One of the criteria for admission in Annual Professional Exam for medical studentsin Pakistan is to have 75% attendance during the session and the other is to pass Send upexam with 50% marks. Objectives: To assess the usefulness of send-up exams in predictingthe annual marks by comparing their results with annual University examination results forpreclinical medical students. Study Design: A cross sectional analytical study. Methodology: Atotal of 173 preclinical students of 1st and 2nd year MBBS passing the First Professional Examin first attempt were included in the study. Send up result of each student during the year wasentered as percentage and compared with percentage total marks of same students in their 1stprofessional exam conducted by the University. Data maintained by Physiology Departmentwas entered and analysed by SPSS 21. Descriptive statistics in the form of numbers andpercentages were used and further analyzed using Pearson Correlation and Paired T Test ofSignificance. The p value of < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: A total of 173 students(81 from 1st Year and 92 from 2nd Year) who had passed the annual exam in first attempt wereincluded in the study. Out of these, 132(76.3%) were females and 41(23.7%) males. All studentswere within the age group of 18-24 years, mean age being 21.06 years. Mean send-up scorein the subject of Physiology was 57.37 (Range=33-78). Percentage total marks in all subjects(Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry) in annual exam had a mean of 69.46 (Range=55-84).Send-up result in percentage was directly assessed against the percentage marks obtainedin annual exam for each student. The send-up marks were significantly related to the marks inthe final exam (p=0.01). The strength of association was same as that for average test markswith annual marks. Girls performed better than boys during the send up (Mean 58.35 Vs 54.21)as well as in the annual exam (Mean 70.12 Vs 67.33). There was also a difference amongstdifferent classes with 2nd year performing better than first year in both send-up (Mean 58.60vs 55.98) and annual exams (Median 70.83 vs 67.91). Conclusions: Send-up results may begood predictors of the academic performance in professional examination in preclinical years ina medical college. Female students perform better than their counterparts during both send-upand annual exams.
HbA1c gives an integrated index of glycemia over the entire 120 days lifespan of red blood cells. Therefore, measuring HbA1c would be appropriate in diagnosing adisease characterized by chronic hyperglycemia and a gradual progression to complications.Objectives: our primary objective was to evaluate the use of HbA1c as screening test forundiagnosed diabetes (WHO criteria of Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) of ≥ 7mmol/l (126mg/dl))in healthy asymptomatic individuals in Pakistani population. Study Design and Methodology:A cross sectional population survey was carried on asymptomatic, healthy individuals withoutpast history of diabetes. Venous blood was obtained to measure fasting plasma glucose(fasting > 8 hours) and Hb A1c. Place and Duration of Study: Khan lab Sargodha from July2013 to March 2014. The test: It was performed by using NycoCard HbA1c in vitro diagnosticmedical device for quantitative determination of glycated hemoglobin in whole blood. Results:In our sample size of 775, the lowest HbA1c was found to be 5% and Highest 13.2%. Arithmeticmeans was 6.7565%, while the median value was 6.2% and standard deviation 1.3323. Whenusing FPG only, the detection rate of diabetes was 32.65% (female, 14.71%; male, 17.94%).When HbA1c was included as a diagnostic test, the detection rate increased to 40% (female,18.84%; male, 21.16 %). An additional 7.6% of participants were diagnosed with diabetes whenusing HbA1c criteria. ROC (A receiver operating characteristic) curve was used for analysis.At HbA1c cutoff of ≥6.5% it demonstrated sensitivity of 98.02% (95% CI) and specificity of88.12% (95% CI) for detection of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus in healthy asymptomaticindividuals in Pakistani population. Area under the ROC curve was 0.981354 with significancelevel P (Area=0.5) 0.0001. Conclusions: Our study reveals that HbA1c is a highly specific andconvenient alternative to fasting plasma glucose for screening of diabetes mellitus in Pakistanipopulation. A large scale survey should be carried out to set our own national standardizations.
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