Effect of physical activity intervention on physical activity, body mass index, blood pressure, blood lipid and fasting blood sugar among overweight and obese military personnel

Introduction: About 18% of Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) personnel are diagnosed with either hypertension, diabetes or coronary artery disease, while another 8% are obese. The rising prevalence necessitates intervention. Methods: This is a single blinded randomized controlled trial among overweight and obese MAF personnel attending medical checkup in MAF hospital in Kuala Lumpur. An intervention module was developed to increase their physical activity level. Short version of International Physical Activity Questionnaire was used to assess physical activity in metabolic equivalent of task score (METs score), while blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), blood lipid profile and fasting blood sugar measurements were also obtained. These parameters were measured at baseline and again at 6 months. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) statistical test were applied to evaluate the effect of the intervention. Results: Response rate was 100%. Most of participants were aged above 40 years, male, from Malay ethnic group, completed secondary education and had monthly income above RM 4000. Most of the respondents were obese and had moderate level of physical activity at baseline. All variables compared between groups at baseline showed no significant difference. At six months, after controlling for covariates, the significant difference was only in METs score. The odds of having high METs score in the intervention group after receiving intervention was nearly 3 times higher than those in the control group, after adjusting for interaction between time and group as well as other covariates (AOR = 2.908, 95% CI 1.323 – 6.391, P=0.008). Conclusion: Intervention was effective in increasing physical activity among overweight and obese military personnel

Health Belief Model-based intervention to improve nutritional behavior among elderly women

Background/objectives: Nutrition is a determinant factor of health in elderly people. Independent living in elderly people can be maintained or enhanced by improvement of nutritional behavior. Hence, the present study was conducted to determine the impact of Health Belief Model (HBM)-based intervention on the nutritional behavior of elderly women. Subjects/methods: Cluster-random sampling was used to assess the sample of this clinical trial study. The participants of this study attended a 12-week nutrition education program consisting of two (2) sessions per week. There was also a follow-up for another three (3) months. Smart PLS 3.5 and SPSS 19 were used for structural equation modeling, determination of model fitness, and hypotheses testing. Results: The findings indicate that intervention had a significant effect on knowledge improvement as well as the behavior of elderly women. The model explained 5 to 70% of the variance in nutritional behavior. In addition, nutritional behavior was positively affected by the HBM constructs comprised of perceived susceptibility, self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and barriers after the intervention program. Conclusion: The results of this study show that HBM-based educational intervention has a significant effect in improving nutritional knowledge and behavior among elderly women

Impact of health educational intervention to increase osteoporosis knowledge among women: a systematic review

Osteoporosis is a growing global health concern. It is a silent and incurable disease, and many people are not aware of it till complications occur. Osteoporosis is difficult to treat and still incurable, and so prevention is critically necessary. Indeed, it is preventable by modifying unhealthy lifestyles to maximize bone mass density before its occurrence. Health educational osteoporosis program are known as an important strategy in its prevention. Theses program will increase women’s knowledge levels and alter their health beliefs regarding osteoporosis and preventive behaviors. This paper reports an analysis of the results on osteoporosis educational program for women in different age group

Cell phones usage and cancers: a review

Background: Certain electromagnetic fields (at extremely low frequency) have been recognized as possibly carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Given the use of radiofrequency technology in cell phones, the rapid increase in the number of cell phones has generated concerns about the existence of a potential health hazard. Use of cellular telephones is increasing exponentially and has become part of everyday life. Concerns about possible carcinogenic effects of radiofrequency signals have been raised, although they are based on limited scientific evidence. Thus, a scoping systematic review was to ascertain this. Materials and Methods: Full-text articles on Cohort studies and/or randomized controlled trials published from 1st January 2000 to 8th June 2016 were searched using Proquest and other sources. People of all age group and cellular phones users were the type of participant and exposure used for the search strategy, respectively. Data collection was done by 1 reviewer and checked by 2 reviewers for discrepancies. All the papers were critically appraised using the STROBE statement. Qualitative synthesis was done by descriptive comparison, risk of bias comparison and effect of exposure comparison. Result: 5 out of 15 articles met the eligibility criteria and were selected. Four articles showed low risk of bias due to low confounding bias. One article had high risk of bias due to information bias. All five articles showed low quality evidences using GRADE. There was no evidence for a dose–response relationship for these cancers based on number of years as a subscriber. Analyses by anatomic location of the brain tumors within the head revealed no unusual clustering that could be related to increased exposure to RF radiation from cellular telephones. The absence of statistically significant increases in cancer risks applied equally to analogue and digital systems. Therefore, it can be said that there is no association of exposure with the studied cancers. Conclusion: There were no insufficient evidence to implicate and suggest that the usage of cell phones exposure towards cancer occurrence. All studies showed that exposure to cell phone usage, regardless the time of exposure, the onset or the duration can give a significant results of association towards cancer. However, due to small number of studies obtained from this scoping systematic review, results from this review should be interpreted with caution

