The developing world is faced with a high burden of anxiety disorders. The exact prevalence of anxiety disorders in Pakistan is not known. There is a need to develop an evidence base to aid policy ...development on tackling anxiety and depressive disorders in the country. This is the first pilot study to address the prevalence of anxiety disorders and their association with sociodemographic factors in Pakistan.
A cross-sectional study was conducted among people visiting Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), a tertiary care facility in Karachi, Pakistan. The point prevalence of anxiety amongst the sample population, which comprised of patients and their attendants, excluding all health care personnel, was assessed using the validated Urdu version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The questionnaire was administered to 423 people. Descriptive statistics were performed for mean scores and proportions.
The mean anxiety score of the population was 5.7 +/- 3.86. About 28.3% had borderline or pathological anxiety. The factors found to be independently predicted with anxiety were, female sex (odds ratio (OR) = 2.14, 95% CI 1.36-3.36, p = 0.01); physical illness (OR = 1.67, 95% CI 1.06-2.64, p = 0.026); and psychiatric illness (OR = 1.176, 95% CI 1.0-3.1, p = 0.048). In the final multivariate model, female sex (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2, 95% CI 1.28-3.22) and physical illness (AOR = 1.56, 95% CI 0.97-2.48) were found to be significant.
Further studies via nationally representative surveys need to be undertaken to fully grasp the scope of this emerging public health issue in Pakistan.
Abstract
A series of novel 4‐(3,3‐dimethylspiro{bicyclo2.2.1heptan‐2,5′‐isoxazoline‐2}‐3′‐yl)‐2‐phenyl‐2,3‐dihydro‐1
H
‐1,5‐benzodiazepines were synthesized. These molecules were screened
in vitro
...for their antifungal and antibacterial activity, and none of the tested compounds showed promising antimicrobial or antifungal activity. J. Heterocyclic Chem., 2011.
To evaluate the safety and role of prophylactic administration of magnesium in preventing arrhythmias.
This double blind randomized placebo controlled clinical trial was conducted at Aga Khan ...University Hospital on coronary artery bypass surgery patients. All patients were connected to holter monitor before induction of anaesthesia and this monitoring continued for 24 hours. Study drug containing either 2-grams of magnesium or normal saline was given after intubation. Levels of serum magnesium was checked preoperatively and then in ICU at 0, 6, 12, and 24 hours. Independent t-test and chi square test were used for analysis. Statistical significance was defined as p-value < 0.05.
A total of 104 patients consented to participate in the study, 53 patients were randomly allocated in magnesium (Mg) group and 51 in placebo group. Two (3.77%) patients in magnesium group and five patients (9.8%) in placebo group developed atrial fibrillation. Incidence of ventricular and supraventricular tachycardia was also slightly higher in placebo. Mg level after arrival in CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit) showed mean of 2.1 in magnesium group and 1.6 in placebo group (p = 0.6).
Low magnesium levels were noticed in the placebo group after cardiopulmonary bypass and although prophylactic administration of magnesium sulphate was relatively safe but significant benefit on prevention of arrhythmias could not be attained.
There is a common perception that the privatisation process turned a lethargic, moribund, non-performing Pakistani banking sector into a dynamic, modern and outward looking one, which is not only ...profitable and efficient but also contributing heavily to the country's growth. In this article the authors challenge this perception, showing how between 2000 and 2012 privatisation accompanied by highly indulgent regulatory policies in fact enabled the new owners to earn enormous profits at the expense of the country's economic development. The analysis raises serious questions for policymakers charged with safeguarding the public interest.
Despite theoretical justifications and empirical evidence that state-owned enterprises have played an important role in late development, as well as over three decades of evidence that privatization ...programmes since the 1980s have had mixed results at best, international financial institutions continue prescribing privatization as a panacea for developing countries. Pakistan is an interesting case to understand why privatization is still considered desirable, because it is one of a set of developing countries that have whole-heartedly implemented Washington Consensus policies. In this context, we analyse privatization in two key economic sectors in Pakistan: energy and banking. Using qualitative and quantitative data, we describe the motivations behind these privatizations, the process by which they were carried out, and analyse the post-privatization performance of these organizations and sectors. We find that in both cases (a) the privatizations failed not only with respect to their stated aims, leading to a decline in national productive capabilities, but also had adverse distributional consequences, shifting the rewards to the buyers while the risks and costs remained with the public sector, and (b) the suboptimal outcomes of the privatizations went largely unchallenged aided by a prevalent neoliberal view amongst the country's economic policy makers and intelligentsia. Our analysis sheds new light on the process by which privatization in the absence of a state with the capacity to discipline business interests has enabled these interests to obtain state-sponsored rents without bringing any of the associated benefits for economic development.
