Nurses' knowledge about palliative care services in North Lebanon.

BACKGROUND: The surge in number of people needing palliative care services along with the deficit in nursing knowledge in in this field are challenges to be addressed in order to ensure higher quality end of life life care. AIM: The aim of this cross-sectional, exploratory pilot study was to assess nurses' knowledge in palliative care using the palliative care knowledge test (PCKT). METHOD: Descriptive analysis and correlations were carried out. FINDINGS: Nurses showed insufficient knowledge in palliative care; 52% had a poor level (≤18 points) and 48% a fair level (19-28) of knowledge. No participants scored more than 73% in the total PCKT score. Nurses scored poorest in the management of dyspnoea and psychiatric problems. CONCLUSION: This pilot study demonstrated that promoting continuous education in palliative care is needed to provide quality care to terminally ill patients.

Frameshift deletion mechanisms in Egyptian Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy families.

Partial gene deletion is the major type of mutation leading to Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and its mild allelic form, Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD). Amplification of the genomic DNAs of 152 unrelated dystrophin patients using multiple primers detected 78 (51.3%) probands with deletion mutations. We predicted the translational reading frame for all the deletions in Egyptian dystrophin males. The frameshift rule was confirmed positively ranging for 50 to 67% of the cases depending on the type of disease. We discuss ways of accounting for some exceptions from the frameshift hypothesis in the central and proximal regions. These explanations may help in developing procedures for reducing the severity of dystrophin phenotypes to restore the correct frame by disrupting the translational fidelity. Great efforts have been put into the development of effective 'gene correction' procedures via such intrinsic mechanisms. In addition, we mapped regional difference in deletion mutation frequencies within the DMD gene locus between the different Egyptian governorates. There were no double deletions in the Egyptian dystrophin males.