encountered particularly in mental health issues and to additionally analyze the methodologies used in studies involving HIV/AIDS informal caregivers.
Methods: Four electronic databases; Science Direct, EBSCOhost, Ovid and Springer Link were searched for articles published in the past 10 years (2002 - 2012). Only full-text English articles related to research on care giving of HIV-infected adult patients were selected.
Results: Twenty two out of 293 articles (7.5%) were reviewed, involving 2,765 caregivers in the USA (n=1,610), Africa (n=253), Asia (n=838) and Oceania (n=64) regions. A variety of age categories was involved in care giving with the youngest carer being 12 years old and the oldest, 60 years on average. Females and whites appeared to be dominant and 603 caregivers themselves were HIV positive. The main outcomes measured were care giving burden, challenges and coping. Stress and depression, stigma and discrimination, insufficient support, role overload and extreme poverty were the main challenges experienced in care giving. Both qualitative (n=11) and quantitative (n=9) were the equally preferred types of study. Purposive sampling emerged as the most preferred sampling technique. Various instruments were utilized, but the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was the most popular particularly in quantitative studies.
Conclusion: A variety of life aspects were negatively affected in the process of care giving for HIV/AIDS patients and studies of such nature commonly focused on caregivers' psychosocial burden.
Objective: The relationships between awareness, knowledge and attitudes (AKA) and coping mechanisms among people with epilepsy (PWE) have not been well-explored particularly in Asia. This study aimed to: identify preferred coping strategies, correlate between AKA and coping mechanisms and compare coping strategies of PWE with different AKA levels. Methods: A cross-sectional sample of epilepsy outpatients was recruited from the Neurology Clinic, Hospital Sultanah Nur Zahirah, Kuala Terengganu. The participants completed the Malay AKA Epilepsy and the Malay Brief COPE instruments. The data was analysed using non-parametric statistics. Results: Sixty out of 72 patients (response rate = 83.3%) consented
participation (median age = 27.5 years; male = 53.3%; unmarried = 63.3%; Malay = 90.0%; SPM education = 54.2%; unemployed = 35.0%; rural residents = 70.0%). Religion was the most preferred coping strategy (93.3%), followed by Emotional Support (86.7%) and Instrumental Support (81.7%). Awareness was negatively correlated with Instrumental Support (rs = -0.268; p
Study site: Neurology Clinic, Hospital Sultanah Nur Zahirah, Kuala Terengganu.
Recently, the integration of mobile phone apps into healthcare system is increasing as a result of the availability of medical applications. This study determined the perception of readiness of community pharmacists on the use of mobile smartphone as a health monitoring tool and the relationships between perception and readiness with selected demographic variables of the respondents. Methods: A crosssectional survey was conducted by distributing a modified 15-item instrument to a convenience sample of pharmacists (n = 245) across Malaysia by post. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 20. Results: Response rate was 31.4% (n= 77). The mean age of the respondents was 35.5 ± 6. 52 years. The sample consisted of mostly women (71.4%). Overall, there were moderate “positive responses” across the two domains. Positive perception ranged from 54.5% to 66.2% and positive readiness ranged from 55.8% to 64.9%. No significant associations between perception and readiness with the selected demographic variables were detected (age, gender, location and outlet type). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that there was generally positive perception of mobile phone use for pharmaceutical care among community pharmacists in Malaysia. They were also ready to adapt it to improve pharmaceutical care delivery to patients.
Objective: Despite the availability of modern anti-emetics, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) symptoms remain distressing to a high number of cancer patients. This study intended to (1) describe the incidence of CINV and antiemetic usage; (2) assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and correlate its components with Global Health Status; (3) evaluate HRQoL status in relation to CINV among breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in two government hospitals located in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia (Terengganu, Kelantan). The Morrow Assessment of Nausea and Emesis Follow-up (MANE-FU) and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) were administered. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were employed (SPSS 16). Results: Respondents included 41 female patients (age = 49 ± 9.6 years; Malay = 92.7%; no family history of breast cancer = 68.3% and on moderately emetogenic chemotherapy = 97.6%). Majority of patients experienced nausea during or after chemotherapy (90.2%) and rated it as ‘severe’. Most patients had taken anti-emetic
(87.8%) and considered it ‘somewhat useful’. The median score for Global Health Status was 50 (IqR= 16.7). Emotional Functioning, Fatigue and Pain correlated fairly with HRQoL (rs= +0.435; -0.417; -0.387 respectively). Patients with ‘a lot’ and ‘moderate’ nausea displayed significantly more fatigue compared to those with little nausea (p=0.029). Those who experienced vomiting reported worse HRQoL profile compared to those who did not (p=0.011). Conclusion: These findings generally ascertained that CINV remains poorly controlled and significantly interferes with HRQoL, providing rooms for improvements in therapeutic intervention.
