METHODS: A survey was carried out at 135 community pharmacies in nine districts of Selangor, Malaysia, from November 2017 to February 2018, using a self-administered standardized questionnaire.
RESULTS: The majority (n = 95, 85%) of community pharmacies reported to have provided services to both international travellers and outbound Malaysian travellers. The common healthcare services provided to international travellers were monitoring of chronic diseases including hypertension and diabetes, and advice on minor ailments, supplements and medical devices. The key health services provided to outbound Malaysian travellers were advice on vaccination requirements, better management of chronic diseases and necessary medications to manage illness during travel. Most of the respondents supported the provision of travel health-related services through the community pharmacies.
CONCLUSION: The study findings showed that Malaysian community pharmacies provided several travel health-related services to both international and Malaysian outbound travellers. Pharmacists in Malaysia are ideally positioned to have an increased role in travel medicine. They have the training to advise on complex medication issues especially with regard to interactions and polypharmacy. However, further training and courses should be provided that are tailored specifically for the needs of this professional group.
METHODOLOGY: This study utilised a cross-sectional study design, and the data collected from 194 emergency nursing and medical personnel (staff nurses, doctors and assistant medical officers), using a questionnaire.
RESULTS: Majority of the personnel had an adequate knowledge and practices, and portrayed a positive attitude towards disaster management. Amongst the sociodemographic factors studied, gender and education level were significantly associated with increased knowledge and practice scores. Working experience, involvement in disaster response and attended disaster training had a significant association with higher practice scores. None of the sociodemographic factors studied had an effect on attitude scores.
CONCLUSION: Despite the diversity of their backgrounds, respondents exhibited their adequate knowledge and practice, and had positive attitudes towards disaster management. It is substantial for emergency nursing and medical personnel, to inhibit the severity of the impacts of the disasters. Their knowledge, attitude and practice studies could assist in the implementation of programmes relevant to disaster management to ensure their preparedness to assist the affected communities.
METHODS: The proportion of LMTs was investigated through a cross-sectional study involving all Thai travelers who visited the Thai Travel Clinic before their departure abroad. A prospective study was conducted by enrolling the travelers after the consultation, utilizing two online questionnaires. The first aimed to gather demographic data and categorize participants as either LMTs (if their departure date was ≤14 days) or non-LMTs, while the second assessed travel-related illnesses either upon their return or at the one-month point if their trip exceeded a month.
RESULTS: A quarter (25.5 %) of 310 Thai travelers abroad were classified as LMTs. Both LMTs and non-LMTs showed similar gender distributions with mean ages of 35.8 and 35.7 years old, respectively, but LMTs were more likely to travel for tourism, travel in groups, visit countries within Asia and plan shorter stays abroad. Follow-up studies were conducted from July 2023 to February 2024. 452 departed respondents consisted of 150 LMTs and 302 non-LMTs. Although overall health problems were insignificantly higher in LMTs (32.0 % vs 22.0 %, AOR = 1.469, p = 0.107), gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms (primarily headache and dizziness) were significantly more common among LMTs.
CONCLUSIONS: LMTs represent a significant portion of Thai travelers, posing challenges for travel health specialists in Thailand. Intervention and education efforts may be necessary to address this issue.
AIMS: Our study aimed to develop a search strategy to answer clinical queries among physicians in a primary care setting.
METHODS: Six clinical questions of different medical conditions seen in primary care were formulated. A series of experimental searches to answer each question was conducted on 3 commonly advocated medical databases. We compared search results from a PICO (patients, intervention, comparison, outcome) framework for questions using different combinations of PICO elements. We also compared outcomes from doing searches using text words, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), or a combination of both. All searches were documented using screenshots and saved search strategies.
RESULTS: Answers to all 6 questions using the PICO framework were found. A higher number of systematic reviews were obtained using a 2 PICO element search compared to a 4 element search. A more optimal choice of search is a combination of both text words and MeSH terms. Despite searching using the Systematic Review filter, many non-systematic reviews or narrative reviews were found in PubMed. There was poor overlap between outcomes of searches using different databases. The duration of search and screening for the 6 questions ranged from 1 to 4 hours.
CONCLUSION: This strategy has been shown to be feasible and can provide evidence to doctors' clinical questions. It has the potential to be incorporated into an interventional study to determine the impact of an online evidence retrieval system.
METHODS: Patients admitted to hospital with acute biliary conditions in England and Wales between 1 April 2014 and 31 December 2017 were identified from Hospital Episode Statistics data. Time series of quarterly activity were produced for the Cholecystectomy Quality Improvement Collaborative (Chole-QuIC) and all other acute National Health Service hospitals (control group). A negative binomial regression model was used to compare the proportion of patients having surgery within 8 days in the baseline and intervention periods.
RESULTS: Of 13 sites invited to join Chole-QuIC, 12 participated throughout the collaborative, which ran from October 2016 to January 2018. Of 7944 admissions, 1160 patients had a cholecystectomy within 8 days of admission, a significant improvement (P