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Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response

OBJECTIVES: Prevalence of symptoms in everyday life and how people respond to these symptoms is little studied outside Western culture and developed countries. We sought to use modified diary methods to explore the prevalence of and responses to symptoms in Pakistan. DESIGN: Prospective daily survey...

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Autores principales: Anwar, Mudassir, Green, James A, Norris, Pauline, Bukhari, Nadeem Irfan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5695404/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29138192
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014998
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author Anwar, Mudassir
Green, James A
Norris, Pauline
Bukhari, Nadeem Irfan
author_facet Anwar, Mudassir
Green, James A
Norris, Pauline
Bukhari, Nadeem Irfan
author_sort Anwar, Mudassir
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Prevalence of symptoms in everyday life and how people respond to these symptoms is little studied outside Western culture and developed countries. We sought to use modified diary methods to explore the prevalence of and responses to symptoms in Pakistan. DESIGN: Prospective daily survey of symptoms and response. SETTING: 8 cities across four provinces in Pakistan. PARTICIPANTS: Stratified intercept in each city to recruit 153 participants of which 151 completed. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Each day for 30 days, participants were prompted by text message (short message service (SMS)) to complete a symptom diary. On days where symptoms were experienced, participants also reported how they responded. Prevalence was adjusted to population age and gender distributions. RESULTS: 92% of participants experienced symptoms (adjusted prevalence 94%, 95% CI 91% to 97%), with musculoskeletal pain (83%, adj. 84%, 95% CI 84% to 90%) and respiratory symptoms (75%, adj. 77%, 95% CI 71% to 84%) the most prevalent types of symptoms. Self-medication and use of home remedies and traditional medicines were the most common responses. Seeking professional help or using conventional medicine were less common, and self-medication responses included the use of antibiotics without prescription. The range of home remedies and traditional medicines was very diverse. CONCLUSIONS: While symptom experience in Pakistan was similar to Western countries, home remedies were much more frequently used to respond to symptoms. Understanding how people respond and manage their experience of symptoms outside formal healthcare is important for designing effective policy and interventions, and this needs to be understood within the broader context including the cultural and economic setting, the health system and other structural determinants of health.
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spelling pubmed-56954042017-11-24 Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response Anwar, Mudassir Green, James A Norris, Pauline Bukhari, Nadeem Irfan BMJ Open Global Health OBJECTIVES: Prevalence of symptoms in everyday life and how people respond to these symptoms is little studied outside Western culture and developed countries. We sought to use modified diary methods to explore the prevalence of and responses to symptoms in Pakistan. DESIGN: Prospective daily survey of symptoms and response. SETTING: 8 cities across four provinces in Pakistan. PARTICIPANTS: Stratified intercept in each city to recruit 153 participants of which 151 completed. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Each day for 30 days, participants were prompted by text message (short message service (SMS)) to complete a symptom diary. On days where symptoms were experienced, participants also reported how they responded. Prevalence was adjusted to population age and gender distributions. RESULTS: 92% of participants experienced symptoms (adjusted prevalence 94%, 95% CI 91% to 97%), with musculoskeletal pain (83%, adj. 84%, 95% CI 84% to 90%) and respiratory symptoms (75%, adj. 77%, 95% CI 71% to 84%) the most prevalent types of symptoms. Self-medication and use of home remedies and traditional medicines were the most common responses. Seeking professional help or using conventional medicine were less common, and self-medication responses included the use of antibiotics without prescription. The range of home remedies and traditional medicines was very diverse. CONCLUSIONS: While symptom experience in Pakistan was similar to Western countries, home remedies were much more frequently used to respond to symptoms. Understanding how people respond and manage their experience of symptoms outside formal healthcare is important for designing effective policy and interventions, and this needs to be understood within the broader context including the cultural and economic setting, the health system and other structural determinants of health. BMJ Publishing Group 2017-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5695404/ /pubmed/29138192 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014998 Text en © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
spellingShingle Global Health
Anwar, Mudassir
Green, James A
Norris, Pauline
Bukhari, Nadeem Irfan
Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response
title Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response
title_full Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response
title_fullStr Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response
title_full_unstemmed Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response
title_short Prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in Pakistan: prevalence and response
title_sort prospective daily diary study reporting of any and all symptoms in healthy adults in pakistan: prevalence and response
topic Global Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5695404/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29138192
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014998
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