Explore the vast range of titles available.

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) present a challenging and expensive public health problem. Polypharmacy is defined according to the WHO criteria as the, \"concurrent use of five or more different prescription medication\". Elderly are more prone to adverse reactions due to comorbid conditions, longer lists of medications and sensitivity to drug effects. The aim of the study is to estimate the incidence and strength of association of ADRs due to polypharmacy among the geriatric cohort attending outpatient clinics at a tertiary care center. A hospital based prospective cohort study was conducted at ambulatory care clinics of Aga Khan University Hospital April 2012 to March 2013. One thousand geriatrics patients (age ≥ 65 years) visiting ambulatory clinics were identified. They were divided on the basis of exposure (polypharmacy vs. no polypharmacy). We followed them from the time of their enrollment (day zero) to six weeks, checking up on them once a week. Incidence was calculated and Cox Proportional Hazard Model estimates were used. The final analysis was performed on 1000 elderly patients. The occurrence of polypharmacy was 70% and the incidence of ADRs was 10.5% among the study cohort. The majority (30%) of patients were unable to read or write. The use of herbal medicine was reported by 3.2% of the patients and homeopathic by 3%. Our Cox adjusted model shows that polypharmacy was 2.3 times more associated with ADRs, con-current complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was 7.4 times and those who cannot read and write were 1.5 times more associated with ADRs. The incidence of ADRs due to poly pharmacy is alarmingly high. The factors associated with ADRs are modifiable. Policies are needed to design and strengthen the prescription pattern.

Objectives: To assess knowledge and perception among Pakistani physicians towards sepsis. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Indus Hospital and Health Networks from September 2020 to March 2021. The International Sepsis Survey questionnaire was adapted, and its link was sent to trainee physicians as well as specialists, and consultants practicing in various hospitals via social media. Knowledge and perception were scored and 50% was considered the cut-off score for adequacy. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 26. Results: Analysis was done on 222 respondents who completed the survey. 37.9% of the participants had adequate knowledge. Knowledge regarding sepsis was significantly associated with specialty, ICU/CCU/HDU, and work experience (P-value <0.0001). More recent trainee physicians and those with more experience in critical care areas demonstrated better knowledge. Over 2/3rd of the respondents strongly agreed that sepsis remains one of the unmet needs in critical care today. Conclusion: A common belief exists that sepsis remains a challenge to treat among doctors. Moreover, there is consensus that it is the most frequently miss diagnosed condition in critical care and a dire need exists for its early diagnosis. Additionally, prompt management of presumed sepsis is imperative to improve outcomes. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.ICON-2022.5775 How to cite this:Ahmed F, Abbasi L, Herekar F, Jiwani A, Patel MJ. Knowledge and perception of Sepsis among Doctors in Karachi Pakistan. Pak J Med Sci. 2022;38(2):380-386. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.ICON-2022.5775 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Errors in consuming drugs are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, besides an impact on the already overburdened health-care system. Misunderstanding drug labels and prescriptions plays an important role in contributing to adverse drug events. To evaluate abilities to understand prescriptions and drug labels among patients attending tertiary care hospital in Karachi. A cross sectional study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), from January to March 2009. After informed consent, 181 adult patients and their healthy attendants were interviewed at AKUH using a standardized questionnaire, which ascertained patient demographics, factors that might increase exposure to health-care personnel as well as the basic knowledge and understanding of prescriptions and drug labels. Out of 181, majority 137(76%) had received graduate or post-graduate degrees. 16 (9%) had received no formal education; of which all were females and 89(84%) of the total females were housewives. Overall, 130(72%) followed only a single doctor's prescription. Majority failed to understand various medical terminologies related to dosage. In the high literacy group, 45(33%) understood once daily OD (p = 0.003), 27(20%) thrice daily TID (p = 0.05), 29(21%) twice daily BD (p = 0.01), 31(23%) thrice daily TDS (p = 0.002) and 43(31%) as needed SOS (p = 0.003) as compared to the group with no formal education, who were unable to comprehend the terms. The most common reason for using more than one prescription was decreased satisfaction with the doctor in 19(39%) and multiple co-morbids as responded by 17(35%) of patients. Knowledge regarding various medical terminologies used for dosage and routes of drug administration were also understood more frequently among the English medium respondents. The elderly identified medicine through color (47%, p<0.001), and were less likely to understand drug indications (p = 0.05) compared to younger subjects. Understanding of drug prescriptions is alarmingly low in the community, even amongst the educated. Care givers need to revisit this often ignored aspect of patient care.

