ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION@#Probiotics such as Saccharomyces boulardii are now advocated for the treatment of diarrhea. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine the effectiveness of Saccharomyces boulardii in the treatment of diarrhea.@*METHODS@#MEDLINE, EBSCO, Clinical Key, and the Cochrane Library were searched for clinical trials which used Saccharomyces boulardii as primary or adjuvant treatment for diarrhea. Outcomes included were treatment success in the form of cessation of diarrhea, decrease in the duration of diarrhea, decrease in hospital days, and improvement of dehydration. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Critical Appraisal tool together with the Cochrane Collaboration tool was used to assess the risk of bias, RevMan 5.4 for encoding, and the Mantel-Haenszel method for analysis to compute a pooled result. @*RESULTS@#Eleven clinical trials involving 1,541 participants were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. Seven studies showed a non-significant overall decrease in the duration of diarrhea of 1.65 days (p = 0.25), five studies showed an overall significant beneficial response (RR = 1.68, p < 0.001) in the cessation of diarrhea. There was a statistically significant mean decrease (1.01 days, p < 0.001) in duration of hospitalization; and a statistically significant decrease (0.18 days or 4.32 hours, p = 0.04) in the duration of vomiting.@*CONCLUSION@#A systematic review and meta-analysis of 11 clinical trials favors the use of Saccharomyces boulardii in the treatment of diarrhea in terms of cessation of diarrhea, decrease in the duration of hospitalization and duration of vomiting.
Subject(s)
Saccharomyces boulardii , Probiotics , DiarrheaABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION@#Diabetes mellitus is a serious health issue in every nation of the world. The quality of life of diabetic patients is sometimes compromised because of the numerous medications being taken and as a consequence of the diabetic complications. There is a need for a validated Filipino translated quality of life questionnaire that can be used by researchers in the Philippines.@*METHODS@#This is a linguistic validation study of the Filipino version of the Asian Diabetes Quality of Life Scale (ADQOL). The ADQOL was translated in Filipino, back translated to English, reviewed, tested on patients, revised, and fnalized. Content validity, cognitive validity, and test stability using test-retest reliability were determined.@*RESULTS@#The item content validity index showed a score of 1.00 except for two numbers which scored 0.80 and 0.90 on clarity. The scale content validity index universal agreement and average also scored 1.00 for representativeness, relevance and appropriateness. The comprehension index average was 0.97 while the average clarity index was 0.96. The per item Cronbach’s alpha score ranged from 0.86 – 0.89 with no item lower than 0.70, while the overall Cronbach’s alpha was 0.88. The test retest reliability showed a Bland Altmann Plot repeatability correlation of 0.813 and a Pearson’s correlation of 0.820.@*CONCLUSION@#The validity and reliability testing of the Filipino version of the Asian Diabetes Quality of Life questionnaire had a higher validity and reliability score as compared with the original English version making it a valid and reliable tool for researchers who would want to measure the quality of life of Filipino patients with type 2 diabetes.