Association between knowledge, attitude and preventive practices on malaria among pregnant women with and without malaria attending ante-natal care in Zamfara state, Nigeria

Background: Malaria during pregnancy is a major public health problem, with substantial risks for the mother and her foetus. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and preventive practices of malaria among pregnant women diagnosed with and without malaria attending ante-natal care in Zamfara State, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: An unmatched case control study was conducted among pregnant women attending ante-natal care in Zamfara State, Nigeria. Pregnant women both cases and controls were obtained using multistage random sampling. Case and control in this study were defined as pregnant woman attending ante-natal care from the selected general hospitals in Zamfara State, confirmed with and without malaria respectively, using giemsa staining method based on their medical records. Face to face interview and self-administered pretested questionnaire in English and Hausa languages were used to obtain information on knowledge, attitude and preventive practices of the pregnant women using the mean score as a cut-off point. Descriptive analysis, chi-square and multivariate logistic regression were employed to determine the predictors using forward stepwise (likelihood ratio). Data was analysed using SPSS version 21.0. Result: There were 522 pregnant women 261 cases and 261 controls. The overall mean knowledge score of the pregnant women was 46.88 (± 8.322), with 67.8% cases having low knowledge and 75.1% controls having high knowledge on malaria. Overall positive attitude score among cases was only 14.9% as compared to controls with 83.9%. More than half of the cases 73.2% do not practice malaria preventive measures as compared to controls with only 19.9%. The predictors for malaria were having low knowledge (AOR =4.155, 95%CI = 2.344, 7.365, p < 0.001), negative attitude (AOR = 30.634, 95%CI =16.296, 57.589, p <0.001) and low practices (AOR = 15.587, 95%CI = 8.183, 29.689, p < 0.001). Conclusion: This study has identified that pregnant women with malaria in Zamfara State, Nigeria had low level of knowledge, attitude and poor preventive practices towards malaria

Knowledge and behavior regarding breast cancer screening among female teachers in Selangor, Malaysia.

A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the knowledge and practices of 425 female secondary school teachers from 20 selected secondary schools in Selangor, Malaysia on breast cancer screening (BCS). A self-administered, structured questionnaire was used for data collection. This study showed moderate to low knowledge on breast cancer (BC) and BCS among teachers. Only 19%, 25% and 13.6% eligible women performed breast self-examination (BSE), clinical breast examination (CBE) and mammography respectively, on a regular basis. Level of breast cancer knowledge was significantly associated with BSE (p=0.000). Having heard/ read about BCS, and regular visit with a physician were associated with BCS behaviors (P0.05 and age, family history of breast cancer, marital status or having health insurance). Efforts are needed to increase knowledge and remove misconceptions about breast cancer and screening practices among Malaysian women

From compliance to adherence and concordance, what quantitative and qualitative studies have synthesized?

Poor adherence has long been identified as the major health challenge in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. The purpose of the present study is to provide a critical review on the revolution of the “compliance” concepts from compliance to adherence and concordance to both pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies. Hence, the present study attempts to provide an update of the possible factors related to adherence by incorporating findings from both qualitative and quantitative studies with respect to various chronic conditions regardless of their causes. A comprehensive literature search was performed using online databases from Library of University Putra Malaysia, and Pub Med based on the keywords. From the present studies, the findings showed that both quantitative and qualitative studies cannot be neglected in assessing adherence and its related problems. One of major findings from the present review is that “compliance” was no more suitable for current treatments and it is important to defined concepts of the terms used (adherence or concordance) correctly and clearly. The problems of definition or concepts of the terms used further affects the measurements and the results of the studies. It should be noted that the measurements and findings of the studies reviewed reflected that researchers placed great value on medication adherence, but have little attention to the non-pharmacological aspect of adherence. Since medications is not the only way of treatments for many chronic diseases and many patients resisted to take medications due to the strong negative image of medications, non-pharmacological treatments like lifestyle modifications seems to be more natural way of treatments. This may be one of the vital factor of why little progress of patients’ adherence to treatments throughout these three decades. There were three general factors related to adherence to treatments, namely socio-economic factor, treatments-related factor and disease-related factor. The findings showed that both qualitative and quantitative studies found consistent results for most of the factors, except the experience of diseases symptoms. Factors identified in the qualitative studies provides a better understanding on patients’ adherence to treatments regardless of illnesses, but more quantitative studies with a representative sample and valid instruments are in need to clarify these factors. Both study designs contribute important values to the adherence studies. Hence, it is suggested that future studies should not only consider qualitative study but also quantitative studies

