27 research outputs found
Dietary supplements: usage and opinions among health sciences students
No full textThis is a questionnaire survey of dietary supplement usage among students in the International Medical University. Just over two-fifths of these students reported using dietary supplements daily. This high usage of dietary supplements is in contrast their expressed ambivalence about these products
Clinical knowledge management at the point of care
No full textIn the developing world, clinical knowledge management in primary care has a long way to go. Clinical decision support systems, despite its promise to revolutionise healthcare, is slow in its implementation due to the lack of financial investment in information technology. Point-of-care resources, such as comprehensive electronic textbooks delivered via the web or mobile devices, have yet to be fully utilised by the healthcare organisation or individual clinicians. Increasing amount of applicable knowledge of good quality (e.g. clinical practice guidelines and other pre-appraised resources) are now available via the internet. The policy makers and clinicians need to be more informed about the potential benefits and
limitations of these new tools and resources and make the necessary budgetary provision and learn how best to harness them for patient care
How To Analyse Your Research Data? Illustrations with Hands-On Exercises Using SPSS
Get PDFStatistical analysis for a quantitative study is often perceived to be the most difficult step by a novice researcher. The objective of this paper is to provide step by step guides to analyse quantitative data. A common research topic on diabetes is used to illustrate the approach in data analysis. There are several statistical software packages available to assist researchers in data analysis. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) software is applied in the hands-on example. The dataset about blood glucose control in diabetic patients and a trial version of SPSS are made available online. Having studied the paper and practiced the hands-on example, a reader is expected to be able to apply and interpret appropriate statistical tests for his/ her research
Antibiotic prescribing for upper respiratory tract infections in the Asia-Pacific region: A brief review
No full textThis review highlights the high prevalence of antibiotic use for upper respiratory tract infections
(URTIs) in a larger part of the Asia-Pacific region. Since URTIs are one of the common reasons
for primary care consultations in this region, inappropriate use of antibiotic in both quantity and
drug choice has greatly influenced the development of antibiotic resistance. Notwithstanding the
paucity of Asia-Pacific data on the above issues, the available information suggests urgent actions
needed to be taken to promote judicious antibiotic use at the point-of-care through a multipronged
approach targeting the patients/consumers (or parents), healthcare providers and health
care systems
Self-perceived competence correlates poorly with objectively measured competence in Evidence Based Medicine among medical students
No full textAbstract Background Previous studies report various degrees of agreement between self-perceived competence and objectively measured competence in medical students. There is still a paucity of evidence on how the two correlate in the field of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). We undertook a cross-sectional study to evaluate the self-perceived competence in EBM of senior medical students in Malaysia, and assessed its correlation to their objectively measured competence in EBM. Methods We recruited a group of medical students in their final six months of training between March and August 2006. The students were receiving a clinically-integrated EBM training program within their curriculum. We evaluated the students' self-perceived competence in two EBM domains ("searching for evidence" and "appraising the evidence") by piloting a questionnaire containing 16 relevant items, and objectively assessed their competence in EBM using an adapted version of the Fresno test, a validated tool. We correlated the matching components between our questionnaire and the Fresno test using Pearson's product-moment correlation. Results Forty-five out of 72 students in the cohort (62.5%) participated by completing the questionnaire and the adapted Fresno test concurrently. In general, our students perceived themselves as moderately competent in most items of the questionnaire. They rated themselves on average 6.34 out of 10 (63.4%) in "searching" and 44.41 out of 57 (77.9%) in "appraising". They scored on average 26.15 out of 60 (43.6%) in the "searching" domain and 57.02 out of 116 (49.2%) in the "appraising" domain in the Fresno test. The correlations between the students' self-rating and their performance in the Fresno test were poor in both the "searching" domain (r = 0.13, p = 0.4) and the "appraising" domain (r = 0.24, p = 0.1). Conclusions This study provides supporting evidence that at the undergraduate level, self-perceived competence in EBM, as measured using our questionnaire, does not correlate well with objectively assessed EBM competence measured using the adapted Fresno test. Study registration International Medical University, Malaysia, research ID: IMU 110/06</p
Prevalence of insomnia and its impact on daily function amongst Malaysian primary care patients
No full textDo statins adversely affect the HbA1c of diabetic patients?
No full textThis paper discusses the adverse effect of statins on the HbA1c levels of diabetic patients. Studies
have shown that statins may slightly worsen the HbA1c level. The effects vary depending on the type
of statins, the dosage and the duration of therapy. However, it has been confirmed that statin use
has benefits that outweigh its harms. Therefore, a diabetic patient should be given advice on the
need for appropriate lifestyle changes and the importance of continuing the statins
http://e-mfp.org/pdf/2013v8n3/IgM-dengue-serology.pdf
No full textA 21-year old medical student consults the doctor for a fever that started 3 days ago. The fever was
high grade and associated with generalised body aches. There was no gum bleeding. He mentioned that
mosquito fogging was conducted in his neighbourhood recently
Nap patterns of children in kindergartens and childcare transit facility: a study in northern Peninsular Malaysia
Get PDFObjective: The purpose of this study was to compare the duration of sleep and nap patterns between children in private kindergartens and those in a tabika-transit facility, in Malaysia.
Methods: The sleep duration of children aged 3-6, who attended either a kindergarten or a childcare transit facility (tabika-transit in Malay) was investigated. Observational sleeping records were maintained for 24 hours, over 14 consecutive days. A self-administered questionnaire for caregivers investigated the children’s lifestyles. Naps were optional at kindergartens but mandatory at the tabika-transit.
Results: Of 35 participating children, data from 33 were analyzed. All respondents belonged to the Malay ethnicity, with 16 boys (48.5%) and 17 girls (51.5%). The average age of the children was 5.4 years; 11 of them were from kindergartens and 22 from a tabika-transit. The children slept longer and woke up later on weekends than on weekdays. There was a significant difference in the naptaking rate between the two groups; it was 100% in the tabika-transit, and 30% in the kindergartens during weekdays. However, on weekends, 19 of 22 tabika- transit children did not nap on any of the days (86.4%). The kindergarten group’s naps showed no outstanding differences between weekdays and weekends. Concerning the bedtime and wake-up times, no differences were found between the two groups.
Discussion: During weekdays, all children in the tabika-transit took naps, whereas one-third of them did in the kindergartens. Larger study is needed to assess how this mandatory napping style affects children’s lifestyle and development
