Phasing out diploma in nursing: Merits and implications on nursing education in Pakistan

On 8th August, 2019, Pakistan Nursing Council announced the ceasing of the three year Diploma in Nursing which heralds a new era of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) as the entry point for the nursing profession in Pakistan. This brings Pakistan in line with most developed and many developing countries. Continuous..

Assessment of Clinicopathological Status and Outcome of Children with Tuberculous Meningitis at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Objective: The aim of this study is to report the clinic-pathological profile of children with TBM and their treatment outcome. Methodology: A retrospective observational study was conducted in the Pediatrics Department over 6 months period. Medical records of children admitted with TBM from November 2017 to May 2018 were reviewed for data collection. Data regarding clinical presentation, laboratory investigations were recorded. Patients were treated with a standard ATT regimen, and their outcome was noted. The study was approved by hospital ethics committee. Data was entered in SPSS for statistical analysis. Results: Females were predominant 39 (55.7%) and age ranged from 4 months to 13 years in this study. Only 28 (42.0%) children were fully vaccinated and had BCG scar presence. Most TBM cases were of stage II 24 (42.8%) or stage III 29 (42.8%). The frequent symptoms were fever 61 (87.1%), rigidity/irritability 35 (50.0%), and seizures 26 (37.1%). WBCs count in CSF was found below 500 in 64 (91.4%) children. There were 55 (78.5%) children with lymphocytosis and 14 (20.0%) with polymorph nuclear cells. A CT scan was suggestive of TBM in 51 (72.8%) children. Only 21 (30.0%) cases had a complete recovery whereas 17 (24.2%) recovered with sequelae and 10 (14.2%) deaths were noted. Conclusion: TBM presents with a poor clinical and pathological state in the advanced stage of the disease, and the therapy outcome is also non-satisfactory with high mortality and sequelae posing constant challenges

Institutional credit and agricultural production nexus

Credit plays an important role in the development of agriculture sector. It capitalizes farmers to adopt new technologies. It helps smooth consumption by providing Working capital and reduces poverty in the process. Both formal and informal lenders are active in rural credit market of Pakistan. There is a need to highlight the relationship between institutional agricultural credit and agricultural production. Time series data for the period of 1973-2009 was used. The study utilized Johansen and Juselius (JJ) cointegration approach and Granger causality test to explore the long-run equilibrium relationship and the possible direction of causality between availability of institutional agricultural credit, labor force availability, cropping intensity, water availability and agricultural production. Result shows the long run relationship among variables. Granger causality test shows the uni-directional causality among institutional agricultural credit and agricultural production and among water availability and agricultural production. The bi-directional causality was found among availability of labor force & cropping intensity and among water availability & cropping intensity.Institutional credit, Agricultural credit, Pakistan

Role of Institutional Credit on Agricultural Production: A Time Series Analysis of Pakistan

In our predominant and cash-strapped agrarian sector, adequate credit provision is a definite buttress to implant technological advancements, achieve technical efficiency and hire efficient inputs to uplift agriculture output/income collectively and eradicate poverty eventually. In the midst of beleaguered informal credit sector and recent spurt in banking services in last decade diverted the attention to envisage the formal sector’s optimum potential. In this backdrop, this study is going to explore the role of institutional credit in agricultural production using the time series data for the period of 1972 to 2008. Cobb-Douglas production function is estimated using OLS and all the variables are transformed to per cultivated hectare. Results show that agricultural credit, availability of water, cropping intensity and agricultural labor force are positively significantly related to agricultural production.Agricultural Credit, Time series analysis, Pakistan

The Relative Effectiveness of Monetary and Fiscal Policies on Economic Stability in Pakistan

In this study the role of monetary and fiscal policies in economic stability of Pakistan is studied using time series data for the period 1973-2014. The objective of this study is to discover the ways by which fiscal and monetary policies can be established to boost economic growth and stability of price level in Pakistan. The Augmented Dickey Fuller unit root procedure is used to check the time series properties. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model technique is used to find the long-run relationship between fiscal /monetary policy and economic stability. The study concludes that the variable CIR1 is insignificant in the determination of price level in Pakistan and the variable GDE1 and the variable IDT1 are significant in the determination of price level in Pakistan. The increase in the variable GDE1 and the variable IDT1 will increase the price level in Pakistan. The study concludes that fiscal policy plays important role to the steadiness of domestic price level in Pakistan

Trends and Determinants of Rural Poverty: A Logistic Regression Analysis of Selected Districts of Punjab

Poverty is widespread in the rural areas, where the people are in a state of human deprivation with regard to incomes, clothing, housing, health care, education, sanitary facilities and human rights. Nearly 61 percent of the country’s populations live in rural areas. In Pakistan poverty has been increased in rural areas and is higher than urban areas. Of the total rural population 65 percent are directly or indirectly linked with agriculture sector. In Pakistan more than 44.8 percent people generate their income from agriculture sector, and the higher rate of increase in poverty in the rural areas has provoked debate on growth and productivity trends in the agriculture sector. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to determine such factors which affect the poverty status of a rural household. Utilising unique IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) panel data together with sub-sample of PRHS (Pakistan Rural Household Survey) for two districts of Punjab (Attock and Faisalabad) the present study aim at analysing and estimating the rural poverty trends and determinants of rural poverty from the late 1980s to 2002. The data was analysed by using binary logistic model and head count measure. The results show that the chance of a household tripping to poverty increased due to increase in household size, dependency ratio, while, education, value of livestock, remittances and farming decreased the likelihood of being a poor. Moreover, the socio-economic opportunities as represented by the availability of infrastructure in the residential region also play a significant role in the level of poverty faced by a household. This study makes a modest contribution by attempting to analyse the need for focusing on anti-poverty policies, which can nip the evil in the bud.Rural Poverty, Poverty Trends, Agriculture Growth, Determinants