Objectives: To determine epidemiology of in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) in a tertiary care hospital, pre- and during pandemic. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of inpatients who experienced an in-hospital-cardiac arrest at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi between August 2019 and August 2020. Outcome variables were return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and survival to discharge (StD) and analysis was also done comparing pre- and during pandemic period. Results: A total of 77 patients experienced at least one IHCA event during the 1-year study period. Comparing pre- and during pandemic, ROSC for women was higher during the pandemic albeit not significant (43% vs 50%) in comparison to men (54% vs 10%, p<0.001). During the pandemic, women with IHCA were significantly younger than men (μ ± sd; 36.8 ± 15.3 vs 55.9 ± 12.7, p=0.001,) whereas pre-pandemic, there was no gender differences in mean age. Non-shockable rhythm was more common (92.2%) than shockable rhythm (6.5%). Pre- and during pandemic, there were significant differences in the cause of IHCA for 4H4T (87% vs 100%) and cardiac (36% vs 9%). The proportion of hypoxic patients increased from 50% during pre-pandemic to 91% during the pandemic period, whereas hypo/hyperkalemia decreased from 53% to 34%. Conclusion: Despite the limitation of a small sample size, our study has provided important information regarding the epidemiology and outcomes of IHCA pre- and during pandemic in a busy Pakistani tertiary care hospital. Our finding that gender differences exist in survival pre- and during pandemic needs to be explored further with more hospitals doing comparative studies. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.ICON-2022.5776 How to cite this:Ahmed F, Abbasi L, Ghouri N, Patel MJ. Epidemiology of in-hospital cardiac arrest in a Pakistani tertiary care hospital pre- and during COVID-19 pandemic. Pak J Med Sci. 2022;38(2):387-392. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.ICON-2022.5776 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Aim: The aim of this study was to demonstrate that APACHE II scores can be used as a predictor of the cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) outcome in hospitalized patients. Methods: A retrospective chart review of patients admitted, from 2002 to 2007, at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, was done for this study. Information was collected on 738 patients, constituting all adults admitted in general ward, ICU, CICU and SCU during this time, and who had under-went cardiac arrest and received cardiopulmonary resuscitation during their stay at the hospital. Patient characteristics, intra-arrest variables such as event-witnessed, initial cardiac rhythm, pre arrest need for intubation and vasoactive drugs, duration of CPR and survival details were extracted from patient records. The APACHE II score was calculated for each patient and a descriptive analysis was done for demographic and clinical features. The primary outcome of successful CPR was categorized as survival >24 h after CPR versus survival <24 h after CPR. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the association between the explanatory variables and successful CPR. Results: Patients with APACHE II scores less than 20 had 4.6 times higher odds of survival compared to patients with a score of >35 (AOR: 4.6, 95% CI: 2.4-9.0). Also, shorter duration of CPR (AOR: 2.9, 95% CI: 1.9-4.4), evening shift (AOR: 2.1, 95% CI: 1.3-3.5) and Male patients (AOR: 0.6, 95% CI: (0.4-0.9) compared to females were other significant predictors of CPR outcome. Conclusion: APACHE II score, along with other patient characteristics, should be considered in clinical decisions related to CPR administration.

Background and objective Emerging evidence suggests that sleep problems are more common among individuals with diabetes mellitus (DM) than in the general population; these sleep issues are associated with poor glycemic control and they negatively affect the overall prognosis of the disease by increasing cardiometabolic risk. Our study aimed to determine the frequency of poor sleep quality and its association with glycemic control among Pakistani adult patients with DM. Methods This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted at the outpatient department (OPD) of The Indus Hospital (TIH), Karachi, and included 329 participants. To be eligible, participants had to be 14 years or older, should have been visiting the OPD at TIH for six months or more to seek treatment for DM, and had to give informed consent. Participants were assessed for poor sleep quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score and glycemic control using HbA1C levels ascertained through electronic health record review, with higher HbA1C levels reflecting poorer glycemic control. Results Two-thirds of the participants were females (n=212; 64.4%), and approximately 90% of the participants were married (n=292; 88.8%); 57% (n=188) of the participants were found to have poor sleep quality (PSQI of >5) and 233 (70.82%) had poor glycemic control (HbA1C of >7). Interestingly, no significant difference was observed in the PSQI scores between participants with controlled diabetes and those with uncontrolled diabetes. Conclusion Based on our findings, there is a high prevalence of sleep disturbance among Pakistani adults with DM, and we believe this necessitates the fostering of sleep-promoting interventional research in the country, as it might be highly rewarding and would positively affect the overall prognosis for diabetes by improving cardiometabolic risks. However, our results did not indicate any significant association between sleep quality and glycemic control. Further research should be conducted to explore the association between sleep disturbance and DM in Pakistani adults, by employing objective measures of sleep quality and involving a larger sample of individuals with DM to determine if these results hold true.

