Knowledge of emergency contraception among women of childbearing age at a teaching hospital of Karachi

OBJECTIVES: To assess knowledge and attitudes about Emergency Contraception among women of childbearing age in Karachi, Pakistan. METHODS: A questionnaire based survey was conducted on 400 married women, attending the family practice clinics at a teaching hospital in Karachi, Pakistan from July to December 2006. Questionnaire was administered to women at the family practice clinic-seeking level of knowledge of emergency contraception (EC) and attitudes towards its use, Ethical requirements of informed consent and confidentiality were ensured Data was entered into Epi data and analyzed in SPSS.RESULTS: Eighty-eight percent of women were not aware of EC. 83% were housewives. Only a small number (11.5%) ever used EC to prevent pregnancy, out of those, the correct timing of effectiveness of post-coital pill was known to only 40% of women while none of these women were aware of the existence of Intra Uterine Contraceptive Device (IUCD) insertion as an option for EC About 50% of women identified general practitioners or family medicine clinics as their main sources of knowledge about EC. Increased advertising was considered desirable by 72% while 37% considered over the counter availability of EC pill desirable and only 36% of women were uncomfortable to use EC because of religious reasons. CONCLUSION: EC has a potential to offer women an important option for fertility control. Lack of women\u27s knowledge about EC use and availability may account in part for its limited use. There is a need to improve women\u27s education about EC. The primary health care providers can play a major role in informing their patients about emergency contraception

Emergency Contraception: Knowledge and Attitudes of Family Physicians of a Teaching Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan

This study was conducted to assess the knowledge of family medicine providers and their attitudes towards emergency contraception in a teaching hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. A 21-item questionnaire containing the demographic profile of respondents and questions concerning knowledge of and attitudes towards emergency contraception was distributed among participants. In total, 45 interviews were conducted, with a response rate of 100%, with faculty physicians (33%), residents (27%), medical officers (40%), 36% male and 64% female physicians; of them, the majority (64%) were married. Although the large majority (71%) of the respondents reported considerable familiarity with emergency contraception, objective assessment revealed deficiencies in their knowledge. About 38% of the participants incorrectly chose menstrual irregularity as the most common side-effect of progestin-only emergency contraception pills, and only 33% answered that emergency contraception was not an abortifacient while 42% were unsure. Forty percent of the physicians prescribed emergency contraception in the past. The large majority (71%) of the physicians were familiar with emergency contraception, yet deficiencies in knowledge inaccuracies were identified. Barriers to its use were identified as ‘it will promote promiscuity’ (31%), religious/ethical reasons (27%), liability (40%), teratogenicity (44%), and inexperience (40%). Overall attitudes regarding emergency contraception were positive; however, most (82%) physicians were unsatisfied with their current knowledge of emergency contraception, and there was a discrepancy between perceptions of physicians and actual knowledge. Interventions providing education to family physicians regarding emergency contraception is strongly recommended

ERBM-SE: Extended Restricted Boltzmann Machine for Multi-Objective Single-Channel Speech Enhancement

Machine learning-based supervised single-channel speech enhancement has achieved considerable research interest over conventional approaches. In this paper, an extended Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) is proposed for the spectral masking-based noisy speech enhancement. In conventional RBM, the acoustic features for the speech enhancement task are layerwise extracted and the feature compression may result in loss of vital information during the network training. In order to exploit the important information in the raw data, an extended RBM is proposed for the acoustic feature representation and speech enhancement. In the proposed RBM, the acoustic features are progressively extracted by multiple-stacked RBMs during the pre-training phase. The hidden acoustic features from the previous RBM are combined with the raw input data that serve as the new inputs to the present RBM. By adding the raw data to RBMs, the layer-wise features related to the raw data are progressively extracted, that is helpful to mine valuable information in the raw data. The results using the TIMIT database showed that the proposed method successfully attenuated the noise and gained improvements in the speech quality and intelligibility. The STOI, PESQ and SDR are improved by 16.86%, 25.01% and 3.84dB over the unprocessed noisy speech

Emergency Contraception: Knowledge and Attitudes of Family Physicians of a Teaching Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan

This study was conducted to assess the knowledge of family medicine providers and their attitudes towards emergency contraception in a teaching hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. A 21-item questionnaire containing the demographic profile of respondents and questions concerning knowledge of and attitudes towards emergency contraception was distributed among participants. In total, 45 interviews were conducted, with a response rate of 100%, with faculty physicians (33%), residents (27%), medical officers (40%), 36% male and 64% female physicians; of them, the majority (64%) were married. Although the large majority (71%) of the respondents reported considerable familiarity with emergency contraception, objective assessment revealed deficiencies in their knowledge. About 38% of the participants incorrectly chose menstrual irregularity as the most common side-effect of progestin-only emergency contraception pills, and only 33% answered that emergency contraception was not an abortifacient while 42% were unsure. Forty percent of the physicians prescribed emergency contraception in the past. The large majority (71%) of the physicians were familiar with emergency contraception, yet deficiencies in knowledge inaccuracies were identified. Barriers to its use were identified as 'it will promote promiscuity' (31%), religious/ethical reasons (27%), liability (40%), teratogenicity (44%), and inexperience (40%). Overall attitudes regarding emergency contraception were positive; however, most (82%) physicians were unsatisfied with their current knowledge of emergency contraception, and there was a discrepancy between perceptions of physicians and actual knowledge. Interventions providing education to family physicians regarding emergency contraception is strongly recommended