Handwashing Practices in Health Care Professionals of allied Hospitals of Rawalpindi Medical University

Objective: To assess the practice of hand washing in the teaching hospitals of Rawalpindi Medical University. Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted by on-site observations of HCP regarding hand-hygiene compliance in allied hospitals of Rawalpindi Medical University. Health care professionals having any sort of allergy or sensitivity problem of hands were excluded. A predesigned checklist was used to collect the data. In all the hospitals included in our study, a proper technique, provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), is displayed in almost all the wards. Results: A total of 218 respondents (74 doctors, 71 medical students and 73 nurses) were observed. Out of these, medical students had best hand-washing practices when compared to that of doctors and nurses. Basic hand-washing facilities were available in all the hospitals but only 36.6% of health-care professionals (10.58% Doctors, 19.58% Medical students, 6.45% nurses) with p value=0.05 practiced hand-washing. Moreover, out of the 36.6%, only 19.22% (p=0.01) followed WHO technique of handwashing, whereas, 86.7% of them used antiseptic solution. Conclusion: Despite the bedside availability of antiseptic solution in all the three hospitals, inadequate compliance was seen in health-care professionals. A multi-disciplinary, multidimensional approach is required to challenge the problems of non-compliance.&nbsp

Female Labor Force Participation in Pakistan: A Case of Punjab

The present study is an effort to investigate the patterns of female labor force participation in case of Pakistan. In particular, the study analyzed the determinants of female labor force participation decision. The study utilized Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2007-08 data of Punjab. Education is used as a direct human capital variable while; age is a proxy of human capital. The variables used in the analysis are female labour force participation, age, age square, marital status, area, female monthly income, family monthly income, family size, household head education, different classes of female education and employment status. To remove the selectivity bias, the study used Heckman’s (1979) two step procedure. Results of Logit model depicts that household head education, primary, middle, matric & mudrassa education level negatively related with the decision of female labor force participation while, decision towards participation is strong if female belonged to urban area, if she is married, if she has higher education, and if she has large family size. By using ordinary Least Square Method we estimated the earning function. Coefficient of age shows a substantial increase in the wages with each additional year spent. The sign of age square is negative which is according to our expectation and implying the concavity of earning function. Moreover, as the level of education increase the returns to each year of education also increases. In different occupational status females earns more if they are employee, employer or self employed than labourer (a reference category); while female earns less if they belonged to agricultural sector or other sectors than labourer. Married females earn more than others. The respondents’ belonged to urban areas earn more than rural respondents. Moreover, household head education and family size are positively significantly related with female earnings

Impact of Ownership Structure on Investment Efficiency of Sharia Compliant Firms

Sharia compliance is very common preference among Muslim nations of world, requiring to meet certain criteria as a sharia compliant firm. Muslims prefer to either invest in stocks or buy products from firms that are working as per the sharia rules and does not contribute in non-sharia activities in the society. This research is conducted, focusing on sharia compliant firms’ ownership structure and impact on firm’s investment efficiency. The workable data comprises of 65 non-financial sharia compliant firms listed in Islamic index of Bursa Malaysia and the span of study was 10 years from 2011 to 2020. Panel data analysis using two-step System Generalized Method of Moments technique was used in the study. The results showed that ownership concentration has a direct positive relationship with investment inefficiency while dispersed shareholdings displayed a negative relationship. Managerial shareholdings proved to have a positive relation with investment inefficiency as in line with agency theory. Institutional ownership was found to be negatively related to investment inefficiency while Mutual Fund ownership and Retail ownership were found to increase investment inefficiencies. Impact of Independent Non-Executive Ownership in firm was found to be statistically insignificant in impacting the investment efficiencies. The findings are in line with previous studies conducted on conventional non-financial institutions. Furthermore, the study could be further enhanced through inclusion of owner’s activism and cash flow rights

The role of micro health insurance in providing financial risk protection in developing countries- a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Out of pocket payments are the predominant method of financing healthcare in many developing countries, which can result in impoverishment and financial catastrophe for those affected. In 2010, WHO estimated that approximately 100 million people are pushed below the poverty line each year by payments for healthcare. Micro health insurance (MHI) has been used in some countries as means of risk pooling and reducing out of pocket health expenditure. A systematic review was conducted to assess the extent to which MHI has contributed to providing financial risk protection to low-income households in developing countries, and suggest how the findings can be applied in the Pakistani setting. METHODS: We conducted a systematic search for published literature using the search terms Community based health insurance AND developing countries , Micro health insurance AND developing countries , Mutual health insurance AND developing countries , mutual OR micro OR community based health insurance Health insurance AND impact AND poor Health insurance AND financial protection and mutual health organizations on three databases, Pubmed, Google Scholar and Science Direct (Elsevier). Only those records that were published in the last ten years, in English language with their full texts available free of cost, were considered for inclusion in this review. Hand searching was carried out on the reference lists of the retrieved articles and webpages of international organizations like World Bank, World Health Organization and International Labour Organization. RESULTS: Twenty-three articles were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review (14 from Asia and 9 from Africa). Our analysis shows that MHI, in the majority of cases, has been found to contribute to the financial protection of its beneficiaries, by reducing out of pocket health expenditure, catastrophic health expenditure, total health expenditure, household borrowings and poverty. MHI also had a positive safeguarding effect on household savings, assets and consumption patterns. CONCLUSION: Our review suggests that MHI, targeted at the low-income households and tailored to suit the cultural and geographical structures in the various areas of Pakistan, may contribute towards providing protection to the households from catastrophe and impoverishment resulting from health expenditures. This paper emphasizes the need for further research to fill the knowledge gap that exists about the impact of MHI, using robust study designs and impact indicators