Introduction: Vaccine-preventable diseases such as pertussis are re-emerging in Malaysia during recent years.
Objective: This research aims to study the local incidence of clinical pertussis among paediatric patients admitted to Hospital Tuanku Fauziah, Perlis over two-year period.
Method: A cross-sectional study was designed in Department of Paediatrics, Hospital Tuanku Fauziah, Perlis from 1 January 2013 till 31 January 2015. Data were collected from medical and laboratory record of cases admitted for clinical pertussis. Analyses for descriptive data were done using frequency and percentage; Pearson chi-square or Fisher exact was used to test association.
Results: 81 cases of clinical pertussis were included in the study. Out of this, there were a total of 28 confirmed cases of pertussis. There was a steady increment in the incidence of pertussis throughout the study period. Cyanosis emerged as the only clinical sign significantly associated with pertussis (p = 0.011). Majority of the confirmed pertussis cases were too young to be immunized (n = 13, 46.4%).
Conclusion: Reappraisal of local health system to strengthen herd immunity in the community is warranted to control disease spread.
Neonates in Special Care Nursery (SCN) are constantly exposed to routine procedures that are painful. Repetitive painful exposures in neonates are known to have long-term deleterious effects that may surpass adulthood. A quality improvement project was designed to reduce the pain experienced by neonates during routine minor procedures in SCN unit of Hospital Tuanku Fauziah (HTF), a tertiary state hospital in Perlis, Malaysia. The Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) was used as a pain assessment tool in neonates throughout the study. Several factors contributing to neonatal painful experience during routine procedures were identified, including poor awareness on neonatal pain perception, poor procedural etiquette among paediatric house officers, and lack of non-pharmacological pain relief used during the procedures. Interventional measures included adjunctive use of non-nutritive sucking via orthodontic Avent® pacifier, use of adjustable swaddling blanket via SwaddleMe® size S, and introduction of a clinical training module for the house officers. There were 159 neonates recruited in the pre-intervention period and 163 neonates evaluated in the post-intervention period. Our study revealed a significant decrease in neonatal painful experience during routine procedures, from 49.7% to 17.8% (p