scholarly journals Local Trends of Antibiotic Prescriptions for Necrotizing Fasciitis Patients in Two Tertiary Care Hospitals in Central Malaysia

Antibiotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1120
Author(s):  
Sanjiv Rampal ◽  
Thanusha Ganesan ◽  
Narresh Sisubalasingam ◽  
Vasantha Kumari Neela ◽  
Mehmet Ali Tokgöz ◽  
...  

Background: Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) is a rapidly progressive inflammatory infection of the soft tissue (also known as the fascia) with a secondary necrosis of the subcutaneous tissues, leading to a systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), shock and eventually death despite the availability of current medical interventions. The clinical management of this condition is associated with a significant amount of morbidity with a high rate of mortality. The prognosis of the disease is affected by multiple factors, which include the virulence of the causative pathogen, local host immunity, local wound factors and empirical antibiotics used. The local trends in the prescription of empirical antibiotics are often based on clinical practice guidelines (CPG), the distribution of the causative microorganism and the cost-effectiveness of the drug. However, there appears to be a paucity of literature on the empirical antibiotic of choice when dealing with necrotizing fasciitis in the clinical setting. This paper will outline common causative microorganisms and current trends of prescription in two tertiary centres in Central Malaysia. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study using retrospective data of patients treated for NF collected from two tertiary care hospitals (Hospital Seremban and Hospital Ampang) in Central Malaysia. A total of 420 NF patients were identified from the five years of retrospective data obtained from the two hospitals. Results: The top three empirical antibiotics prescribed are ampicillin + sulbactam (n = 258; 61.4%), clindamycin (n = 55; 13.1%) and ceftazidime (n = 41; 9.8%). The selection of the antibiotic significantly impacts the outcome of NF. The top three causative pathogens for NF are Streptococcus spp. (n = 79; 18.8%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 61; 14.5%) and Staphylococcus spp. (n = 49; 11.7%). The patients who received antibiotics had 0.779 times lower chances of being amputated. Patients with a lower laboratory risk indicator for necrotizing fasciitis (LRINEC) score had 0.934 times lower chances of being amputated. Conclusions: In this study, the most common empirical antibiotic prescribed was ampicillin + sulbactam followed by clindamycin and ceftazidime. The antibiotics prescribed lower the risk of having an amputation and, hence, a better prognosis of the disease. Broad-spectrum empirical antibiotics following surgical debridement reduce the mortality rate of NF.

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (9) ◽  
pp. 1147-1153
Author(s):  
Fatima Ali Mazahir ◽  
Manal Mustafa Khadora

AbstractObjectivesWe evaluated the spectrum of diseases accompanying congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in the United Arab Emirates and compared them with internationally studied patterns.MethodsThe presented retrospective cross-sectional study took place in two government tertiary care centres. In total, 204 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of CH and a minimum period of follow-up of 1 year were included. Patients with Down syndrome, infants born at <35 weeks of gestation, and babies with TORCH (Toxoplasma gondii, Other viruses [HIV, measles, etc.], Rubella, Cytomegalovirus, and Herpes simplex) infections were subsequently excluded from the study.ResultsOf the subjects with CH, 39% had associated extrathyroidal anomalies (ETAs); among these, 25% had a single anomaly. A significant proportion of Arab males were affected by CH as compared to other ethnic groups. Dyshormonogenesis was the commonest aetiological cause (55%) of CH. Males with an ectopic lingual thyroid gland had significant ETAs as compared to females of the same cohort. The most common ETAs were congenital heart disease (16%), followed by urogenital tract anomalies (14%).ConclusionsDetection of a high rate and variability of ETAs associated with CH necessitates the formulation of a structured screening programme including appropriate clinical, laboratory, and imaging tools to detect ETAs at an earlier stage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1858-1860
Author(s):  
Junaid Mushtaq ◽  
Israr-Ul- Haq ◽  
Waqas Mahmood ◽  
Mujtaba H. Siddiqui ◽  
Atiq Ahmad ◽  
...  

