Background: The Malay short version of Depressive Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) has been widely used as a tool to measure psychological parameters in studies in Malaysia. The version has been found to be reliable for clinical and non-clinical populations. Objectives: To analyse and establish the psychometric properties of the Malay version of the DASS 42-item (BM DASS-42) among medical students. Methods: Concurrent forward and backward translations of original English DASS-42 were completed. Construct validity of the DASS-42 was established by looking at its exploratory factor analysis. Malay DASS-42 and Malay HADS were administered to a total of 411 medical students. Results: Reliability of DASS-
42 revealed excellent Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.94, 0.90 and 0.87 for depressive, anxiety and stress domains respectively. Construct validity yielded 38 items out of 42 items (90%) had good factor loadings of 0.4 and more. DASS and HADS were strongly correlated for both anxiety (r=0.87) and depression (r=0.68) domains. Conclusions: The BM DASS-42 had admirable psychometric properties among the tested population. Further studies are needed to verify these preliminary outcomes in other Malaysian subjects.
In Malaysia, harmful algal blooms often occur along the coastal waters of west Sabah, where one of the causative organisms is the toxin-producing dinoflagellate, Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum. A total of five P. bahamense var. compressum isolates were obtained from four locations and were cultured in f/2 medium. A Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based technique was developed and used to screen for the presence of the dinoflagellate, P. bahamense var. compressum. A dinoflagellate-specific primer pair was designed based on sequences of P. bahamense var. compressum to amplify the 18S small subunit ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences. The rDNA of the P. bahamense var. compressum isolates were obtained. A species-specific primer pair was designed to target a 600 bp rDNA sequence of the target dinoflagellate. The primer pair targeting P. bahamense var. compressum did not yield any product with the fifteen algae cultures used as negative controls, but only amplified the rDNA of P. bahamense var. compressum cultures. The PCR method for identification of P. bahamense var. compressum was also applied on twenty field samples collected with plankton net. P. bahamense var. compressum cells were detected by PCR in five field samples and were confirmed by direct sequencing. From this study, a species-specific primer pair was obtained to identify the target species, P. bahamense var. compressum, among the natural complex communities of seawater.
There is a need to set up a germplasm resource centre or gene bank in Sabah to keep the collections of varieties of locally cultivated crops, especially rice. This is necessary to prevent genetic loss caused by the infrastructure development in the state of Sabah especially when Sabah is known for her rich genetic resources for food and agriculture. This gene bank will play an important role in the conservation of genetic resources especially for future rice crop improvement and development. These collections are known to carry useful gene(s) for crop improvement such as aroma, taste, resistance to insect pests and diseases, and tolerance to abiotic stress. Decades ago, a set of local landrace rice collection were made and conserved at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Malaysia Agriculture Research and Development Institute (MARDI). Besides IRRI and MARDI, local farmers also play an important role as conservationist. Therefore, this study has been carried out to re ne the status of the current genetic diversity in local rice farming. From January 2009 to February 2010, 108 samples were collected from Tuaran and Kota Belud districts. Preliminary observation of 19 samples found that
there is a high genetic diversity based on seed morphology alone. Variations in the characteristics were detected in awn, apiculus, lemma and palea, sterile lemma and seed coat. Length and width of seeds were measured and calculated for ratio to estimate the shapes of the seeds. The weight of 100 grains ranged from 1.42 to 3.19 g. However, further studies on morphology evaluation, disease screening, and molecular evaluation are needed to be compared with the existing data. In addition, genetic erosion, migration, and drift also need to be studied due to high seed exchanges among the local farmers.
The Gamma Green House (GGH) is a chronic irradiation facility located at MINT Tech Park, Nuclear Malaysia, Jalan Dengkil. GGH is used for induction of mutation in plants and other biological samples with low dose radiation over period of time depending on the nature and sensitivity of the plant species. Gamma Greenhouse facility at Malaysian Nuclear Agency comprises an open topped
irradiation area consisting of circular green house with 30 meters radius, control room and irradiator with interlock system. The irradiation source is a REVISS RSL6050 double encapsulated 800 Ci 137Cs (half-life 30.1 years for 137Cs) pencils and allowed to be exposed only when the entire 300 m diameter site is free from personnel. The irradiator system is secured by a sophisticated interlock system, which only allows the source to be exposed when all the prerequisite safety conditions are met, and automatically returns the source to the safe
storage position if any safety device is compromised.
