Oral health knowledge, attitudes and behavior of nursing students at Mutah University [Jordan]

The aim of this study was to describe the oral health knowledge, attitudes and behavior of nursing students at Mutah University [Princess Mona College For Nursing And Allied Health Professions], considering them a representative sample of the Jordanian adult population at large. 520 students were invited to participate in this study, divided in to four academic years .The study was conducted during the second semester of the academic year [2011-2012] using an Arabic modified version of the [Ling Zhu et al 2005] questionnaire to assess the oral health knowledge, attitudes and behavior of the subjects. 503 students completed and returned the questionnaire. It was found that more than half of the students brushed their teeth at least twice a day [61%] mainly after meals [37.6] and half of them spent more than a minute brushing fluoridated toothpaste and vertical brushing technique are the most preferred where as hard bristles tooth brushes are the least preferred ones. 12.4% of the students kept their tooth brushes for more than 6 months .having bright teeth and no time for brushing found to be the leading causes for the students to brush or not to brush respectively. Only 12.9% of the students never visited a dentist till the day of questionnaire submission and 21.3% had their last visit 3 or more years ago. Answers were irregular when asked about gum bleeding with brushing. Majority of the students reported having the habit of drinking coffee or tea and sweets once daily. Oral health knowledge, attitudes and behavior among Jordanian population have been improved. Still more educational and preventive programs directed toward children as well as adults are to be planned in order to reach better levels

Peutz jeghers syndrome presented as intermittent gastric outlet obstruction

Peutz Jeghers Syndrome [PJS], which was first described in 1921 by Peutz1, followed by Jeghers etal in 19492, is an uncommon but not a rare disorder characterized by mucocutaneous melanin pigmentation, gastrointestinal hamartomatous polyps and increased risk of gastrointestinal and other organs cancer 1, 3, 4.The polyps vary in size from few millimeters to several centimeters, with lobulated surface, and could be pedunculated as in large polyps, or sessile as in the small ones5.The clinical symptoms of the disease are recurrent abdominal pain, intestinal intussusception and obstruction, gastrointestinal bleeding with symptoms of iron deficiency anaemia. The symptoms usually take place in the second and third decade of life6.The complications of PJS which brings the patient to the doctor is severe anemia due to blood loss from GIT, acute abdomen, intestinal obstruction due to tumor-mass obstruction or intussusception, or rarely due to gastric outlet obstruction as in this presented case7.The treatment of polyposis is by endoscopic polypectomy, laprotomy and resection which may lead to complications as short bowel syndrome. The other difficulty which the doctor comes across while managing these cases is to follow-up the occurrence of malignant disease in these patients, malignant changes of hamartomatus polyps and other organs cancers have been reported in patients with PJS8

Normal level of intraocular pressure: a study of young age people.

The intraocular pressure [IOP] of 1530 healthy Iraqi individuals was measured in an attempt to find the normal range value, 1008 of them were medical students [709 males and 299 females] and 522 were soldiers. The age range was 17-27 years. The study revealed than mean IOP value to be 11.67 +/- 1.96 which is much lower than other parts of the world. There was a significant sex difference and a significant effect of physical activity on IOP

The importance of communication with the foci of infection in the transmission of filariasis in Indonesia.

Studies on the occurrence of early symptoms of filariasis have been conducted in two transmigration Units in the valley of the Wae Apu river, Buru island, Maluku Province, Indonesia. In both Units, higher disease rates were found in areas, where there was a closer contact with positive natives, higher density of the vector mosquito, and higher infective rates in the mosquitoes.