A comparative study between routine catheterization and non-catheterization in elective caesarean delivery

In the patients who were undergoing elective caesarean section, several preoperative preparation were made such as insertion of Foley's catheter for urinary drainage intra operative and postoperatively. The indication for the regular practice however was of doubtful benefit even though some may think that the procedure facilitates surgery on the lower segment during caesarean section. This routine practice however entails the cost of Foley's catheter and urine bags, urinary symptoms in patients and antibiotic therapy if urine microscopy suggests infection. Objectives: To evaluate role of routine Foley's catheter during and after caesarean section and compare the outcome of routine use of urinary catheterisation and non catheterisation in patient undergoing elective caesarean section. Methods: This study was a case control study conducted from 1st January 2005 until September 2005. All patients who underwent elective caesarean section were included in this study. The patients were divided into 2 groups i.e. control group containing 70 patients who had Foley's catheter inserted preoperatively and were kept during and until day 1 postoperatively and another 70 patients Foley's catheter were not inserted prior to caesarean section but instead the patients were asked to pass urine one hour before start of caesarean section to empty the bladder. The two groups of patients were compared in terms of duration of caesarean section, intra-operative difficulty and also post operative outcome namely time of first void, discomfort at first void, duration of ambulation time postoperatively and incidence of urinary tract infection after caesarean section. Results: In this study, the main ethnic group involved was Malay 93.6o/o followed by Chinese {3.6%), Indian (0. 7%) and Siamese 2.1 %. The commonest indication for elective caesarean section was repeat caesarean section ( 40o/o) followed by breech {19o/o) and placenta praevia (12.4o/o). Regional anaesthesia was given in 82.9°/o of patients while 17.1 o/o were given general anaesthesia. There was no significant difference in terms of duration of caesarean section {46.67 minutes in control versus 44.49 in patients without Foley's catheter in situ), difficulty encountered during performance of caesarean section and mean length of hospital stay after operation (3.1 0 day in control as compared to 3.17 day incase group) .There was however significant difference in discomfort at first void, mean ambulating time and incidence of urinary tract infection in both groups. Conclusion: Continuous urinary catheter by using Foley's catheter is not necessary in patients undergoing elective caesarean section as it does not show any significant difference in terms of mean operating time, difficulty in performing caesarean section but it creates discomfort at first void, delay mean ambulating time and higher risk to urinary tract infection related to CBD

Cardiovascular disease awareness among women with hypercholesterolemia and their health seeking behavior: A qualitative study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a group of disorders that affect the heart and blood vessels. It is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in Malaysian women. However, many women are not aware of it and have a misconception that CVD is a disease that only affects men. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are to explore CVD awareness among women who are at risk of developing the disease and evaluate their health seeking behaviour in regard to their hypercholesterolemia status. A series of in depth face-to-face interviews were conducted among 13 women who were found to have high cholesterol level detected in their blood during a routine medical screening at a primary health care clinic in the International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan, Pahang. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. NVIVO software Version 12 was used to code and manage all qualitative data. Results indicated that all participants had poor awareness of CVD. The majority of them did not perceive themselves as at high risk of developing CVD despite having high cholesterol levels in their blood. Poor CVD awareness, lack of knowledge and sociocultural aspect influenced their health seeking behaviour. This study provided an insight into the women’s awareness towards CVD. Health-care practitioners should elicit a patient’s awareness to facilitate the clinical management of CVD. Additionally, there is a clear need to increase CVD health awareness among women, especially those who are susceptible to CVD

Understanding of cardiovascular disease among patients with hypercholesterolemia – a qualitative exploration

Background: The burden of cardiovascular disease is increasing rapidly in Malaysia but there are limited studies conducted on the understanding of cardiovascular disease among patient who have been identified as at risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Without such an understanding, an early detection and management of the cardiovascular disease within primary care setting would be challenging. Objectives: The objective of this study was to explore the understanding of cardiovascular disease among patients with hypercholesterolemia. Methods: A qualitative study design was used. Semi structured interviews were conducted at a Family Health Clinic in Kuantan, Pahang Darul Makmur from May to August 2018. Purposive sampling was applied to recruit 13 patients with total cholesterol level of more than 5.2 mmol/L and low density lipoprotein of more than 4.9mmol/L. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and then subjected to interpretive thematic analysis using NVIVO 12 software. Results: Four themes emerged from the analysis: perceived causes of cardiovascular diseases, response and action, manifestation of heart disease and challenges in seeking medical care. Risk factors and typical presentation of heart disease were less recognizable. Personal hurdle, families and sociocultural factors were identified as the main barriers for uptake of health care services. Participants were heavily influenced by folk medicine to scale down their cholesterol level. Whilst the majority of the participants were unaware of their risk to develop cardiovascular disease, it appears that there was a lack of understanding on cardiovascular disease among the participants. Conclusion: This study clearly identified gaps and inaccuracies of cardiovascular disease understanding among participants with hypercholesterolemia. Patients at risk need to be educated about the disease through health education, counselling or community program

Exploring barriers of cardiovascular disease prevention among women with hypercholesterolemia