Introduction Pancytopenia is an important hematologic problem encountered frequently in clinical practice characterized by a reduction in all three peripheral blood cell lineages, i.e., anemia, leucopenia, and thrombocytopenia, caused by myriad disease processes. Our study aimed to determine the frequency and etiology of pancytopenia in patients admitted under internal medicine services in a tertiary care hospital. Method This cross-sectional study was conducted in the in-patient internal medicine department, The Indus Hospital (TIH), Karachi, included 258 patients. To be eligible, participants had to give informed consent, be 14 years or older, and of either sex. The study involved a 20-30-minute interaction with the patient, involving an interview and physical examination, and access to electronic health record data. Results Out of 258 patients studied, 24 (9.3%) were diagnosed with pancytopenia, the male to female ratio was 1:1, no significant difference was observed in the proportion of ethnicity, religion, previous treatment, known infectious disease, and personal and occupational exposure among pancytopenic patients and other non-pancytopenic patients. Fever (n=14, 58.3%) was most common presenting complaint followed by fatigue (n=13, 54.2%) and weight loss (n=7, 29.2%) while most common signs were pallor (87.5% n=21), hepatomegaly (29.2%, n=7), and splenomegaly (25%, n=6). The most common cause of pancytopenia was megaloblastic anemia (n=10, 41.7%), followed by hypersplenism (n=4, 16.6%), acute infectious diseases (n=3, 12.5%), and autoimmune diseases (n=3, 12.5%). Conclusion Our study suggests that pancytopenia is a common finding among our patient population and a larger proportion has a treatable cause, thus carrying a favorable prognosis.Introduction Pancytopenia is an important hematologic problem encountered frequently in clinical practice characterized by a reduction in all three peripheral blood cell lineages, i.e., anemia, leucopenia, and thrombocytopenia, caused by myriad disease processes. Our study aimed to determine the frequency and etiology of pancytopenia in patients admitted under internal medicine services in a tertiary care hospital. Method This cross-sectional study was conducted in the in-patient internal medicine department, The Indus Hospital (TIH), Karachi, included 258 patients. To be eligible, participants had to give informed consent, be 14 years or older, and of either sex. The study involved a 20-30-minute interaction with the patient, involving an interview and physical examination, and access to electronic health record data. Results Out of 258 patients studied, 24 (9.3%) were diagnosed with pancytopenia, the male to female ratio was 1:1, no significant difference was observed in the proportion of ethnicity, religion, previous treatment, known infectious disease, and personal and occupational exposure among pancytopenic patients and other non-pancytopenic patients. Fever (n=14, 58.3%) was most common presenting complaint followed by fatigue (n=13, 54.2%) and weight loss (n=7, 29.2%) while most common signs were pallor (87.5% n=21), hepatomegaly (29.2%, n=7), and splenomegaly (25%, n=6). The most common cause of pancytopenia was megaloblastic anemia (n=10, 41.7%), followed by hypersplenism (n=4, 16.6%), acute infectious diseases (n=3, 12.5%), and autoimmune diseases (n=3, 12.5%). Conclusion Our study suggests that pancytopenia is a common finding among our patient population and a larger proportion has a treatable cause, thus carrying a favorable prognosis.

