ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the awareness, need, role, and the effectiveness of the health education programs in improvement of well being of the community/citizens. Study Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted, from Aug to Dec 2015 at the four districts of Karachi city
Material and Methods: The instrument of the study was a questionnaire, including basic demographic information of the participants and other 20 items related to need and role of health education programs in control of diseases. A total 250 participants were selected through stratified random sampling design from residential areas of North, South, East and West districts of Karachi. Participants failed to answer item one of the questionnaire were excluded from the study. The data was then analyzed and expressed in percentages and graphs
Results: Total 189 residents were continued the participation belonging to the age group between 18-65 years. Majority of the respondents [96.82%] were in favor of organizing health education activities. About 75.13% believed that such programs have pronounced effect in management of diseases. Furthermore, participants [51.32%] were willing to attend health seminars/symposiums and workshops to be aware to their medical problems. It was also found that they have basic concept of immunization and harmful effects of smoking on health
Conclusion: Over all the residents of Karachi were well aware to the health education and its role in improvement of disease status. Residents showed positive response for participation in health education activities to manage their illness or medical problems. However, the present study involves a smaller population subjects. Authors highly recommended the institution of health education programs in hospitals and community to make the people and environment healthy
ABSTRACT
Casuarina equisetifolia L. is an important medicinal plant widely used to treat various diseases particularly ulcers, diabetes, cough, diarrhea and many infectious and skin diseases. The aim of this research study was to examine the killing mechanism and killing kinetics assay of methanolic bark extract of C. equisetifolia against some highly resistant human pathogens. The comparison on antibacterial activity of extract was firstly done with six different well reputed antibiotics using disk diffusion method. The broth dilution method was used to measure the MIC and MBC values. The mechanism of killing was identified by scanning electron microscopy [SEM] technique. Results showed that higher inhibitory zones were produced by methanolic plant extract than that of some tested antibiotics. The lower MIC and MBC values indicated the antibacterial potency of plant extract. The extract of C. equisetifolia produced a more drop in optical density of S. aureus, MRSA B. subtilis and S. epidermidis up to 12 hrs. The complete destruction of the cell membrane of MRSA was observed after 12 h treatment with plant extract. It is concluded that crude bark extract of C. equisetifolia is potent antimicrobial agent and produced both bacteriostatic and bactericidal effects. Its killing time was extremely faster especially against MRSA. The cell membrane rapturing is a suggested killing mechanism of plant extract
ABSTRACT
Cinitapride hydrogen tartarate is relatively a new prokinetic agent that widely prescribed for GERD and epigastric pain. Present study was aimed to develop and optimize cinitapride [1 mg] immediate release [IR] tablet formulation[s] by direct compression using central composite rotatable technique. Overall nine formulations [FC1-FC9] were generated by varying the composition of binder avicel PH 102 [X1] and superdisintegrant crospovidone [X2]. The effect of interaction of excipients on hardness [Y1], friability [Y2], disintegration [Y3] and dissolution at 15 min [Y4] were analyzed by RSM plotting. On the basis of physico-chemical evaluation FC3, FC4 and FC6 were found to be the optimized formulations however; FC3 was selected to be the best trial owing to excellent drug release [100.17%] with least friability [0.14%]. These IR tablets showed the release pattern similar to the Weibull model with r2 value of 0.9780.998. The dissimilarity [f1] and similarity indexes [f2] of FC3, FC4, FC6 with the marketed product were estimated to be 2.57 and 76.51, 4.51 and 64.46, 4.32 and 66.78 respectively. Trial optimized formulations were highly stable with the shelf lives of 58-64 months. So, keeping in view the results of present investigation, it is concluded that the technique of manufacturing and optimization is found to be excellent for developing immediate release cinitapride tablets
ABSTRACT
Irrational, over and misuse of antibiotics arise as global concern in both hospital and community settings and lead to adverse events including antimicrobial resistance, associated health problems, amplified hospitalization stay and cost. Hence, Drug Utilization Evaluation [DUE] studies are designed to evaluate and improve the prescribing, administration and the rational use of medications. The present study was designed to assess the pattern of antimicrobial drug utilization in in-patients cohort of tertiary care setup in Karachi, Pakistan. This cross sectional observational study was conducted in retrospective manner. World health organization [WHO] guidelines and criteria are considered to evaluate the appropriateness of drug use in various disease conditions. ATC/DDD system was applied to determine the study outcome. High frequency of antibiotics utilization found in respiratory tract infections of both lower [LRTI] 16.8% [n=42] and upper [UTI] 13.2% [n=33]. The estimated total number of drug units administered per month was greater with cefixime [46] and ciprofloxacin [45] both. DDD/100 bed days drug utilization of antibiotics was higher with ciprofloxacin, cefexime and meropenem [47, 46 and 29.25] correspondingly. In conclusion, the current investigation signifies extensive scope for progress in prescribing trend. Drug adherence to customary guidelines of disease management and constraint policies to endorse judicious drug use may be considered vital in healthcare setup
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Aceclofenac is considered to be an effective drug that has been widely prescribed for multir pjedical complaints globally. Owing to high demand many generic counterpart of aceclofenac tablets are now available in the commercial market. The aim of the present work is to evaluate and compare the quality attributes of various national/local brands of aceclofenac immediate release tablets [l00mg] with the standard multi-national brand available in Pakistan. Physico-chemical evaluation was performed by determining the average tablet weight, thickness
Subject(s)
Quality Control , In Vitro Techniques , Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal , Analysis of Variance , TabletsABSTRACT
Emerging resistance against broad-spectrum antibiotics for standard empiric therapy is a global concern. Ceftriaxone [broad spectrum, third generation cephalosporin] is widely used in tertiary care settings to treat severe bacterial infections usually non-responsive to other antibiotics. The aim of the study is to evaluate the current sensitivity pattern of ceftriaxone [30micro g/disk] among different clinical isolates. For this purpose, three hundred clinical isolates including Escherichia coli [25%], Staphylococcus aureus [30%], Salmonella typhi [17%] and Klebsiella pneumoniae [20%] were collected from different pathological laboratories of Karachi, Pakistan. The in-vitro sensitivity of different Gram positive and Gram-negative bacteria was determined by disk-diffusion technique using 0.5 McFarland standard. Results showed that ceftriaxone was highly sensitive against Escherichia coli [90%] and least sensitive against Klebsiella pneumoniae [65%]. It is concluded that the sensitivity of ceftriaxone is progressively decreasing in comparison with past studies creating an alarming situation. Therefore, continuous surveillance is required to determine the current resistance status of clinical pathogens and for effective anti-microbial therapy
ABSTRACT
Clinical isolates including Staphylococcus. aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas. aeruginosa and Salmonella. typhi were obtained from different pathological laboratories and medical center were included in the study. Comparison of in vitro antibacterial activity of levofloxacin and gatifloxacin was carried out by ICLS reference Disk diffusion [Kirby-Bauer] method. An attempt has been made to measure the zone of inhibition produced by Levofloxacin and gatifloxacin against these clinical isolates. Comparison of susceptibility results indicated that both Levofloxacin and Gatifloxacin has excellent in vitro antibacterial activity but gatifloxacin had relatively broad spectrum of activity against most of clinical isolates tested its mean that Gatifloxacin is more effective than Levofloxacin. On the basis of present study it can be evaluated that levofloxacin and gatifloxacin were two very good antibacterial agent in the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy but different clinical isolates had started to develop resistance to those antibiotics, w/c is alarming because if organism started to develop resistance to these antibiotics than we will be left with no other choice of antibiotics