Introduction: Hypercholesterolemia is one of major risk factors that contribute to the development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The previous study showed that the prevalence of hypercholesterolemia had an increasing trend among women as compared to men. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to explore the barriers and challenges faced by women with hypercholesterolemia in the prevention of CVD risk factors. Methodology: A qualitative study was designed to explore and understand the barriers for CVD prevention among women with high cholesterol level. A total of 13 women with hypercholesterolemia in their blood were detected during a routine medical screening by a primary health care clinic at the International Islamic University Malaysia, in Kuantan, Pahang. The women were interviewed. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, coded and analysed by using NVIVO Version 12 software. Findings: Five barriers were identified and divided into two categories, namely personal barrier (time-related barrier, lack of support, poor motivation and misconception) and environmental barrier (lack of accessibility to healthy food). Conclusion: This study highlighted women’s perceptions on barriers that influence their abilities to prevent cardiovascular risk factors. Consequently, intervention strategies were proposed to address CVD risk and overcome the barriers

A guideline framework for recognition, measurement and reporting of Malaysian government's property, plant and equipment under accrual accounting

This paper provides a framework for recognizing, measuring and reporting of Malaysian government’s non-current assets that are classified as property, plant and equipment. The framework which is mainly developed based on the International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS) 17 on Property, Plant and Equipment offers guidelines to interested parties on the appropriate accounting treatment for assets that fulfill the criteria of property, plant and equipment

Cardiovascular disease awareness among women with hypercholesterolemia and their health seeking behavior – a qualitative study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a group of disorders that affect the heart and blood vessels. It is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in Malaysian women. However, many women are not aware of it and have a misconception that CVD is a disease that only affects men. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are to explore CVD awareness among women who are at risk of developing the disease and evaluate their health seeking behaviour in regard to their hypercholesterolemia status. A series of in depth face-to-face interviews were conducted among 13 women who were found to have high cholesterol level detected in their blood during a routine medical screening at a primary health care clinic in the International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan, Pahang. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. NVIVO software Version 12 was used to code and manage all qualitative data. Results indicated that all participants had poor awareness of CVD. The majority of them did not perceive themselves as at high risk of developing CVD despite having high cholesterol levels in their blood. Poor CVD awareness, lack of knowledge and sociocultural aspect influenced their health seeking behaviour. This study provided an insight into the women’s awareness towards CVD. Health-care practitioners should elicit a patient’s awareness to facilitate the clinical management of CVD. Additionally, there is a clear need to increase CVD health awareness among women, especially those who are susceptible to CVD

MSCT of huge abdominopelvic masses in female: a pictorial illustration

Introduction: The differential diagnoses for huge abdominopelvic masses in female are extensive. Many of these masses arise from the reproductive organs such as uterus, cervix and ovaries. Majority represents the commonly encountered entities such as uterine fibroid, dermoid tumour, ovarian cyst and ovarian cancer. However, some of the masses may arise from other organs such as the gastrointestinal system, urinary system, adjacent soft tissue, retroperitoneum or from metastasis. With large mass, it is a challenge for radiologists to determine the site of origin and to differentiate between these tumours. Case series We retrospectively reviewed MSCT performed for huge abdominopelvic masses. The CT findings were correlated with intra-operative findings and final HPE report. This pictorial illustration emphasize on differential diagnosis of huge abdominopelvic masses. Conclusion Familiarity with clinico-pathologic and imaging features is important and helpful for correct image interpretation of common and uncommon abdominopelvic masses

Monoamniotic twin pregnancy: is there a need for frequent fetal-doppler surveillance?

Monoamniotic twin pregnancy is a rare type of twin pregnancy which poses risk of cord entanglement and sudden death of either one or both fetuses. The role of antenatal surveillance by Ultrasound Doppler for umbilical cord and ultrasonic evidence of cord entanglement or knotting may predict the pregnancy outcome but yet unavoidable. The discussion will include antenatal surveillance in this rare type of pregnanc

A study of physiological signals-based emotion recognition systems.

The use of physiological signals is relatively recent development in human emotion recognition. Interest in this field has been motivated by the unbiased nature of such signals, which are generated autonomously from the central nervous system. Generally, these signals can be collected from the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, electrodermal activities, muscular system and brain activities. This paper presents an overview of emotion recognition using physiological signals. The main components of a physiological signals-based emotion recognition system are explained, including discussion regarding the concepts and problems about the various stages involved in its framework

The actants and KPI in privatization of solid waste management in Malaysia.

The focus of this study is to understand the management control system used in privatization of solid waste management in Malaysia. After privatization, many parties involved in solid waste management, including public and private sectors. Due to the involvement of many parties with different objectives, the needs of management control system become pivotal to align these objectives. Using Actor Network Theory (ANT) and a case study approach, the study discusses the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as the main control system in the privatization of solid waste management. ANT assumes that the interactions between multiple actors with different interests are important, hence, the paper also discuss on how the interactions among human and nonhuman actors translate the KPIs. Finally, the paper discusses the translation of KPIs in the network using four moments of translation which is problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation