ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine whether antibiotics are necessary for all minor wounds presenting to the Accident and Emergency Department at a tertiary care Centre in Pakistan
Methods: One hundred and five patients presenting to the Accident and Emergency Department, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, with open wounds were included in the study and divided into two: Groups A [study] and B [control], with Group-A receiving conservative therapy. Eighty-four patients were included in the final analysis as the rest were lost to follow up. Follow up was done after one week to see how many patients had developed infection
Results: The average age of patients was 27.3 +/-9.7 years with similar baseline characteristics. From these, 51% had superficial wounds; average number of wounds was 1.63 +/-0.99, with an average length of 2.7 +/-1.6 cm. A total of 10 out of 84 patients developed infection at 7-10 days after presentation to the A and E. From these, 3 patients receiving conservative treatment [A, 10%, OR=0.107], and seven patients receiving prophylactic antibiotics [B, 12.96%, OR=0.149] developed an infection. Calculated odds ratio for increased risk of infection in Group-A = 0.72
Conclusion: A conservative approach to antibiotic prescription for minor trauma may be appropriate despite absence of strict asepsis during emergency wound care
ABSTRACT
Background: Different professions are under a great deal of stress related to a variety of occupational stress factors. These factors contribute to decreased job satisfaction, decreased work output, mental and physical exhaustion and absenteeism due to sickness. It often occurs when individuals' cannot cope with their job demands, physically or emotionally
Objective: To determine the frequency of stress among three highly challenged occupations which are doctors, engineers and teachers
Methods: The cross sectional study was conducted in the District South of Karachi using separate questionnaires for doctors, engineers and teachers. In this research the total of 600 individuals were included, 200 from each profession. Only those individuals were surveyed who are currently working in government institutions of this district. The data obtained was analyzed using SPSS v.20
Results: The results showed that engineers are under a higher level of stress as compared to doctors and teachers. Workload, lack of power and influence, office politics, inadequate or poor quality of training/management development and lack of encouragement are the major factors that are contributing to build stress in engineers
Conclusion: As the frequency of stressful activities found higher in engineer, their workload should be minimized and divided among the relevant posts rather than putting the entire burden on an individual. Office politics must be discouraged as this has proved to have detrimental effects on individual's life. Lack of knowledge, power, influence, training and encouragement has led to increased stress. Stress management programs will improve management, and good intrapersonal relationships