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  1. Fulltext Knowledge, Awareness, and Perception of Community Pharmacists to Zika Virus Infection in Klang Valley, Malaysia
    Lim KY, Tham HW
    Health Serv Insights, 2020;13:1178632920921425.
    PMID: 32528223 DOI: 10.1177/1178632920921425
    Background: Zika fever is a mosquito-borne disease with global health concern. It has been underreported or misdiagnosed due to its unspecific clinical manifestations, including mild-influenza like and subclinical symptoms. However, its associated serious complications which include fetal microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome remained a challenge to the public health sectors. This research aimed to evaluate the knowledge, awareness, and perception toward Zika virus infection among community pharmacists in the Klang Valley of Malaysia and to determine the association between the knowledge of Zika virus infectious disease and years of community practice experience among community pharmacists in this region.

    Methods: This survey research was conducted from August to December 2018 through a pre-tested, self-administration, and cross-sectional random convenient sampling at various districts in the Klang Valley. A total of 275 registered community pharmacists were involved in this study by completing a pilot-tested questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to analyze the data.

    Results: The knowledge toward Zika virus infection of respondents was classified into "poor" (5.1%), "basic" (70.9%), and "broad" (24.0%). Most of the participants (n = 195, 70.9%) presented with basic knowledge toward Zika virus infection. A total of 268 (97.5%) participants presented with high awareness toward Zika virus infection. The mean score of respondents' knowledge and awareness was 15.88 ± 3.61 (maximum score = 28) and 13.96 ± 1.60 (maximum score = 16), respectively. There was a statistically significant difference between the years of practice of community pharmacists and the level of knowledge toward Zika virus infection.

    Conclusions: In conclusion, our respondents demonstrated a basic level of knowledge and high awareness toward Zika virus infection. Also, we highlighted some possible pitfalls in the knowledge of Zika virus infection, including the virus transmission, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and complications of the disease.

  2. JURNI (Journeying with Patients' Understanding and Responding to Needs Interactively): An In-Hospital Navigation Application for Timely Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer at the University Malaya Medical Centre
    Dhillon SK, Kalhor F, Seng Kai W, Mei Sze T, Mohd Shariff N, Sekaran M, et al.
    Health Serv Insights, 2024;17:11786329241309309.
    PMID: 39712000 DOI: 10.1177/11786329241309309
    One of the main challenges in breast cancer management is health system literacy to provide optimal and timely diagnosis and treatments within complex and multidisciplinary health system environments. Digitalised patient navigation programs have been developed and found to be helpful in high- and low-resource settings, but gaps remain in finding cost-effective navigation in the public sector in Malaysia, where resources are scarce and unstable. Hence, we set out to develop a virtual patient navigation application for breast cancer patients to enhance knowledge about cancer diagnosis and treatments and provide a tracking mechanism to ensure quality care. This paper identifies the requirement for in-hospital patients' navigational needs for cancer diagnosis, the cancer diagnosis and treatment process's components and pathways, developing the app and usability study on the usefulness of a cancer navigation mobile application in navigating cancer care at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC). Key features found when designing the in-hospital application are managing the medical appointments, finding the location of each medical department, and providing information to breast cancer patients, healthcare managers and providers to ensure a coordinated care pathway. In future work, we plan to implement the JURNI in-hospital patient navigation and perform usability studies involving the actual patients, physicians and administrators. We are also working towards enhancing data security, adding other local languages and artificial intelligence capabilities to improve the patient's journey.
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