From evidence to action: Results from the 2013 baseline survey for the BALIKA project

The Population Council and partners are working on a program to generate evidence on what works to prevent child marriage in Bangladesh. This report is an integral part of the program and presents evidence from a baseline study conducted in three districts in southern Bangladesh. The study documents data from a survey conducted in 96 villages on education, livelihoods, sexual and reproductive health, and social life. The program, which offers skills development for girls who are at highest risk and live in impoverished areas of the country with the highest child marriage prevalence, explores the potential benefits of investing in skills development for girls 12–19 years of age. The study finds that there are few opportunities for income earning or skills training. Similarly, very few of the respondents have opportunities to develop social networks or participate in civic engagement. By offering a place to meet other girls, socialize, build networks, and acquire skills, Bangladeshi Association for Life Skills, Income, and Knowledge for Adolescents (BALIKA) centers can help fill an important void in the lives of girls in the study area

Identification of hazardous road sites: a comparison of blackspot methodology of Narogong Road Bekasi and Johor Federal Roads

A traffic accident is an unexpected and inadvertent road event involving a vehicle with or without other road users that results in human injuries and possibly property damage. This study identifies and analyses the characteristics of Indonesian and Malaysian road traffic incidents. The method used was the identification of crash data coordinates and the Equivalent Accident Number (EAN) score per road segment. Accident characteristics are based on the type of road traffic accident, and collision is the most common type of accident. Speed data of two vehicles, cars and motorcycles, was collected through the test driver method by using the same vehicles for cars and motorcycles and following their normal driving habits. From the analysis results, some factors causing accidents on the Bekasi Narogong Road Section are the lack of traffic signs, road surface conditions, and lack of clear road markings. While on the FT050 Johor federal road, every kilometre per segment and along the segment, motorcycles are faster than cars in terms of speed

Health professions’ students have an alarming prevalence of depressive symptoms: exploration of the associated factors

Contains fulltext : 172650.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: There is a need to better understand the depression phenomenon and to clarify why some students become depressed and others don't. The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of depressive symptoms among health professions' (HP) students, and to explore the association between socio-demographic factors (e.g. year of study, discipline, gender) and depressive symptoms. METHODS: In this descriptive-analytic, cross-sectional study, stratified proportionate sampling strategy was used to select the study sample during the academic year 2012-2013. The students from four health professions' schools situated within a large, public university located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were screened for depressive symptoms using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI II). Chi-square test, student t-test and ANOVA were used to compare different categorical variables. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 79.0 %, the highest among dental students 86.1 %, and lowest among nursing (49.7 %). The overall prevalence rate of depressive symptoms was 47.0 %; it was highest among dentistry students (51.6 %), followed by medicine (46.2 %), applied medical sciences (AMS) (45.7 %) and lowest among nursing students (44.2 %). A statistically significant association was found between the presence and severity of depressive symptoms on one hand and the female gender (p = 0.000) and year of study on the other hand. CONCLUSION: This study seems to indicate an alarming rate of depressive symptoms. Female gender, dentistry, the third year for all schools and fifth year for medicine and dentistry have the highest association with depressive symptoms. Future studies may be needed to explore further the reasons and explanations for the variation in the prevalence of depressive symptoms among these groups. The factors that deserve exploration include curricular variables and personal factors such as the students' study skills

Family physicians' utility of social media: a survey comparison among family medicine residents and physicians

Introduction: Social media has become ubiquitous and has brought a dramatic change in health services. Little is known about its use by family physicians and residents for personal or professional purpose. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the utility of social media among family medicine residents and consultants. Methods: The collection of data was through the use of a five part questionnaire developed by researchers. The questionnaire was delivered to 70 physicians and 100 residents, out of which 132questionnaires were completed, representing a 78 percent response rate. Results: Our findings demonstrate that there was an overall high use of social media. Females used social media more for general education and professional purposes. Men, by contrast, used it more frequently for personal purposes. The participants in this study appeared to consider social media as having several useful dimensions, such as: enabling them to accomplish job tasks, improve job performance, productivity and more effective patient care when using social media. Conclusions: To date, limited studies have compared social media use among family physicians and residents. This study may serve as an initial step for future studies explaining the pattern of use among physicians

Perceptions of Mental Health among Pakistani Women with Micro-Finance Loans: An Interpretive Descriptive Study

Mental health has gained significant recognition and importance as a crucial aspect of overall well-being. An individual\u27s mental health is influenced by the intersection of individual, social, cultural, and systematic sources of stress and resilience. It is important to include subjective conceptualizations of mental health and well-being to develop culturally sensitive approaches to mental health promotion. This qualitative study aimed to understand how urban-dwelling women living in Pakistan who are micro-finance loan recipients conceptualize the meaning of mental health. Using interpretive description methodology, data were collected and analyzed through in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in Urdu with a purposeful sample of 32 women. An inductive approach to content analysis was employed to code and categorize the data. Participants conceptualized mental health as the presence of peace and the absence of tension. Chronic sources of tension included a lack of essential resources, safety, and security in their day-to-day living in Karachi, Pakistan. Implementing policies to address women’s basic needs, including access to education, would be a helpful first step towards mental health promotion for Pakistani women. Integrating concepts that reflect women’s understanding of mental health will also be a useful first step in developing culturally sensitive mental health assessment tools