Control of modifiable risk factors is important in recurrent stroke prevention strategies. This study aimed to determine the control of blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk profiles among post-stroke patients. Factors associated with uncontrolled blood pressure were also determined. MATERIAL ANDMETHODS:A cross-sectional study was conducted in the outpatient clinics of three hospitals located in the East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia from May to August 2019. Information on socio-demographic characteristics, clinical profiles, and lifestyle practices were acquired. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out. Crude odds ratio and adjusted odds ratio (aOR) were reported. RESULTS:From a total of 398 stroke patients, majority of the respondents were elderly with first-ever stroke, ischaemic type, and duration of stroke less than 24 months. Uncontrolled blood pressure (52%), overweight and obesity (65%), abdominal obesity (54%), and low physical activity level (65%) were common among the patients. Patients with hypertension (aOR= 3.11, 95% CI: 1.38, 6.99), diabetes mellitus (aOR 1.57, 95% CI: 1.03, 2.38), not taking prescribed medication every day (aOR 2.28, 95% CI: 1.29, 4.01), overweight (aOR 1.75, 95% CI:1.02, 2.99), obesity (aOR 1.99, 95% CI: 1.12, 3.53), and low physical activity level (aOR 2.10, 95% CI: 1.35, 3.27) were at a higher risk of having uncontrolled blood pressure. CONCLUSION:Uncontrolled blood pressure and other major cardiovascular risk factors were highly prevalent among post-stroke patients. Increased efforts must be made to optimise the risk profiles management of these high-risk patients to prevent recurrent vascular events in the future.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition education intervention among university students in terms of social, psychological factors and nutrition-related Quality of Life (NQoL) outcomes after receiving a 10-week nutrition education. Longitudinal and randomised study design was adopted for the study. Methods: A total of 417 respondents from four public universities in Terengganu were randomly assigned to either intervention group (IG = 205) or control group (CG = 212). The IG received nutrition education through three tools; 1) conventional lecture, 2) brochures and 3) text messages via short messaging system (SMS) while the CG not received any intervention. Students completed the Malay version of NQoL (6 domains; 49 items; Likert-type responses=1-5) and SF-36 (8 domains; 36 items) at pre-intervention and post-intervention. Data analysis was carried out by using SPSS 16.0 utilising descriptive and parametric statistics. Results: Ninety-one percent of participants (IG = 178; CG = 202) completed the study (age = 19.1±1.1 years; female = 87.6%; Malay = 98.2%). After controlling for possible confounders (eg. weight, waist, hip circumferences and pre-intervention scores for each domain), IG possessed relatively higher NQoL score in Food Impact (p = 0.001), Social / Interpersonal (p = 0.008), Physical Functioning (p = 0.011) and Overall NQoL (p = 0.001). However, Psychological Factors did not show any significant difference for both groups. Conclusion: Although the intervention did not generate significant impact in the psychological component over a period of 10 weeks, significant positive impacts in Social/Interpersonal aspects and NQoL were clearly shown. ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 15 (1): January - June 2014: 39-53.
Objective: The family caregiver has a pivotal role in the management of HIV/AIDS patients and their well-being is consequently crucial as it could impact negatively on the quality of caregiving. This preliminary qualitative investigation intended to explore and describe the challenges and experiences of HIV/AIDS family caregivers in Terengganu, Malaysia. Methods: A convenient sample of family caregivers of HIV/AIDS patients who were aware of the diagnosis was enrolled. Recruitment was conducted in Hospital Sultanah Nur Zahirah, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia and semi-structured interviews were used. Results: Results were transcribed into verbatim before being subjected to analysis. Twelve Muslim caregivers consented participation (age range = 18.0 - 81.0; female = 75.0%, mother/wife = 50.0%; married = 83.3%; ≤ primary school
= 50.0%; and self-employed = 66.7%). The four major themes that emerged were challenges of caregiving, financial issues, stigma and discrimination, and support for caregivers. Additionally, caregivers did mention several positive aspects of their caregiving role including satisfaction from helping family member and improved family relationships. Conclusion: A variety of life aspects were negatively affected by caring for HIV patients, thus requiring a multidisciplinary approach to address such issues. ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 15 (2): July - December 2014: 120-130.
Introduction: The number of breast cancer survivors in developing Asian countries is still lacking compared to Western countries. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of cancer patients is one of the significant predictors of survival. Hence, this study was conducted to determine HRQoL status among breast cancer survivors of different diagnosis duration in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Methods: Cross-sectional data were collected for 128 breast cancer survivors, aged 37 to 72 years who were recruited by using purposive sampling method at two main govern- ment hospitals in Kelantan (n=67) and Terengganu (n=61). The validated European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaires (EORTC QLQ–C30) and Breast Cancer Supplementary Measure (EORTC QLQ-BR23) which had been translated into the Malay language were used to measure HRQoL. Indepen- dent t-test was used to compare HRQoL status among short term (5 years duration since diagnosis) and long term (>5 years duration since diagnosis) breast cancer survivors. Results: Overall, our breast cancer survivors reported good HRQoL, with high scores for global health status, functional status and low symptoms scores. Long term breast cancer survivors had better social functioning compared to short term survivors (p=.038). Nevertheless, there was no significant difference found for other HRQoL status between short and long term breast cancer survivors. Conclusion: Breast cancer survivors in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia generally experienced good HRQoL. The relatively sim- ilar HRQoL status between long-term and short-term survivors indicated a constant HRQoL profile among survivors throughout their survivorship.
Accurate medical information is essential among health care professionals to aid dissemination of information to the public. This study aimed to determine the level of knowledge about breast cancer and to identify related factors among undergraduate health sciences students in a public university in Terengganu, Malaysia.