ABSTRACT
Aims: It is well know that Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is crucial risk factors for Coronary artery disease (CAD). The present study aimed to investigate characteristics and angiographic profiles of the CAD in diabetic’s women in comparison with non diabetics. Methodology: Documented CAD was examined in 688 women, attending angiographic examination in El-Hayat cardiology center in Gaza City during period 2010 – 2013. Cross sectional design was applied in this study where variables of interest are examined at the same point of the women examination, and predisposing risk factors were recording. CAD severity was assessed by the number of arteries 0-3 with more than 50% stenosis. Results: 420 of study population (61%) were diabetics, the diabetics women were older (P =0.02), had higher prevalence of hypertension, high level of Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and high level of Triglycerides (TG), the P value for all these variables cited was less than 0.001. The Body mass index (BMI) was the same in the two groups (P =0.76); women with diabetes have higher prevalence of severe stenosis in the angiography, where normal vessel was reported in 36.4%, single vessel 26.9%, double vessels 18.6% and triple vessels 18.1% vs 57.8%, 17.9%, 12.7%, 11.6% in non diabetic’s women respectively with significant statistical difference (P=0.001). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that diabetes mellitus was stronger predictor of CAD. Conclusion: Our data shows a strong association of diabetes effect more than other factors, on atherosclerosis. Information for future prospective studies is needed for primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of cardiovascular disease in Palestine.
ABSTRACT
Background: Primary health care medical laboratories play a vital role in providing a high quality service to meet needs of the clients, community and health staff. To ensure a high quality of laboratory service it should be well managed in term of human and physical recourses. Aims & Objective: To determine employees’ perception about their workload and working environment. Material and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out on the governmental primary health care medical laboratories in the Gaze Strip. Data had been collected using a self-administered employee questionnaire to get information about employees’ perception, and an observational checklist to get information about staff distribution and their working environment. Results: The research findings indicate that, PHC laboratories employees’ knowledge about the definition of workload and its measurement tends to be low. According to the findings, 66% of employees believed that over-workload exists in PHC laboratories and they attribute their feeling of being overloaded to factors such as inadequacy of staff, increasing work intensity, increasing paperwork, frequent equipment failure and absence of clear job descriptions. Regarding staffing decisions, 45% of employees have negative perceptions regarding staffing decisions in the sense of being fair, transparent and objective. Also, about 45% of the employees have a negative perception about their working environment which may be attributed to improper working conditions such as unavailability of sufficient working area. In addition, 55% of employees were dissatisfied of the service provided by maintenance department since 50% of the laboratories have at least one disrupted instrument. Conclusion: More involvement of the laboratory staff in decision making and improvement of both working environment and management of laboratory instruments were recommended. Moreover, the need for developing a reliable workload measurement system was recommended for better staffing decisions.