Objective
To determine the frequency of patients seeking oral health advice and willingness of community pharmacists to provide oral health information in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.Methods
A cross-sectional study with sample size (n = 332) of randomly selected community pharmacists across the province. The questionnaire comprised of 25 questions divided into 3 sections. Frequency distributions of different categorical variables were calculated and Pearson's chi-square tests were performed to compare categorical variables. Statistical significance was determined at p-value <0.05%. SPSS version 22 was used for statistical analyses.Results
Of the 332 pharmacists, 279 agreed to participate in the study, yielding a response rate of 84%. About 71% of pharmacists provided less than 30 oral health advices and 29% of them gave ≥30 oral health advices daily. Oral ulcer (64.2%), dental pain (59.5%) and bleeding gums (54.5%) were the three most common oral conditions encountered by the pharmacists. More pharmacists (90%) were approached for advice about tooth whitening products, tooth brush and mouth wash in large cities compared with 66.7% of pharmacists in small cities of the province. Lack of interaction with dental professionals was recognized the most important barrier to providing oral health services to the clients. Almost one third (35.8%) had formal oral health training in their undergraduate program and only 26.5% of them were always confident in providing oral health advices. Majority (93.5%) of respondents recognized their important role in providing oral health advices and 98.2% were enthusiastic to provide oral health information.Conclusions
Community pharmacists are approached frequently for oral healthcare advices. Majority of them had no oral health training. Almost all of them were willing to provide oral health information in the community. It is essential to provide continuous oral health education to the pharmacists to better serve oral health needs of the community. 相似文献Patients with lower-thoracic spine pathologies that affect anterior column stability and compress the neural tissues need anterior decompression and reconstruction. Anterior approaches result in long-term morbidities. Posterior laminectomy and fixation alone may not be sufficient to maintain spine stability.
Questions/PurposesTo evaluate the results of a posterior-only transforaminal thoracic interbody fusion approach for patients with thoracic disc space infection in terms of the improvement in neurologic status, resolution of infection, correction of kyphotic deformity, and assessment of post-operative complications.
MethodsA prospective study was done on 40 patients with lower thoracic spine spondylodiscitis. All patients were assessed with pre-operative imaging. Neurologic assessment was performed using the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale and functionally by the modified Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) scale. Pre-operative and post-operative white blood cell count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and C-reactive protein levels were compared. All patients were operated on through a posterior approach using the transforaminal thoracic interbody fusion for decompression, reconstruction, and anterior fusion.
ResultsMean age of patients was 49 years; mean operative period was 188 min; mean blood loss was 611 mL. Twelve patients’ ASIA scores improved and only two patients’ scores declined. One patient died 11 months post-operatively due to septicemia. The mean follow-up period was 27.8 months. The modified JOA score improved from 6.3 ± 1.6 to 9.5 ± 0.6. The local kyphosis angle was improved from 13.8 to 6.9° post-operatively, with insignificant loss of correction at the end of follow-up. Thirty-eight out of 40 patients had solid anterior fusion at the end of follow-up.
ConclusionThe clinical outcomes of this study showed that the transforaminal thoracic interbody approach is effective for both decompression and anterior reconstruction of the lower thoracic spine in patients with spondylodiscitis.
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