OBJECTIVES: To assess and compare the HL communication practices among physicians, pharmacists, and nurses serving at public hospitals in Penang, Malaysia.

METHODS: A pretested, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from study participants of 6 public hospitals using stratified sampling. Descriptive and inferential statistics used to analyze the data with level of significance was set at P < 0.05.

RESULTS: Of 600 distributed questionnaires, 526 (87.6%) were adequately filled and returned. Almost 19.0% (n = 98) of the respondents admitted that they did not frequently use simple language and avoid medical jargon during communication with patients. Only about half of the respondents reported frequently using other HL communication practices that include handing out education material to patients (52.2%, n = 275), asking the patient to repeat information (58.9%, n = 310), and asking patients' caregivers to be present during explanation (57.4%, n = 302). Comparatively, drawing pictures to ease patients' understanding (40.1%, n = 211) was the less-frequently practiced HL communication techniques. Health practitioners in the age group >41 years ( P = 0.046), serving 10 years and more ( P = 0.03) and those who have heard the term or concept of HL ( P = 0.004) have statistically significantly higher mean score of HL communication practices than other groups.

METHODS: 1137 members of the Malaysian general public were sampled in this national study. Respondents were recruited by quota sampling of urbanicity, gender, age, and ethnicity. In face-to-face interviews, respondents first answered the EQ-5D-5L questionnaire administered using the EQ-Valuation Technology software, and then completed the EQ-5D-3L questionnaire on paper. A subgroup of the respondents were given paper form of EQ-5D-5L for completion within 2 weeks for test-retest reliability. Ceiling effects, response redistribution, informativity, and convergent validity were compared between EQ-5D-5L and ED-5D-3L separately by Malay and English language versions.

RESULTS: The proportion of 'full health' responses (11111) drastically decreased by 25.55% and 15.74% in the Malay and English language versions indicating lower ceiling effects in EQ-5D-5L. Inconsistencies from response redistribution was below 6% for all dimensions across languages. The measure of relative informativity was comparatively higher in EQ-5D-5L than in EQ-5D-3L in both language versions, with the exception of dimensions mobility and pain/discomfort in the English version. Convergent validity in terms of correlation with EQ-VAS was relatively better for EQ-5D-5L dimensions, with pain/discomfort of the Malay version having the strongest correlation (|r| = 0.37). Also, reliability testing revealed moderate to poor agreements on all 5L dimensions.

METHODS: Survey questionnaires (n = 184) were posted to all eligible community pharmacies in Sarawak, Malaysia. The questionnaire included sections on participants' demographic data, extra-organisational challenges faced, coping strategies employed and proposals to improve community pharmacy legislations. Items were constructed based on the findings of a prior qualitative research supplemented with relevant literature about these issues.

KEY FINDINGS: High levels of homogeneity in responses were recorded on various extra-organisational challenges faced, particularly those economy-oriented. Strategic changes to counter these challenges were focused on pricing and product stocked, rather than services provision. Highly rated strategies included increasing discounts for customers (n = 54; 68%) and finding cheaper suppliers (n = 70; 88%). Legislative changes proposed that might increase their share of the pharmaceutical market were strongly supported by respondents, particularly about making it compulsory for general practitioners to provide patients the option to have their medicines dispensed in community pharmacies (n = 72; 90%).

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using a double-blind, placebo controlled, crossover design, participants (N = 24) received two doses of Panax Ginseng (500, 1000 mg) or Ginkgo Biloba (120, 240 mg) (N = 24), and underwent a series of cognitive tests while systolic, diastolic, and heart rate readings were taken. Ginkgo Biloba improved aspects of executive functioning (Stroop and Berg tasks) in females but not in males. Ginseng had no effect on cognition. Ginkgo biloba in females reversed the initial (i.e. placebo) increase in cardiovascular reactivity (systolic and diastolic readings increased compared to baseline) to cognitive tasks. This effect (reversal) was most notable after those tasks (Stroop and Iowa) that elicited the greatest cardiovascular reactivity during placebo. In males, although ginkgo also decreased cardiovascular readings, it did so from an initial (placebo) blunted response (i.e. decrease or no change from baseline) to cognitive tasks. Ginseng, on the contrary, increased cardiovascular readings compared to placebo.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results suggest that cardiovascular reactivity may be a mechanism by which ginkgo but not ginseng, in females is associated with certain forms of cognitive improvement.