Introduction Nowadays, chronic conditions are increasing globally, stressing on self-management and patients' responsibility toward recognizing and resolving issues related to their illness. Diabetes is also a chronic illness, and diabetes-related self-care activities have been shown to be promising towards preventing its complications and achieving optimal glycemic control. Objective 1) To assess the association between glycemic control and diabetes-related self-care activities 2) To evaluate the association of patients' sociodemographic characteristics with diabetes-related self-care activities 3) To examine the impact of patients' sociodemographic characteristics on glycemic control Materials and methods This cross-sectional study was conducted at The Indus Hospital Karachi from February 2019 to July 2019. A total of 288 patients of both genders, age ≥18 years, having type 2 diabetes mellitus with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) done within the last three months from the interview date were enrolled in the study using a non-probability consecutive sampling technique. Whereas patients not giving consent for participation in the study, ICU admitted patients, critically ill patients, pregnant women, comatose, patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, coexisting and chronic liver disease were excluded from the study. Results Majority of the patients were female (n=209; 72.6%) and had uncontrolled glycemic control (n=235; 81.6%). Furthermore, less than half of the patients had inadequate diabetes-related self-care activities (n=140; 48.6%). The Mean ± SD of age was 51.9±10.2 years. The significantly higher proportion of patients who have had a duration of illness and treatment ≥3 years had uncontrolled diabetes but adequate diabetes-related self-care activities. Moreover, there was no association between diabetes-related self-care activities and glycemic control. Conclusion There was no significant relationship between diabetes-related self-care activities and glycemic control. Moreover, a higher proportion of patients with a longer duration of diabetes (≥3 years) had poor glycemic control but adequate diabetes-related self-care activities.

Introduction Hypertension is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Fifty-four percent of strokes and forty-seven percent of cardiovascular deaths are caused by suboptimal control of blood pressure. Economically developing countries like Pakistan are heavily burdened with an ever-rising epidemic of cardiovascular disease and stroke morbidity and mortality. Therefore, urgent steps are required to treat, as well as modify, risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including hypertension. Purpose The objective of this study was to ascertain the knowledge of hypertension and other sociodemographic variables and their impact on controlling blood pressures in the hypertensive population belonging to the low socioeconomic strata. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted in the general medicine and cardiology outpatient clinics of a tertiary care charity hospital. Three-hundred thirty-five hypertensive patients of age >24 years were selected and informed consent was obtained. Hypertension-related knowledge was assessed using the Modified \"Hypertensive Knowledge-Level Scale (HK-LS)\" via a 15-20 min interview. Secondary variables in the questionnaire included social demographics, medical history, and assessment of body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure average values, which were measured during the interview. Knowledge was recorded based on the 33-point modified HK-LS scale, whereas secondary variables were not counted toward the assessment of knowledge. Results The frequencies of low, moderate, and high levels of hypertension-related knowledge were recorded as 2.1%, 79.4%, and 62%, respectively. Among 335 patients, (57.3%) were male, the mean age was 52.5 ± 11.5 years, and 63.6% were professionally active. Median systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in hypertensive patients were 140 and 86 mmHg, respectively. Sixty-nine percent of patients reported existing comorbidities, 54% had diabetes, 20.7% had cardiovascular disease, and 24% reported renal disease. No significant association was observed between the levels of knowledge of hypertension and gender, blood pressure (BP) status, professional activity, and age groups (p=0.877, p=0.863, p=0.125, and p=0.400, respectively). Conclusion The majority had adequate knowledge of hypertension but only 64.8% had controlled BP status. This depicts not a lack of knowledge and awareness but rather a lack of prevention of risk factors related to hypertension. Thus, further studies are advised to look into the preventive strategies employed by patients to control their BP and assess their effectiveness.

Background The utilization of neck circumference (NC) as a valuable tool to evaluate metabolic syndrome (MetS) is still unclear. MetS has been extensively reported worldwide mainly due to the increasing trend of central obesity and the risk of developing coronary artery disease. In Pakistan, its incidence is reported to be between 18% and 49% among the urban population. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted at the Indus Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan; in total, 392 patients (body mass index [BMI] >23 kg/m , age ≥18 years, both genders) were recruited through consecutive sampling, and informed consent was obtained. Results The majority of patients were females ( = 344, 87.8%), and the mean ± SD of age and NC of all patients was 50.5 ± 9.6 years and 38 ± 4.6 cm, respectively. The majority ( = 375, 95.7%) of patients were found to have MetS, with 90% of both males and females having NC ≥38 cm and 34 cm, respectively. Conclusion The prevalence of MetS was found to be very high in overweight and obese patients. Moreover, the majority of patients with MetS were found to have higher NC.