The present study was intended to know whether personality traits predicting the delinquency among laborer adolescents. The research also aimed to see laborer adolescents with different demographic ...variables (i.e., age, education, labor type, and duration of labor) are differing on the self-reported delinquency (SRD) and Informant-reported delinquency (IRD) scales (Naqvi & Kamal, 2008) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-Junior) (Naqvi & Kamal, 2010). The study was carried out on a sample of 250 laborer adolescents working in workshops, general stores, restaurants, beggars, and trash collectors. Findings revealed self-reported delinquency and informant-reported delinquency, and personality traits i.e., extraversion, psychoticism, and neuroticism are positively related with each other. Multiple Linear Regression analysis results revealed high predictability of personality traits i.e., extraversion, psychoticism, and neuroticism traits with self-reported delinquency. The adolescents with less education have more delinquent tendencies. More delinquency is reported with increase in age and duration of labor among laborer adolescents. Labor type has nonsignificant effect on delinquency among laborer adolescents. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the frequency of various modes of transmission for HCV infection in rural Sindh. Material and Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was carried out from August 2006 ...to June 2008 at Research Medical Center LUMHS Jamshoro, Departments of Pathology, Nawabshah Medical College Nawabshah and Department of Biotechnology, University of Karachi. Study included 344 patients (239 men and 105 women with ages range 18–55 years) having positive HCV-PCR with different genotypes. All patients went for presence of HCV antibodies by ELISA and HCV RNA by Real Time PCR. Patients were asked to complete a questionnaire of clinical and epidemiological data to determine the various modes of transmission. Results: Among 344 patients, 226 (77.32%) were exposed to single risk factor, 69 (20.05%) to more than one risk factor, where as 9 (2.61%) patients never encountered any risk factor. Parental transmission of infection was the most common mode of transmission (n=143;41.56%) followed by surgical history in 74 (21.51%), blood transfusion in 66 (19.18%), needle accident in 43 (12.5%), exposure to barber in 42 (12.2%), promiscuous sex act history in 18 (5.23%), I/V drug users in 13 (3.77%), and tattoo marks in 5 (1.45%) patients. However no patient was found with positive history of prenatal, and inhalational drug route of transmission. Conclusion: ‘Parental route’ found to be the most common mode of transmission of HCV infection. The rate of HCV infection in the society may be controlled/ reduced by taking safety measures in various routes of transmission. Key Words: HCV, RNA, Mode of Transmission. This article may be cited as: Akhund AA, Shaikh KS, Naqvi SQH, Kamal M, Qureshi GA. Frequency of various modes of transmission of HCV infection in rural SINDH. KUST Med J 2009;1(2): 46-50.
Despite theoretical justifications and empirical evidence that state-owned enterprises have played an important role in late development, as well as over three decades of evidence that privatization ...programmes since the 1980s have had mixed results at best, international financial institutions continue prescribing privatization as a panacea for developing countries. Pakistan is an interesting case to understand why privatization is still considered desirable, because it is one of a set of developing countries that have whole-heartedly implemented Washington Consensus policies. In this context, we analyse privatization in two key economic sectors in Pakistan: energy and banking. Using qualitative and quantitative data, we describe the motivations behind these privatizations, the process by which they were carried out, and analyse the post-privatization performance of these organizations and sectors. We find that in both cases (a) the privatizations failed not only with respect to their stated aims, leading to a decline in national productive capabilities, but also had adverse distributional consequences, shifting the rewards to the buyers while the risks and costs remained with the public sector, and (b) the suboptimal outcomes of the privatizations went largely unchallenged aided by a prevalent neoliberal view amongst the country's economic policy makers and intelligentsia. Our analysis sheds new light on the process by which privatization in the absence of a state with the capacity to discipline business interests has enabled these interests to obtain state-sponsored rents without bringing any of the associated benefits for economic development.
This manuscript provides a novel method to improve occupied area, speed and power consumption of Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) decimation filter. The filter is design using proposed Merged Delay ...Transformed (MDT). First, mathematical calculation is performed and then applied effectively to first- and second-order IIR filters. The performance of the proposed design is compared with the exiting polyphase Finite Impulse Response (FIR) decimation filter and cascaded IIR decimation filter. The proposed method not only effective in term of reduction of area, power consumption, but also establishes better stability for coefficient quantization. Number of Multiplication involved in computing is reduced by 45.4% as compared to traditional IIR filters. The performance of the proposed method is checked through Matlab simulation and then implemented on FPGA Spartan-3 Kit using Xilinx tool.
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