METHODS: Respondents were sampled with quotas for urbanicity, gender, age, and ethnicity to ensure representativeness of the Malaysian population. The study was conducted using a standardized protocol involving the EuroQol Valuation Technology (EQ-VT) computer-assisted interview system. Respondents were administered ten composite time trade-off (C-TTO) tasks and seven discrete choice experiment (DCE) tasks. Both linear main effects and constrained non-linear regression models of C-TTO-only data and hybrid models combining C-TTO and DCE data were explored to determine an efficient and informative model for value set prediction.

RESULTS: Data from 1125 respondents representative of the Malaysian population were included in the analysis. Logical consistency was present in all models tested. Using cross-validation, eight-parameter models for C-TTO only and C-TTO + DCE hybrid data displayed greater out-of-sample predictive accuracy than their 20-parameter, main-effect counterparts. The hybrid eight-parameter model was chosen to represent the Malaysian value set, as it displayed greater out-of-sample predictive accuracy over C-TTO data than the C-TTO-only model, and produced more precise estimates. The estimated value set ranged from - 0.442 to 1.

STUDY DESIGN: We enrolled healthy married, monogamous, heterosexual condom users in a randomized controlled, cross-over, pilot trial in Malaysia. We randomized participants to six groups with different condom use-orders of the experimental WLC and WLM and control latex condom for four episodes for vaginal sex over 1 month for each condom type. We summarized the clinical and non-clinical failure rate, safety and acceptability of each condom type using descriptive statistics. We tested differences in condom failure and acceptability using generalized estimating equations and repeated measure ANOVA respectively.

RESULTS: We screened 75 couples and randomized 50 eligible couples. Two couples withdrew before receiving any condom. The remaining used 576 condoms with 192 uses for each condom variant. Clinical failure rates of WLC, WLM and DT were 1.04%, 0% and 0.52%, respectively. Non-clinical failure rates of WLC, WLM and DT were 2.08%, 3.12% and 1.04%, respectively. Removal was found more painful with Wondaleaf products than the DT. Preferences of participants for WLC, WLM and DT were 33.3%, 29.2% and 25%, respectively. Overall, WLC and DT had greater acceptances among male participants than WLM.

CONCLUSION: Results of this pilot study support that use of synthetic adhesive male condoms is associated with failure rates similar to those seen with existing latex, and with greater acceptability. A larger study to ascertain non-inferiority is underway.

METHODS: Clinical data of 143 adult patients diagnosed with TBM over a 6-year period in two tertiary hospitals in Malaysia were retrospectively reviewed. Relevant clinical and radiological data were studied. Patients with TBMH were further analysed based on their clinical grade and rendered treatment to identify associated factors and outcome of this subgroup of patients. The functional outcome of patients was assessed at 12 months from treatment.

RESULTS: The mean age of patients was 35.6 (12.4) years old, with a male gender predominance of 67.1%. Forty-four percent had TBMH, of which 42.9% had surgical intervention. In the good modified Vellore grade, 76.5% was managed medically with concurrent anti-tuberculosis treatment (ATT), steroids and osmotic agents. Four patients had surgery early in the disease as they did not respond to medical therapy and reported a good outcome subsequently. Poor outcome (65.2%) was seen in the poor modified Vellore grade despite medical and surgical intervention. Multivariate model multiple Cox regression showed significant results for seizure (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR]: 15.05; 95% CI: 3.73, 60.78), Glasgow coma scale (GCS) (aHR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.70, 0.89) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cell count (aHR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.05, 1.17).