Childhood brain injury is an important and complicated public health issue worldwide. Extensive work has been done in this field. This review highlights issues that are frequently misinterpreted or overlooked in the management of childhood brain injury. The incidence of traumatic brain injury is higher than non-traumatic brain injury. However it is frequently over-reported due to various confounding factors. In ascertaining the severity of injury, assessment of brainstem functions is important and should be included in routine clinical assessment. Most rehabilitative efforts are usually aimed at improving the physical outcome. However, non-physical sequelae are also common and may be more disabling with significant impact on the learning and functioning of the child. These areas, which include depression, cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life of children, should not be overlooked in the management of childhood brain injury. In addition to caregiver’s stress, family dynamic and siblings’ well-being also play a crucial role in the recovery process of the child. By highlighting the frequently missed issues in the management of childhood brain injury, it is hoped that clinicians and professionals could pay more attention to these issues and provide a comprehensive medical care for the patients and their families.
Production Sharing Contract (PSC) is one of the petroleum agreements mode that
are being utilized in many parts of the world in enabling exploration, development
and production of the petroleum resources at the respective locations. It was first
introduced in Indonesia in 1966, and followed by Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and
Brunei. One of interesting aspects of PSC management is the operatorship
transferhandling when a PSC is nearing its expiry. When the time come, the
current PSC contractor as operator has the option to relinquish it to the host
authority to be handed over to other operator, farm it out to the other PSC
contractor to reduce the risk exposure or continue operating under a new PSC
terms. The most challenging will be to relinquish the operatorship to another
operator whereby several complexities will need to be adequately addressed to
ensure benefit preservation to the host authority, incoming operator and
outgoing operator. Therefore there is a need to adhere to key factors or enablers
to administer the operatorship transfer exercise if it occurs in the near future. The
key enablers would be able to address the operatorship transfer exercise
effectively with the objective to alleviate complications to the host authority,
outgoing operator and incoming operator. With the emphasized in the PETRONAS
Procedure & Guideline for Upstream Activities together with three case studies,
this paper proposed several key enablers to be considered for a PSC successful
operatorship transfer which is human resources, data management, asset
reliability and integrity management, supply chain management and good
relationship between parties. With identified key factors, it is hoped that any PSC
operatorship transfer will be able to be managed smoothly and will ensure
benefits to all parties concerned.
Assertive community treatment (ACT) is one of the most important elements of mental health care reform in Malaysia. Many studies worldwide have reliably found that ACT has positive impact on several outcome domains such as reduced hospitalization rate, improvement of symptoms and quality of life. This study aimed to assess the outcome of ACT in the aspect of symptom remission and its influencing factors among patients with schizophrenia in the urban city of Kuala Lumpur. A cross sectional study was conducted on 155 patients with schizophrenia who received ACT in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). The selection was made by simple random sampling. The abbreviated Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was used to determine the status of symptom remission. The socio demographic and relevant clinical data were also assessed. A total of 76% (118) was noted to be in remission. According to logistic regression, the strongest predictor of patients receiving ACT with symptom remission was having good social support (p<0.001) and with higher educational level (p=0.024). The study revealed the effectiveness of ACT in terms of high prevalence of patients with symptom remission. This was despite the model of ACT being studied not fulfilling all fidelity measurements of the standard version of the service. The finding would hopefully act as a propeller for further development in this service area. However, the study
needs to be replicated through studies with better designs and involving more psychiatric centers.
Objectives: Posttraumatic growth (PTG) is the experience of positive psychological growth as a result of struggle with highly challenging life crises. This study was conducted to investigate the degree of PTG and its associated factors, as well as to identify which positive psychological parameters most significantly associated with greater PTG among Malaysian cancer patients. Design, sample, & methods: This cross-sectional survey included 195 patients with different cancer diagnoses. Perceived spousal support, level of hope, level of optimism, and PTG were measured using various validated indexes. Findings: The total mean score for PTG Inventory-Short Form (PTGI-SF) was 39.87 (±9.09). Female gender, Islamic religious belief, and having higher level of hope and greater spousal support were associated with a higher PTGI-SF score, and the most significant predictor was the hope scale. Conclusions: Malaysian cancer patients exhibited a high level of PTG, and hope was the positive psychological factor which was most significantly associated with PTG. Implications for psychosocial providers: Psychosocial interventions that promote positive psychology should be included in the treatment for cancer patients.
The majority of prevention and intervention research in problem gambling (PG) has focused on identifying negative risk factors. However, not all at-risk individuals go on to develop anticipated disorders and many thrive in spite of them. In healthcare settings, PG and other disorders are typically conceptualized from the biomedical perspective that frame disorders as something negative residing within the individual and reduction in negativity is seen as success. Indeed, this problem-focused conceptualization may be adequate in many cases as reducing PG behaviour is undoubtedly an important outcome, but the focus on negativity alone is too narrow to capture the complexity of human behaviour. Hence, this study attempts to bridge the gap in literature by providing an evaluation of the predictive ability of the positive dispositions on problem gambling severity, gambling-related cognitions, and gambling urges. The positive psychological dispositions examined were curiosity, gratitude, hope, personal growth initiative, and mindfulness. Participants consisted of 801 Taiwanese Chinese students and community individuals (Mean age = 25.36 years). Higher levels of gratitude and hope have been found to predict lower PG, gambling-related cognitions, or gambling urges. Meanwhile, higher mindfulness predicted lower PG, but only among Chinese males. However, lower personal growth initiative predicted lower PG, gambling-related cognitions, and gambling urges. These analyses have small to medium effect sizes with significant predictions. Findings of this study have essential implications in understanding and treating Chinese problem gamblers. These positive dispositions should be addressed by mental health professionals in preventative and treatment programs among Chinese individuals. Further implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.