Aim: To determine the factors that affect compliance and adherence to medications of hypertensive patients visiting OPD clinics. Study design: Descriptive-cross sectional study. Place and duration of study: Department of Medicine, Unit 1, Lahore General Hospital, Doctors Hospital & Medical Center and Farooq Hospital Lahore from 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2019. Methodology: One hundred and sixty five patients with hypertension were handed over questionnaire socio-demographic, compliance and adherence were recorded. Results: Patients who maintained BP charting were only 13(7.9%) and those without BP charting were 152(92.1%). Patients taking regular medications were only 20(12.1%). Forgetfulness in taking medications was found in 47.3% of patients. 20.6% of patients were unable to purchase medicines because of financial reasons. Thirty two patients (19.4%) thought that they should not take medicines as they were not having any symptoms. Conclusion: Major causes of non-adherence were expense of medications, lack of symptoms, lack of money, forgetfulness, lack of awareness due to poor educational status and nature of job. Keywords: Compliance, Adherence, Medications, Hypertension, Forgetfulness


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iqra Arshad ◽  
Sara Mohsin ◽  
Sana Iftikhar ◽  
Tahseen Kazmi ◽  
Luqman F. Nagi

Background and Objective: Initiation of Insulin therapy during earlier stages has proved to significantly improve health outcomes among diabetics in comparison to oral medications. Not only patients but physicians are also often resistant to early initiation of insulin therapy. The objective was to assess misconceptions and barriers to early initiation of insulin therapy among diabetic patients coming to a diabetic clinic. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 300 patients selected by convenience sampling arriving in Diabetes Outdoor Clinics of Mayo and Services Hospitals, Lahore during August 2017 to May 2018. The data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 17. Results: Out of 300 patients included in study, 39% (n= 117) were males and 61% (n=183) were females. The mean age of the participants at presentation was 48.46±13.15 years with a range of 13 to 80 years. Study participants considered it embarrassing to inject insulin in public place (p-value 0.01). The fear associated with lifelong commitment to insulin therapy once it is started, was also found statistically significant (p-value 0.001)particularly in subjects who have long duration of DM (>5 years). Conclusion: Perceptions of diabetic patients about insulin therapy are still barriers to early initiation of therapy and tend to prevail in Pakistan and around the globe. How to cite this:Arshad I, Mohsin S, Iftikhar S, Kazmi T, Nagi LF. Barriers to the early initiation of Insulin therapy among diabetic patients coming to diabetic clinics of tertiary care hospitals. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35(1):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.1.237 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


2021 ◽  
pp. 41-43
Author(s):  
Chavan L. G ◽  
Bangal V. B. ◽  
Poorna M. N.

Introduction- Stillbirth rates are unacceptably high in developing countries. It reects the suboptimum quality of maternal and child health services. Material And Methods- Prospective observational cross sectional study, carried out for one year duration at tertiary care referral hospital in central India. Results-There were 9165 deliveries and 9318 babies born in the hospital.There were 318 stillbirths of which 245(77%) were antepartum stillbirths and 73(23%) were intra-partum stillbirths. The stillbirth rate in the present study was 34/1000 births. Ante-partum haemorrhage (36%) and pregnancy induced hypertension (21%) were most common causes of ante-partum stillbirths where as extreme prematurity with very low birth weight (41%), birth asphyxia, meconium aspiration (21%) and intra-partum haemorrhage (15%) were common causes of intra-partum stillbirths. Conclusion- There is high rate of stillbirths in the present study. Health education, improvement of maternal nutrition, regular antenatal check-ups, high risk pregnancy identication and timely referral and institutional deliveries will help in preventing large number of stillbirths.


