East African journal of public health
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East Afr J Public Health · Aug 2009
Knowledge, attitude and practice of ante-natal attendees toward prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV infection in a tertiary health facility, Northeast-Nigeria.
Knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant women toward prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV infection have not been evaluated in any tertiary health facility in the Northeast region of Nigeria. ⋯ The pregnant women accepted PMTCT as a veritable means of preventing infants from HIV infection as well as an opportunity to know ones HIV status through voluntary testing. Majority implored greater involvement of their male partners and other significant family members during PMTCT counselling sessions to guard against ejection, stigma and discrimination if tested HIV positive. Staff training, awareness creation and community mobilization were identified as key to success of PMTCT programmes and fight against stigma and discrimination.
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East Afr J Public Health · Aug 2009
Mantoux skin test reactivity among household contacts of HIV-infected and HIV un-infected patients with sputum smear positive TB in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
To compare the prevalence of Tuberculosis (TB) infection as demonstrated by a positive Mantoux skin test (MST) among household contacts of sputum smear positive (SSP) HIV infected and un-infected TB patients. ⋯ The proportion of household contacts of SSP PTB index cases with a positive MST was high and uninfluenced by the HIV serostatus of the index case. Efforts towards contact tracing and screening for TB among close contacts of SSP PTB patients should be enhanced.
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East Afr J Public Health · Apr 2009
Randomized controlled trials: the most powerful tool in modern clinical research.
Randomized controlled trial (RCT) can be said to be one of the simplest but most powerful tool of research. It is the most rigorous way of determining whether a cause-effect relation exists between treatment and outcome and for assessing the cost effectiveness of a treatment. ⋯ For instance, menopausal status may influence outcome of treatment for breast cancer. This article is aimed at reviewing the general principles, importance of RCT and the reason for its importance in clinical research.
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East Afr J Public Health · Apr 2009
The health and living conditions of children in child-headed households in Siteki, Swaziland.
The focus of the study reported on here was to determine the health and living conditions of children living in child-headed households (CHHs) in Swaziland, where it is estimated that approximately 10-15 percent of the entire population will be orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) by 2010 and that one in ten households in the country today are child-headed because of the impact of HIV and AIDS. ⋯ There is a dearth of information on adolescents in Swaziland, the primary caregivers in most child-headed households. Children are not actively consulted and encouraged to participate in helping to solve the problems they are affected by. There is a lack of coordination between caregiver organisations, leading to ineffective and inefficient service provision for this particular vulnerable group.
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Many medical specialties have reviewed the drawbacks of statistical methods in medical diagnosis in specialized areas in their journals. To my knowledge this has not been done in general practice. ⋯ This paper is aimed to highlight to inexperienced statisticians, medical practitioners and personnel as well as other non-statisticians some of the common statistical problems encountered when using statistics to interpret data in medical research. I also comment on good practices to avoid some of these problems.