Browsing by Author "Ramli Musa, Ph.D"

There is an increasing trend of premarital sexual experience and teenage pregnancies in Malaysia, coupled with a paucity of data regarding sexual practices amongst adolescents. Current available sexual knowledge scales that were reviewed were found unsuitable to be applied to the Malaysian population, due to a multitude of factors such cultural and religious sensitivity; explicit nature and contents; targeting specific populations; non-comprehensiveness; and merely focused on attitudes and behavioral aspects of sexual knowledge. The objectives of this study are to develop a new scale and determine its reliability and validity among youths attending pre-universities in Kuantan. The development of this scale is divided into qualitative and quantitative stages. The qualitative stage involved extensive literature review of currently available and related scales and expert interviews (qualitative content validity) to identify the domains for sexual knowledge; item identification for each domain and language review. In the quantitative stage, the pretest of the pre-final version, and validation study were conducted among students from a single university in Kuantan. In this study, initial Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed 11 factors with overall Cronbach alpha of 0.3, 95% CI (0.251,0.422) EFA was then repeated with two factors resulting in deletion of 19 items. Cronbach alpha significantly improved to 0.695% CI (0.548, 0.643), while the alpha for the two domains were 0.68, CI (0.637, 0.724) and 0.5, 95% CI (0.455,0.589). This study revealed a two-factor model with 12 items of the Youth and Adolescent Sexual Knowledge scale with acceptable psychometric properties. This scale is valid and reliable to measure sexual knowledge among youth and adolescents in Kuantan.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by the inability of the brain to focus and to filter irrelevant stimuli, affecting working memory and sensory gating functions. To date, medication is prescribed to control ADHD symptoms, however, the prolonged use of these medications has shown some adverse effects for individuals with ADHD. Alternatively, two non-pharmacological approaches have been proposed to help reduce ADHD symptoms, which are sound therapy interventions and systematic working memory trainings. Despite the potential use of white noise in sound therapy to reduce ADHD symptoms, it has poor melody harmonization, thus preventing children with ADHD features from participating in long training sessions. To address this issue, the present study investigated the possible use of a combination of working memory trainings and sound therapy using various sounds, including white noise, waterfall, and Quranic recitation. The present study aimed to examine the effect of sound-working memory training intervention on sensory gating, working memory, and severity of ADHD symptoms in children with ADHD features in Kuantan, Pahang. The study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the Swanson, Nolan and Pelham Teachers and Parents Rating Scale of ADHD symptoms (SNAP-IV) were cross-culturally translated into Malay (M-SNAP-IV). Additionally, the Sensory Gating Scale (SGS) was also developed. The M-SNAP-IV and the new SGS were psychometrically evaluated among 702 parents and were proven to be culturally suited and valid for use in Phases 2 (participants’ selection process) and 3 (intervention). In Phase 3, 39 children aged 8 – 11 years old with ADHD symptoms participated, and these children were divided randomly into five groups [white noise + working memory training (n=8); waterfall + working memory training (n=8); Al-Fatihah + working memory training (n=8); working memory training alone (no sound stimulus) (n=8)], and one control group (n=7). The training groups received repetitive computerised working memory training for 4 – 5 weeks (10 – 13 sessions), while the control group did not receive any intervention. The Corsi test (untrained working memory test), M-SNAP-IV, and SGS were used as pre- and post-intervention testing. In general, some of the findings showed a significant increase in sensory gating abilities and working memory, and significant decrease of ADHD symptoms in the training groups. Furthermore, it was found that the combination of white noise and working memory training was the best method in improving working memory performance and sensory gating ability, and in reducing ADHD symptoms. The present study also found a significant high-negative correlation between SGS and M-SNAP-IV scores, indicating that the increase of SGS score (the severity of sensory gating deficits reduces) led to the decrease of the M-SNAP-IV score (the reduction of severity of ADHD symptoms). However, some of the findings were negative for SGS and M-SNAP-IV, for example, a significant improvement of M-SNAP-IV’s post-intervention scores was shown in the control group, which was believed to be due to random effect. To conclude, the positive findings from the current study suggested that the sound-working memory training approach has great potential as one of the future alternative psychological and behavioural approaches for ADHD intervention.

Introduction: Professionalism is the basis of medicine’s contract with society as defined by the Physician’s charter. Although there have been significant efforts in teaching said subject among the medical community, efforts to objectively assess professionalism among anaesthetists remains elusive. Several studies done have indicated communication, ethics & compassion are part of what defines a professional anaesthetist. We have hence created a questionnaire that probes on how professionalism can be assessed among anaesthetists in Malaysia. Methods: This is a randomised multicenter cross-sectional study among doctors in anaesthesia in private & government hospitals to validate a self-created questionnaire of 37 items which had its face validity done prior with a panel of 4 experts. Inclusion criteria were doctors in anaesthesia for more than one year. The study was conducted in International Islamic University of Malaysia Medical Center, Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun Ipoh, Hospital Kuala Lumpur Results: There were 227 respondents with a total of 158 (69.6%) of respondents from government hospitals and 30.4% (69 respondents) from university hospital. The factor analysis gave a total of 3 main components, knowledge, attitude and practice with 3 of the 37 items not achieving good loading factors. The internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) for each component was good except for knowledge (Cronbach alpha of 0.282) Conclusions: The survey for professionalism among anaesthetist in private and government hospitals is valid with good internal consistency.