Medicine
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This repository contains the published and unpublished research of the Faculty of Medicine by the staff members of the faculty
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Item Usage of cloud storage facilities by medical students in a low-middle income country, Sri Lanka: A cross sectional study(BioMed Central, 2020) Hettige, S.; Dasanayaka, E.; Ediriweera, D.S.BACKGROUND: Cloud storage facilities (CSF) has become popular among the internet users. There is limited data on CSF usage among university students in low middle-income countries including Sri Lanka. In this study we present the CSF usage among medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya. METHODS: We undertook a cross sectional study at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Stratified random sampling was used to recruit students representing all the batches. A self-administrated questionnaire was given. RESULTS: Of 261 (90.9%) respondents, 181 (69.3%) were females. CSF awareness was 56.5% (95%CI: 50.3-62.6%) and CSF usage was 50.8% (95%CI: 44.4-57.2%). Awareness was higher in males (P = 0.003) and was low in senior students. Of CSF aware students, 85% knew about Google Drive and 70.6% used it. 73.6 and 42.1% knew about Dropbox and OneDrive. 50.0 and 22.0% used them respectively. There was no association between CSF awareness and pre-university entrance or undergraduate examination performance. Inadequate knowledge, time, accessibility, security and privacy concerns limited CSF usage. 69.8% indicated that they would like to undergo training on CSF as an effective tool for education. CONCLUSIONS: CSF awareness and usage among the students were 56.5 and 50.8%. Google drive is the most popular CSF. Lack of knowledge, accessibility, concerns on security and privacy limited CSF usage among students. Majority were interested to undergo training on CSF and undergraduate Information Communication Technology (ICT) curricula should introduce CSF as effective educational tools. KEYWORDS: Cloud storage; Dropbox; Google drive; Medical students; Undergraduates.Item Marriage patterns in Sri Lanka and the prevalence of parental consanguinity in patients with β-thalassaemia: a cross-sectional descriptive analysis(Cambridge University Press, 2020) Premawardhena, A.P.; de Silva, S.T.; Goonatilleke, M.D.D.C.; Ediriweera, D.S.; Mettananda, S.; Rodrigo, B.K.R.P.; Allen, A.; Weatherall, D.J.Consanguineous marriages potentially play an important role in the transmission of β-thalassaemia in many communities. This study aimed to determine the rate and socio-demographic associations of consanguineous marriages and to assess the influence on the prevalence of β-thalassaemia in Sri Lanka. Three marriage registrars from each district of Sri Lanka were randomly selected to prospectively collect data on all couples who registered their marriage during a 6-month period starting 1st July 2009. Separately, the parents of patients with β-thalassaemia were interviewed to identify consanguinity. A total of 5255 marriages were recorded from 22 districts. The average age at marriage was 27.3 (±6.1) years for males and 24.1 (±5.7) years for females. A majority (71%) of marriages were 'love' marriages, except in the Moor community where 84% were 'arranged' marriages. Overall, the national consanguinity rate was 7.4%. It was significantly higher among ethnic Tamils (22.4%) compared with Sinhalese (3.8%) and Moors (3.2%) (p < 0.001). Consanguinity rates were also higher in 'arranged' as opposed to 'love' marriages (11.7% vs 5.6%, p < 0.001). In patients with β-thalassaemia, the overall consanguinity rate was 14.5%; it was highest among Tamils (44%) and lowest among Sinhalese (12%). Parental consanguinity among patients with β-thalassaemia was double the national average. Although consanguinity is not the major factor in the transmission of the disease in the country, emphasis should be given to this significant practice when conducting β-thalassaemia prevention and awareness campaigns, especially in high-prevalence communities.Item Screening of cushings syndrome in patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes with hypertension and obesity(2018) Karuppiah, D.; Cooray, M.S.A.; Somasundaram, N.; Ediriweera, D.S.INTRODUCTION: Cushing’s syndrome (CS) may be unrecognized in patients with diabetes. There is no consensus on routine screening for CS in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of unsuspected CS in out-patients with diabetes. METHODS: Cross sectional prospective study was conducted at diabetes clinic in National Hospital of Sri Lanka among patients with diabetes who were attending for out-patient visit from January-2016 to January- 2017. Total of 287 patients were investigated with over-night dexamethasone- suppression test (ODST) as a screening test. Patients who fail to suppress serum cortisol less than 50nmol/l were further tested by Low-dose-dexamethasone-suppression test (LDDST). A third step midnight cortisol measurement was performed in patients who were failed to suppress cortisol less than 50nmol/l on LDDST. Fourth step imaging studies with pituitary MRI, abdominal-CT or CT-scan of chest abdomen and pelvis depending on the ACTH levels were performed. RESULTS: Out of 287, 46.18% (133) patients failed to suppress cortisol to less than 50nmol/l on ODST. Among these 133, 23(11.49% of total) patients failed to suppress cortisol less than 50nmol/l on LDDST. Nine out of 23 patients had cortisol more than 140nmol/l on midnight cortisol test, confirming true CS. Further investigations with imaging revealed one with pituitary adenoma, one with adrenal adenoma and 6 had normal imaging. CONCLUSION: Considering the prevalence of definitive CS of 3.18% among poorly controlled T2DM patients with hypertension and obesity suggest that CS is not rare as previously thought. But in our Asian population with T2DM and high prevalence of co-morbidities, taking overnight dexamethasone suppression test alone as a screening test would not be a suitable test to screen CS.