban areas (69.7%), of women (78.4%), married (66.7%), with tertiary education (73.6%) and unemployed (70.9%) had the highest prevalence of AO. Those from urban areas (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.29), women (aOR = 3.12), unemployed (aOR = 1.14), diagnosed with hypertension (aOR = 1.56) and diabetes mellitus (aOR = 2.08) were also significantly associated with a higher risk of AO.
CONCLUSIONS: This study identified several risk factors that are associated with AO among older adults in Malaysia. Such information is important and needed to improve the healthcare system systematically, enable nutrition screening and appropriate intervention to combat the growing AO in Malaysia. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2020; 20: 68-72.
OBJECTIVES: The objective of the present study was to assess the ability to pay among Malaysian households as preparation for a future national health financing scheme.
METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study involving representative samples of 774 households in Peninsular Malaysia.
FINDINGS: A majority of households were found to have the ability to pay for their health care. Household expenditure on health care per month was between MYR1 and MYR2000 with a mean (standard deviation [SD]) of 73.54 (142.66), or in a percentage of per-month income between 0.05% and 50% with mean (SD) 2.74 (5.20). The final analysis indicated that ability to pay was significantly higher among younger and higher-income households.
CONCLUSIONS: Sociodemographic and socioeconomic statuses are important eligibility factors to be considered in planning the proposed national health care financing scheme to shield the needed group from catastrophic health expenditures.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This study aimed to determine the most efficient and effective management of stagnant and shortage drugs by comparing three pharmacy logistic methods; the economic order quantity (EOQ), minimum-maximum stock level (MMSL), and the traditional consumption of drug inventory, at RA Basoeni Hospital, Mojokerto. Drug inventory was analyzed to calculate the opportunity loss, opportunity cost, and proportions of both stagnant and shortage drugs.
RESULTS: We found that EOQ and MMSL performed best for control of stagnant drugs and shortage drugs, respectively. Both methods had proved as effective pharmacy logistic planning. In addition, EOQ produced the lowest opportunity cost for stagnant drugs besides the lowest opportunity loss for shortage drugs.
CONCLUSION: The study concluded that EOQ is the most effective and efficient method to manage stagnant and shortage drugs at hospital pharmacy.
Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to adult Asian patients with dyslipidemia at two primary care clinics (polyclinics) in northeastern Singapore. The demographic and clinical data for this sub-population with both T2DM and dyslipidemia were collated with laboratory and treatment information retrieved from their electronic health records. The combined data was then analyzed to determine the proportion of patients who attained triple treatment goals, and logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with this outcome.
Results: 665 eligible patients [60.5% female, 30.5% Chinese, 35% Malays, and 34.4% Indians] with a mean age of 60.6 years were recruited. Of these patients, 71% achieved LDL-C ≤2.6 mmol/L, 70.4% had BP
OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence and factors associated with APOs in the multi-ethnic SLE populations in Malaysia.Methodology: This was a retrospective review of the consecutive SLE patients who attended the outpatient clinic in two major rheumatology centres from January 2016 until December 2019 with complete pre-pregnancy, antenatal and intra-partum records. APOs include pregnancy loss, prematurity, pre-eclampsia, intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR) and maternal death. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression with generalised estimating equation (GEE) analyses were performed to determine the factors associated with APOs.
RESULTS: A total of 153 patients with 240 pregnancies were included and the majority of the patients were Malay (69.9%), followed by Chinese (24.2%) and Indian (5.9%). The prevalence of APOs was 61.7% with the commonest complication being prematurity (28.3%), followed by pregnancy loss (24.6%) and pre-eclampsia (21.8%). Logistic regression model-based GEE analysis revealed that the independent predictors of APOs were active haematological system during pregnancy, pre-pregnancy active disease, Indian patients and positive lupus anticoagulant. Hydroxychloroquine use was associated with lower APOs including pre-eclampsia, prematurity and IUGR in the univariate analyses but it was no longer significant in the GEE analysis.
CONCLUSION: The prevalence of APOs was high particularly among the Indian patients. Positive lupus anticoagulant and pre-pregnancy active disease were the factors strongly associated with APOs in our multi-ethnic cohort. Hydroxychloroquine may protect against APOs but further larger studies are needed to confirm this.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April to October 2018 among 479 adolescents aged 17-19 years old from seven institutions of higher learning in Kuantan. Body weight status was described as body mass index (BMI). Weight and height were measured, and BMI was calculated. Validated, self-administered Figure Rating Scale (FRS) questionnaires were used. Agreement between BMI and body weight perception was calculated using Kappa statistics. Logistic regression was employed to examine the association between body weight perception and sociodemographic variables.
RESULTS: More than one-third (35.3%) of the respondents misjudged their own body weight. More than one third of the respondents (38.7%) who were underweight, misperceived themselves as having normal weight whilst 31.7% of obese respondents identified themselves as overweight. The agreement between body weight perception and body mass index was moderate (k0.46, p<0.01).
CONCLUSION: Body weight perception was in moderate agreement with actual weight in late adolescents. Accurate body weight perception is an important factor in late adolescent's weight management behaviour. Hence, health education related to body weight management should be emphasized among this age group.
METHOD: In this work, resting-state EEG-derived features were utilized as input data to the proposed feature selection and classification method. The aim was to perform automatic classification of AUD patients and healthy controls. The validation of the proposed method involved real-EEG data acquired from 30 AUD patients and 30 age-matched healthy controls. The resting-state EEG-derived features such as synchronization likelihood (SL) were computed involving 19 scalp locations resulted into 513 features. Furthermore, the features were rank-ordered to select the most discriminant features involving a rank-based feature selection method according to a criterion, i.e., receiver operating characteristics (ROC). Consequently, a reduced set of most discriminant features was identified and utilized further during classification of AUD patients and healthy controls. In this study, three different classification models such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naïve Bayesian (NB), and Logistic Regression (LR) were used.
RESULTS: The study resulted into SVM classification accuracy=98%, sensitivity=99.9%, specificity=95%, and f-measure=0.97; LR classification accuracy=91.7%, sensitivity=86.66%, specificity=96.6%, and f-measure=0.90; NB classification accuracy=93.6%, sensitivity=100%, specificity=87.9%, and f-measure=0.95.
CONCLUSION: The SL features could be utilized as objective markers to screen the AUD patients and healthy controls.