Socio-demographic risk factors of pulmonary tuberculosis: a case-control study in Yobe State, Nigeria

Background: There are many socio-demographic risk factors for pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB), however there are limited studies done in Yobe. Objective: To determine the socio-demographic risk factors associated with confirmed tuberculosis patients attending government hospitals in Yobe. Methods: This was hospital based, an unmatched case-control study. A case was defined as individual age 18-75 years with at least two positive sputum smears for mycobacterium tuberculosis. Systematic sampling was used to select cases. Control was defined as individual age 18-75 years attending the selected hospitals without laboratory evidence of active TB. Controls were selected using simple random sampling. A pre-tested self-administered questionnaire in English and Hausa languages was employed to obtain information about socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. Analysis was done using PASW version 21. Results: There were 346 patients with 173 cases and 173 controls. The risk factors observed were individual income per month ₦1000 – 50,000 (AOR 6.213, 95%CI: 1.208, 31.950) and being male (AOR 2.728, 95%CI: 1.625, 4.580). Some other significant risk factors included rural area (AOR 2.662, 95%CI: 1.604, 4.417), lower education level (AOR 1.802, 95%CI: 1.041, 3.120) and having age >37years (AOR 1.724, 95%CI: 1.034, 2.877). Conclusion: Several risk factors have been identified among TB patients. For TB control, emphasis should be given to health education especially among the high risk group of lower income, lower education, males, living in rural areas and being more than 37 years is needful to reduce TB infection among the study population

Knowledge, attitude and practice related to HIV/AIDS among students in a local university (2007)

Introduction: HIV/AIDS has emerged as a threat causing significant morbidity and mortality in human societies. The aims of this study was to determine knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) and factors associated with HIV/AIDS amongs students in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in UPM. A two-stage proportionate to size random sampling technique was used. A standardized pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data were analysed using SPSS. Results: The respond rate was 92.3%. The majority (57.3%) of the students were female. The overall mean age of the respondents was 22.5 years (95% CI 22.27-22.70) ranging from 18 years to 52 years. The results show that 91% of the respondents did not know that HIV virus can be killed by bleach; 93.9% stated that pregnant women with HIV virus can give the virus to her unborn baby; 90.2% believed a woman can get HIV if she has unprotected sex with a man; and 93.5% considered that having sex with more than one partner can increase a person’s chance of being infected with HIV virus. The majority (53%) were not willing to care for an HIV infected person in their own house. Only 19.5% of all the students claimed that they will inform their partners or family if diagnosed positive for HIV infection. The majority (93%) approved screening for HIV as a prerequisite for marriage. Only 2.2% of the respondents had multiple sexual partners and 5.4% of the respondents have had sexual intercourse before marriage. About 82.3% of the respondents believed in the used of condom as a means to prevent transmission of HIV. However, of those who were experiencing sexual intercourse with an unmarried partner, only 29.8% used condoms. Conclusion: The level of knowledge related to HIV/AIDS was not satisfactory. It is recommended that a peer educational programme on HIV/AIDS prevention be implemented

Dietary patterns as a predictive factor for overweight and obesity among secondary school children in Mashhad, Iran

This cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among secondary school children in the city of Mashhad, Iran and its association with dietary patterns. A total of 1189 secondary school children (579 males and 610 females) aged 12- 14 years old were selected through a stratified multistage random sampling. All adolescents were measured for weight and height. Household socio-demographic information were self-reported by parents. Adolescents were classified as overweight or obese based on BMI-for age Z-score. Dietary patterns were assessed using a validated Iranian food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) included 121 food items. The principal component factor analysis (PCA) was applied to derive dietary patterns, and Logistic Regression (LR) was applied to examine the association between dietary pattern and adolescents BMI. The overall prevalence of overweight and obesity among the study population was 17.2% and 11.9%, respectively. The PCA analysis revealed the presence of two dietary patterns that were labeled as ‘Healthy dietary pattern’ (HP), and ‘Unhealthy dietary pattern’ (UP). LR analysis showed that HP was significantly associated with BMI (OR: 1.28, 95% CI: 1.124-1.47). Similarly, UP was significantly associated with BMI (OR: 0.861, 95% CI: .725-.968). In Iran, nutritional transition has taken place in the context of urbanization and has changed lifestyle, and dietary patterns. Policies must be formulated and circulated in the society to reach every family in the form of healthy dietary pattern