This case report highlights Koro-like symptoms with erectile dysfunction.
Methods: We report a case of a Rohingya refugee who presented with Koro-like symptoms associated with erectile dysfunction and severe religious guilt.
Results: Sexual dysfunction, i.e. erectile dysfunction may be a predisposing factor for a Koro incidence. Religious issues complicated by superstitious beliefs pose a treatment challenge.
Conclusion: Treating patient with sexual dysfunction should involve exploring and addressing patient's conflicts to avoid worsening of symptoms. As this case illustrates, severe anxiety can present with Koro-like symptoms.
Introduction: Self-awareness and reflective-skill are important components of personal and professional development of medical students.
Objective: The objective of this study was to determine whether self awareness and reflective skill could be improved by direct teaching intervention.
Method: This was a cross sectional intervention study conducted among 75 third year medical students of UKM Medical Centre Malaysia in 2010. Malaysian Emotional Quotient Inventory (MEQI) was used to measure self-awareness and reflective writing scripts were used to measure the reflective skills of the respondents before and after teaching intervention. Experimental group comprised of 30 students while the control group constituted the rest 45 students selected randomly. The factors contributing to self awareness with gender and learning styles were determined.
Result: There was no significant improvement observed in self-awareness of the respondents but reflective skills was significantly improved (p=0.007) following intervention. A non-significant relationship between self-awareness and gender (p=0.588) as well as self-awareness and learning styles (p=0.435) was also noticed.
Conclusion: It is concluded that intervention programs improved students' reflective skills but not their self-awareness. Effectiveness of the intervention programme is an important factor. Continuous effort should be focused to train students in an effective way in order to be more self-reflective, self-regulative as well as self-corrective, to ensure a high level of personal and professional development in their daily practices.
Introduction: A clear concept and understanding about the measure and the measuring tools is essential for good practice of assessment. Assessors need to have information about the full range of assessment tools inclusive of psychometric validity and purpose of its use. Subjective inferences drawn from the readily available data as numbers of summative scores over the years and statistical evidences of reliability and validity of assessment tools used to measure student’s performance are good sources of feedback for competent assessment program. It also provides meaningful evaluation of learning and teaching in medical education. Method: A retrospective study of 119 candidates was carried out to analyze the summative assessment scores of their certifying examination of Masters of Surgery in School of Medical Sciences (SMS) at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Subjective judgment of raw data followed by internal consistency as reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity as constructs of individual assessment tool was analyzed. Finally each assessment tool as a measure of written or clinical construct was evaluated against six aspects of Messick’s criteria for quality control. Result: The correlation coefficient for validity and Cronbach’s alpha for reliability was evaluated for clinical measures. However, the test of internal reliability was not possible for essay being the only measure in written construct of summative assessment in surgery. All measures of clinical construct were found highly reliable with Cronbach’s alpha between 0.962-0.979. Long case and the short cases have shown excellent correlations (r=0.959 at p
Description of the male Pterygodermatites nycticebi (Mönnig, 1920) unknown until the present study, and a study of the cephalic and cuticular structures of the female. This rictularid has a morphological evolution comparable to that of other males of the Rictulariidae parasitic in viverrid carnivores and in primates.
Redescription of the female of Setaria thomasi Sandosham, 1954, parasite of Sus scrofa jubatus; description of the female of Papillosetaria malayi n.sp. from Tragulus javanicus. The study of the buccal region of Papillosteria leads the authors to consider this genus as an ancestral form of Setaria.
Most current models of human population structure view migration solely as a deterministic force reducing the variance in gene frequencies among the local colonies of a subdivided population. By an empirical example and through simulation experiments, it is shown that migration structured along kinship lines (by analogy to the lineal or 'kinship' effect) does not always reduce the variances of gene frequencies arising through intergenerational random genetic drift. Thus populations experiencing high rates of migration may not be genetically homogenous.
Domiciliary deliveries have always been the responsibility of traditional birth attendants. Since Independence, acquired in 1957, educated young women have been trained as auxiliary midwives and sent to serve in rural communities where they usually are met with resistance by the established traditional birth attendants. To counter this and to incorporate the traditional birth attendants into the health team, new roles were developed for each so that the two would be able to cooperate and support each other rather than rival and antagonise each other. A specific experience in one area of Malaysia is examined as an example.