Author(s):  
Gauri Kore ◽  
Heena Merchant ◽  
Hiba Narvel ◽  
Ajita Nayak ◽  
Avinash De Sousa

Background: Symptoms in the premenstrual period can be debilitating and troublesome and impacts the general health of women. There is a dearth of studies examining the relationship between sleep quality and premenstrual symptoms in women, especially in Indian settings. The current study was conducted with the aim of looking at the frequency of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in different age groups and the association of these symptoms with sleep quality in nursing staff.Methods: The cross-sectional study involved 450 female nursing staff between 25- 50 years of age from various tertiary care hospitals who were administered the Premenstrual Tension Syndrome Rating Scale (PMTS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The data was then statistically analyzed.Results: The prevalence of premenstrual symptoms was found to be 85.6% amongst the participants (according to the ACOG criteria), while the proportion of females suffering from PMS (according to DSM IVTR criteria) was 36.5%. A correlation analysis between total scores of PMTS and PSQI showed a positive, linear and significant association.Conclusions: The intensity of PMS was associated with reduction in sleep quality in present study. Further studies on PMS and sleep related parameters need to carry out in larger samples to give impetus to our findings.


Author(s):  
Mohammed Jezeel Nalakath ◽  
P. M. Thasneem ◽  
K. V. Deepak ◽  
N. A. Uvais

Background: Complaints from patients and their carers are important indicators of problems in a healthcare system and provide valuable insights into safety-related problems within healthcare organisations. The objectives of the present study are to identify the frequency distribution of the people complained about, the units complained about and the total number of complaints.Methods: We employed a descriptive, cross-sectional study to conduct this research. The research population included cases registered at the complaints unit of a tertiary care hospitals in selected months of May 2017 to August 2017. The data were collected through observation of available documents. Excel software program was used for data analysis.Results: The administration received 692 complaints between the study period. The highest rate of complaints was filed against admission process (30.06%) and the lowest rate of complaints are filed against staff (2.51%). Our study results showed a significantly less complaints against nursing staff and no complaints against medical staff, indicates that the nursing and medical staff of the hospital might be observing medical ethics and professional commitment to a high standard and communicating well with the patients. High rate of complaints against admission unit, house keeping unit and high billing amount indicates the unrealistic expectations prevailing in the minds of clients from the health care provider.Conclusions: The current study generated the profile of patient’s complaints in a tertiary care hospital running in a charitable model. Such data can be utilised to identify common problems and to plan strategies. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asim Mumtaz ◽  
Fauzia Sadiq ◽  
Saima Zaki ◽  
Hijab Batool ◽  
Muhammad Ibrahim ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The significance of investigation for diagnosing and managing thyroid dysfunction in pregnant females has been extensively documented in the medical literature. This study aimed to determine trimester-specific reference ranges for thyroid-stimulating hormones (TSH), free T3 (FT3), and free T4 (FT4) in apparently healthy pregnant women attending tertiary care hospitals in Lahore. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted at two tertiary care Hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. In this multi-centric study, 500 pregnant females were initially enrolled from September 2019 to December 2019 who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. For measurement of serum FT3, FT4, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-TPO), and thyroglobulin antibodies, 5 ml of the blood sample was drawn, under aseptic conditions, from each subject using Maglumi 800 chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) system. Results Out of 500 subjects, 23 subjects with positive anti-TPO, 19 subjects with anti-TG antibodies, and 12 subjects due to less volume of serum yielded from whole blood (serum less than 3 ml) were excluded from the analysis. Ten samples were hemolyzed and not included in the analysis. A total of 436 samples were examined for analysis. Of the remaining 436 subjects, 133 (30.5%) were from 1st trimester, 153 (35.1%) from 2nd trimester, and 150 (34.4%) from 3rd trimester. As the data were non-normal, the 2.5th, 50th, and 97.5th percentiles were calculated to express each group's results. Trimester specific range of TSH 0.168-4.294, 0.258-4.584 and 0.341-4.625 mIU/mL, FT31.857-4.408, 1.958-4.621 and 2.025-4.821 pmol/L and FT4 8.815-18.006, 8.306-17.341 and 7.402-17.292 pmol/L. Conclusion In this study, we established a trimester-specific reference range for our local population's thyroid function test. The results of this study have complemented the results of previous studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (09) ◽  
pp. 1239-1244
Author(s):  
Umair Toqueer ◽  
Muhammad Usama Zardad ◽  
Mahwish Toqueer ◽  
Anila Riyaz ◽  
Sana Khan ◽  
...  

