Medicine
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Many factors can affect delivery mode decisions. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effects of maternal age, physician's sex, region, income, and hospital type on cesarean section (C/S) delivery rates between 2008 and 2018 in Taiwan. In this population-based cross-sectional study, data were extracted from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (2 million individuals). ⋯ In conclusion, this study revealed a significant increase in C/S rates over the past decade, which was influenced by multiple factors. Maternal age, physician's sex, income status, location, and type of hospital may influence C/S rates. Analyzing these relationships can inform the development of strategies aimed at reducing future C/S rates, and targeted interventions may reduce the C/S rates.
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The aging population has become a severe public health issue both in China and globally. Over 180 million elderly people in China have chronic diseases, with 75% of them suffering from 2 or more chronic diseases, posing significant threats to their independence and quality of life, and imposing immense mental and disease burdens on patients and their families. So our research analyzes the influencing factors based on the current acceptance status of advance care planning (ACP) among elderly patients with chronic diseases. ⋯ Factors influencing ACP acceptance included fear of death, whether the patient had cared for a dying relative, duration of chronic illness, presence of complications, natural acceptance, and religious beliefs (P < .05). The acceptance level of ACP among elderly patients with chronic diseases is moderately high. Medical staff should provide more choices to enhance the life value of elderly patients with chronic diseases based on fully respecting their wishes.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of chromosomal microarray and karyotyping in prenatal diagnosis using 491 amniotic fluid samples.
This study was aimed to investigate the performance of chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) in prenatal diagnosis compared with traditional karyotyping analysis. Both CMA and karyotyping analyses were performed to detect the karyotypes in the amniotic fluid of 491 pregnant women who got prenatal diagnosis at the Center of Prenatal Diagnosis of Shangrao (China) during January 2019 to April 2021. After excluding 2 samples in the CMA analysis and 2 samples in the karyotyping analysis which were failed in detection, the remaining 487 amniotic fluid samples were detected. ⋯ Furthermore, 23 cases of copy number variation (CNVs) with variation of unknown clinical significance (VOUS) were detected by CMA, which accounted for 4.68% (23/491) in all cases. However, CMA was not able to accurately identify some complex karyotypes and mixed chimeras, including 2 cases of chimeras, 4 cases of balanced translocations, 4 cases of pericentric inversions, and 8 cases of other chromosome polymorphisms, indicating karyotyping analysis was superior to detect these chromosome abnormalities compared with CMA analysis. CMA was better in detecting the fracture sites, microduplication and microdeletion with definite pathogenicity, and CNVs with VOUS compared with karyotype analysis.
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The association between cereal intake and inflammatory joint disease remains controversial. This study aims to use Mendelian randomization to comprehensively evaluate the causal relationship between cereal grain intake and Inflammatory joint diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis. This investigation used publicly available data from genome-wide association studies to aggregate statistics on the association between cereal intake and inflammatory joint disease. ⋯ Using the leave-one-out method, no single nucleotide polymorphism was found to affect the overall effect estimate significantly, and there was no heterogeneity. Cereal intake had no causal effect on the risk of developing ankylosing spondylitis (OR = 0.636; 95% CI: 0.236-1.711; P = .370). There is genetic evidence that cereal consumption reduces the risk of developing Inflammatory joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.
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Hypertension is a serious health concern, especially in developing countries, and assessing people's knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) is important for its awareness and management. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the KAP on hypertension among students and staff from the Health Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Faculty of the University of Namibia. A cross-sectional study design was conducted on adult participants who completed the KAP questionnaire while resting, and thereafter their blood pressure (BP) was measured. ⋯ Only approximately 39% of the participants regularly monitored their BP. Just above 50% of the participants regularly engaged in physical activities and made dietary modifications to maintain a healthy heart. It is important to host regular hypertension campaigns among health science personnel, as this would help refresh and improve their KAP in prevention and management.