scholarly journals Willingness to pay for a pharmacist´s dispensing service: a cross-sectional pilot study in the state of Penang, Malaysia

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asrul A. Shafie ◽  
Mohamed A. Hassali
2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuqa Haitham Khattab ◽  
Nabsiah Abdul Wahid

The state of Penang has been known to be offering the lowest water tariff rate for its users in Malaysia. The most recent water services reform exercise in Malaysia saw a suggestion made for the abolishment of water subsidies by the federal government and for full cost recovery (FCR) approach to be applied. This means that the operating cost will be transferred to consumers instead. This study reports a descriptive pilot study results that explored Penang user’s responses to various issues pertaining to their perception of water quality, health risk concern and willingness to pay for increased water tariff. The findings show that users were not that happy with water quality only in terms of taste, suspended solids that should not have come out from the tap but sometimes they do, and chlorine content; however, not for its odor or color. As for health risk concern, although majority believe that their tap water adhered to the drinking standard set by World Health Organization (WHO), still many perceived that their tap water is associated with health risk and unsafe for drinking, which saw many opted to buy bottled water for their drinking consumption. As for willingness to pay, majority think that the tariff should not be increased at all, particularly at the current water quality provided to users. Gender and monthly income as part of demographic factor play important roles in enhancing the study’s outcome.  The findings provide preliminary insight to how water users may act towards a possible water tariff increase in the state.


Author(s):  
Jong Hak Lee ◽  
Jong Eun Kim ◽  
Chang Su Park ◽  
Nam Il Kim ◽  
Jang Won Moon ◽  
...  

Abstract In this work, a slightly unetched gate hard mask failure was analyzed by nano probing. Although unetched hard mask failures are commonly detected from the cross sectional view with FIB or FIB-TEM and planar view with the voltage contrast, in this case of the very slightly unetched hard mask, it was difficult to find the defects within the failed area by physical analysis methods. FIB is useful due to its function of milling and checking from the one region to another region within the suspected area, but the defect, located under contact was very tiny. So, it could not be detected in the tilted-view of the FIB. However, the state of the failure could be understood from the electrical analysis using a nano probe due to its ability to probe contact nodes across the fail area. Among the transistors in the fail area, one transistor’s characteristics showed higher leakage current and lower ON current than expected. After physical analysis, slightly remained hard mask was detected by TEM. Chemical processing was followed to determine the gate electrode (WSi2) connection to tungsten contact. It was also proven that when gate is floated, more leakage current flows compared to the state that the zero voltage is applied to the gate. This was not verified by circuit simulation due to the floating nodes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaqun Huang ◽  
Sha Yan ◽  
Hongfu Xie ◽  
Ben Wang ◽  
Zhixiang Zhao ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Rosacea is a chronic inflammatory dermatosis with facial skin involved, leading to physical and emotional problems, which greatly affected quality of life (QoL) of patients. Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) and willingness to pay (WTP) are well-established instruments assessing the health-related quality of life (HRQoL), while very few studies have been focused on this topic about rosacea in China. OBJECTIVE To investigate HRQoL in Chinese rosacea patients assessed by DLQI and WTP and investigate potential predictors for patients with HRQoL severely affected. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted on 973 patients with rosacea. Sociodemographic data, clinical features and DLQI were collected, and WTP was assessed by three standardized items. Multivariable logistic analysis was performed to investigate independent factors influencing QoL. RESULTS 921 questionnaires were accomplished by participants. The mean DLQI score was 11.6 (median 11). Patients were willing to pay an average of $1050.2 or € 896.2 (median $431.4 or € 368.1) for complete cure. 33.3% would like to pay more than 20% of their monthly income to achieve sustainable control. There were positive correlations between WTP with DLQI (P < .05). DLQI could be independently impacted by age (21-30 and 31-40, OR = 3.242 and 3.617, respectively), the occupational requirement of appearance (high, OR = 4.410), disease duration (< 2 years, OR = 1.582), oedema (OR = 1.844) and severity of flushing, burning, stinging and pruritus (severe, OR = 2.003, 1.981, 2.491, 2.249, respectively). There were no significant associations between WTP and most of the clinical factors. CONCLUSIONS The QoL was negatively affected and should not be ignored among rosacea patients in China. Patients aged 21-40y, having occupational requirement of appearance, with the disease duration less than 2 years, and suffering severe flushing and related symptoms were more likely to have severe or very severe limitation of QoL.