Objectives: To determine stress grades of doctors working in tertiary care  hospitals by using a standard measuring tool i.e. Kessler 10 psychological distress scale along with finding out different coping methods adopted by doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study Design: Cross Sectional study. Setting: Tertiary Care Hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan. Period: 15 March 2020 to 20 June 2020. Material & Methods: A structured questionnaire was sent online to the junior and senior doctors working during the pandemic. The data was automatically collected with the help of Google docs and then analysed using SPSS 26. Results: Of the 219 doctors who completed the questionnaire 142 were males (64.8%) and 77 were females (35.2%). Interestingly, analysis of the score revealed that 38.8% of the doctors were found likely to be well, 16.4% of the doctors were likely to have mild disease and 20.5% were likely to have a moderate disorder while 24.2% were likely to have a severe disorder. Further analysis showed that the mean of  Kessler’s score was greater for junior doctors as  compared to Consultants which was found to be statistically significant (p=0.044). Conclusion: The impact of Corona virus disease (COVID-19) on the stress levels of health workers warrants considerable attention as it was declared a pandemic. Assessing the psychological impact and ways to tackle them will not only help the health care workers during this pandemic but will be beneficial in future pandemics as well.


Author(s):  
Aadil Sheikh ◽  
Jessica Dunphy ◽  
Claire Humphries ◽  
Christina MacArthur ◽  
Semira Manaseki-Holland

Background: The objective of the study was to explore the referral system from the community to hospital obstetric care in Kerala, India.Methods: Cross-sectional study. A total of 206 obstetric inpatients in 3 hospitals in Kerala, India completed an orally-administered questionnaire regarding referral and attitudes towards healthcare information.Results: Among 206 respondents, 19 (9%) had been referred from another healthcare provider.  In multivariate analysis, referral was independently associated with being in a tertiary hospital (p<0.001). At total of 17 referred women received a document containing hand-written notes from their previous healthcare provider. Just 3 of the documents available to view were formal referral documents; others were test results and/or hospital notes. A total of 170 (86%) of the 206 women thought that receiving documents such as referral letters was important; mostly because it helped them understand their condition and explain it to others (91%).Conclusions: A high rate of self-referral (91%) was reported by obstetric inpatients. It appears that some women who are referred do not receive a formal referral document. Participants thought that receiving referral documents was important. A strong health system requires transfer of information between primary and secondary/tertiary care services, which India is seeking to develop. Further research is needed into why women are not accessing community health services and the impact of the content of referral documents on patient care. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (04) ◽  
pp. 464-469
Author(s):  
Zahra Safdar ◽  
Faisal Ashraf ◽  
Alia Bashir

Objectives: The aim of the study is to assess the awareness about various aspects of HPV infection and vaccine among female doctors working in tertiary care centres. Study Design: Cross Sectional study. Setting: 3 Tertiary Care Hospitals Lahore. Period: Jan 2018 Jan 2019. Material & Methods: 478 female doctors from 03 tertiary care hospitals (Lady Atchison hospital, Lahore General Hospital and Services Institute of Medical Sciences) in Lahore who voluntarily filled 18-point self-administered questionnaire assessing their knowledge about HPV infection (8) HPV vaccine (5) and opinions about it (5). Knowledge score (range 0-8), assuming adequate knowledge > median. Factors associated with opinions were explored and analysed. Results: Most replied knowledge questions correctly 67.2%, 39.5% perceived it as frequently occurring infection. Median knowledge was 6 out of 8 questions; lack of knowledge was associated with non ob-gynae speciality or junior level. None of the participants were immunized but 46.3% were willing to get vaccinated themselves 78.1% were willing to get their daughters vaccinated. Self-perceived under exposure of HPV infection was 67.9%. Lack of feeling it as important in our social setting (28.6%), and expensiveness (19.4%) were most common causes of not counselling the patient about HPV vaccine and counselling to get vaccinated was most commonly done as it saves patients from cervical cancer (86.8%). Conclusions: Despite adequate knowledge of HPV infection and effectiveness of its vaccination, female doctors working in tertiary care hospitals of Lahore’s are not efficiently spreading awareness to the society and prescription of the vaccination is also deficient.


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