METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 110 caregivers of children with ASD aged between 2 and 17 years old that received treatment at two tertiary care centres in Kelantan. Permission to use the original version of the PSS questionnaire was obtained. The original English version of the PSS was translated into a Malay version following the 10 steps proposed by an established guideline. Pre-testing of the PSS was carried out with 30 caregivers before confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was established using 110 caregivers. They were asked to assess their understanding of the questionnaire. The one-dimensional questionnaire consists of 11 items, including staff attitudes, availability of staff, supportiveness, and helpfulness. The 5-point Likert scale provided ratings from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Confirmatory factor analysis was performed using a robust maximum likelihood estimator.
RESULTS: The analysis showed model fit data with good reliability.
CONCLUSION: The PSS-M shows overall model fitness based on specific indices, with good construct validity and excellent absolute reliability to determine the satisfaction level of caregivers of children with ASD with respect to health care services.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A data set of 91 patients with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) followed for five years from 1982 to 1987 was chosen for fitting the mixture cure model. We used the maximum likelihood estimation technique via R software 3.6.2 to obtain the estimates for parameters of the proposed model in the existence of cure rate, censored data, and covariates. For the best model choice, the Akaike information criterion (AIC) was implemented.
RESULTS: After comparing different parametric models fitted to the data, including or excluding cure fraction, without covariates, the smallest AIC values were obtained by the EW and the GMW distributions, (953.31/969.35) and (955.84/975.99), respectively. Besides, assuming a mixture cure model based on GMW with covariates, an estimated ratio between cure fractions for allogeneic and autologous bone marrow transplant groups (and its 95% confidence intervals) were 1.42972 (95% CI: 1.18614 - 1.72955).
CONCLUSION: The results of this study reveal that the EW and the GMW distributions are the best choices for the survival times of Leukemia patients.
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