Model for clinical management using body mass index of diabetes patients

from the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital on the management of diabetes. Weight was partitioned into three groups: underweight, normal weight and overweight. Three models were used for comparison: a model that used weight of diabetes patient as a covariate, a second that used both weight and admitting blood sugar reading of diabetes patients as covariates and the third separate models for each of the three weight groups of diabetes patient as covariate. Results showed that the latter model performed better than the earlier two models that were considered on this study based on the adjusted R2. Also our finding revealed that the minimum expected days to bring down the blood sugar level to threshold value are: 8 days for underweight, 12 days for normal weight and 27 days for overweight

On application of modified F – statistic: an example of sales distribution of pharmaceutical drugs

This research work often found in Medicine, Agriculture and Social sciences. Most of the earlier works that have addressed the problem of testing equality of means assume homogeneity of variances across the groups being compared but in this work we want to focus in the area of medicine and make use heterogeneity of variances across the group means. Comparison of mean measurements coming from various sources (groups) often is hampered or made difficult by the associated variances not being identical. This is particularly common, for example, in pharmaceutical products where various generic products exist and products have variances that are group dependent. In this work, the use of harmonic mean of sample variances is demonstrated instead of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) methodology, in order to remove the associated Behren’s – Fisher’s problem. This test statistic is more applicable in a situation when we have three or more samples to consider at a time, then F – test statistic is needed for testing the hypothesis that all the samples are drawn from the populations with the same means. The interest of this research work is to adopt a suitable test procedure to address heterogeneity of variance. The result shows that the modified F – test statistic is found to be appropriate for the data set obtained from the specific example considered in demonstrating the use of the test procedure.Keywords: Ordered alternative, Modified F – test statistic, Variances heterogeneity, Harmonic mean of variance

Availability and utilization of drug information center, drugs and therapeutic committee and standard treatment guidelines in the management of HIV/AIDS patients at public hospitals in a north-central state, Nigeria

Introduction: Nigerian National Drug Policy has targets with regards to institutionalization of Drug Information Center (DIC), Drugs and Therapeutic Committee (DTC) and Standard Treatment Guidelines (STGs). Inadequate availability and utilization of these supporting policies/documents affect quality of healthcare.Objective: This study examined the availability and utilization of DIC, DTC and STGs in the management of HIV/AIDS patients at public hospitals in a North-Central State, Nigeria.Methods: This qualitative multi-center study involved in-depth interviews of eligible 10 prescribers and 7 dispensers who provided healthcare to HIV/AIDS patients in eligible public hospitals with the aid of structured interview guide. The interviews were audio-taped, verbally transcribed, analyzed and developed into ethnographic summary.Results: Among the prescribers, STGs was the most available and utilized supporting policy/document. Less than 50% of the prescribers had DTC and DIC available in their institutions, less than 50% utilized DTC while only one prescriber utilized the available DIC. Only 10% of the prescribers had and utilized all three (STGs, DTC and DIC). Also, STGs was available to and utilized by all the dispensers. However, only 14.3% of the dispensers had DTC and DIC available in his institution and utilized them. Reasons for utilization/non-utilization of DIC, DTC, and STGs were awareness of availability, patient workload and documentation workload.Conclusion: Availability and utilization of STGs are optimal. However, availability and utilization of DIC and DTC in the management of HIV/AIDS patients in Public Hospitals are below optimal. There is need for improved availability and institutional mechanisms to ensure their utilization.Keywords: Availability, Utilization, Drug Information Center, Drugs and Therapeutic Committee Standard Treatment Guidelines, HIV/AIDS Patient

Malaria Attributable Fraction and some of its Predisposing Factors

 Malaria parasites occur in endemic areas such as the detection of parasites in a blood film from a febrile individual does not necessarily indicate clinical malaria, the fraction that has malaria symptoms and is attributable to malaria has been a major concern especially when symptomatic patients presume that they have malaria before confirming from laboratory test. The aim of the study is to determine the proportion of the patients that actually has malaria among the symptomatic patients. The objectives are to determine the predisposing factors that will tell us if a patient has malaria before laboratory test and a model that is clinically interpretable to describe the relationship between an outcome (malaria or no malaria) and a set of independent variables. As a result of high rate of malaria cases, there is a need to conduct research on factors influencing malaria. Logistic regression was used to analyse the secondary data collected from University of Ilorin Clinic from 1st January, 2015 to 30thJune, 2015. The attributable fraction for malaria was 49.2% and 50.8% was attributable to other diseases though they have identical symptoms. Males are 2.899 times likely to have malaria than females even after controlling for genotype. Patients of AA are 4.212 times likely to have malaria than the SS patients, patients of AS are 3.991 times likely to have malaria than the SS patients