Author(s):  
M. Tasdik Hasan ◽  
Sahadat Hossain ◽  
Rajat Das Gupta ◽  
Vivek Podder ◽  
Naima Afroz Mowri ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Siddrah Irfan ◽  
Nor Sheereen Zulkefly

AbstractObjectivesThe present pilot study examined the associations between attachment relationships, psychological problems, and negative automatic thoughts among late adolescents in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.SubjectsA total of 98 participants (male = 49, female = 49) were recruited from government colleges in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.MethodsThe measures used to assess the research variables of this cross sectional study were the Inventory of Parent-Peer Attachment (IPPA-Urdu), Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-Urdu), and the Automatic Thought Questionnaire (ATQ-Urdu).ResultsAll of these measures had good reliabilities. Findings of the correlation analyses demonstrated that maternal, paternal and peer attachment relationships were negatively related to symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as to negative automatic thoughts. On the other hand, depressive and anxiety symptoms were positively associated with negative automatic thoughts. Additionally, findings suggested that future studies must investigate adolescents from two-parent households and exclude those with only one living parent.ConclusionThe results underscored the need for further investigations of the linkages between attachment relationships, negative automatic thoughts and psychological problems on larger samples.


2014 ◽  
Vol 142 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan M. Bloch ◽  
Claudia Cohn ◽  
Roberta Bruhn ◽  
Nora Hirschler ◽  
Kim-anh Nguyen

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 215013272110133
Author(s):  
Neel Shimpi ◽  
Ingrid Glurich ◽  
Catherine Maybury ◽  
Min Qi Wang ◽  
Kazumasa Hashimoto ◽  
...  

Objective Health education interventions during pregnancy can influence maternal oral health (OH), maternal OH-behaviors and children’s OH. Interventions that can be delivered at anytime and anywhere, for example mobile-health (mHealth) provides an opportunity to address challenges of health education and support activation of women in underserved and rural communities to modify their health behavior. This pilot study was undertaken as a part of a mHealth initiative to determine knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to pregnancy and ECC prevention among women attending obstetrics/gynecology (OB/GYN) practices at a large rurally-based clinic. Methods A cross-sectional survey study was voluntarily engaged by women (n = 191) aged 18 to 59 years attending OB/GYN visits, over a 3-week period from 12/2019 to 1/2020. Survey results were analyzed applying descriptive statistics, X2 and Fisher’s Exact tests. The significance level was set at P < .0001 for all analyses. Results Approximately half of respondents were between 18 and 29 years (53%), had a college degree (55%), and 100% reported cell phone use. Whereas 53% and 31%, respectively, indicated that they were “somewhat” or “very” sure of how to prevent ECC in their children, only 9% recognized evidence of early decay and 30% did not know the purpose of fluoride. Overall, only 27% of participants correctly answered the knowledge-based questions. Further, only 57% reported their provider explained things in a way that was easy to understand. Only 24% reported seeing a dentist during their current pregnancy. Conclusions Study results suggested potential gaps in knowledge and behaviors related to ECC prevention and provided baseline data to inform future interventions to improve ECC prevention practices. Notably, majority of participants used their cell phones for making medical/dental appointments and reported using their phones to look up health-related information. This demographic represents a potentially receptive target for mHealth approaches to improve understanding of oral health maintenance during pregnancy and ECC prevention.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document