Prevalence and pattern of knee osteoarthritis among nurses

Nurses at work assume uncomfortable postures that predispose the knee joint to osteoarthritis (OA) due to excess workload and stress. This study determined the prevalence and pattern of knee OAamong nurses. This cross - sectional designed survey employed convenient sampling technique to enrol 300 eligible and volunteer nurses from three randomly selected public hospitals out of five existing ones located at the study area. Written informed consent forms were issued to eligible participants. Forms containing socio-demographic variables and physical characteristics of the participants, American College of Rheumatology (ACR) clinical classification criteria for diagnosis of symptomatic knee OA, and health seeking behaviour were administered on the participants. Descriptive and Chi square (X2) statistics were employed to summarize and analyze the collected data respectively. Mean age and age range in years of the participants were 39.92 ± 10.97 and 19-65 respectively. Prevalence of knee OA among the nurses was 32.3%. Significant differences (p < 0.05) in the prevalence of knee OAamong the participants existed in the following variables: age groups, body mass indices (BMI), rank and years of working experience. Most (62.9%) participants presented with unilateral knee OA. Prevalence of knee OAamong nurses at the public hospitals surveyed was 32.3%. Age, BMI, working experience and rank were significantly associated with knee OA

Applying the international classification of diseases to perinatal mortality data, South Africa

Objective:To examine the feasibility of applying the International Classification of Diseases-perinatal mortality (ICD-PM) coding to an existing data set in the classification of perinatal deaths.Methods One author, a researcher with a non-clinical public health background, applied the ICD-PM coding system to South Africa's national perinatal mortality audit system, the Perinatal Problem Identification Program. The database for this study included all perinatal deaths (n=26 810), defined as either stillbirths (of birth weight >1000 g and after 28 weeks of gestation) or early neonatal deaths (age 0­7 days), that occurred between 1 October 2013 and 31 December 2016. A clinical obstetrician verified the coding. Findings The South African classification system does not include the timing of death; however, under the ICD-PM system, deaths could be classified as antepartum (n=15 619; 58.2%), intrapartum (n=3725; 14.0%) or neonatal (n=7466; 27.8%). Further, the South African classification system linked a maternal condition to only 40.3% (10 802/26 810) of all perinatal deaths; this proportion increased to 68.9% (18 467/26 810) under the ICD-PM system. Conclusion The main benefit of using the clinically relevant and user-friendly ICD-PM system was an enhanced understanding of the data, in terms of both timing of death and maternal conditions. We have also demonstrated that it is feasible to convert an existing perinatal mortality classification system to one which is globally comparable and can inform policy-makers internationally

Repeatability of Manual Coding Of Cancer Reports in the South African National Cancer Registry; 2010

"Data validity is a very important aspect of cancer registries in ensuring data quality for research and interventions. This study focused on evaluating the repeatability of manual coding of cancer reports in the South African National Cancer Registry (NCR). This cross-sectional study used the Delphi technique to classify 48 generic tumour sites into sites that would be most likely (""difficult"") and least likely (""not difficult"") to give rise to discordant results among coders. Reports received from the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital were manually recoded by five coders (2 301 reports; e.g. approximately 400 reports each) for intracoder agreement; and by four coders (400 reports) for inter-coder agreement. Unweighted kappa statistics were calculated and interpreted using Byrts' criteria. After four rounds of the Delphi technique; consensus was reached on the classification of 91.7 (44/48) of the sites. The remaining four sites were classified according to modal expert opinion. The overall kappa was higher for intra-coder agreement (0.92) than for inter-coder agreement (0.89). ""Not difficult"" tumour sites reflected better agreement than ""difficult"" tumour sites. Ten sites (skin other; basal cell carcinoma of the skin; connective tissue; other specified; lung; colorectal; prostate; oesophagus; naso-oropharynx and primary site unknown) were among the top 80 misclassified sites. The repeatability of manual coding at the NCR was rated as ""good"" according to Byrts' criteria. Misclassified sites should be prioritised for coder training and the strengthening of the quality assurance system."