irum abid

OBJECTIVE To determine the effectiveness of Seattle Heart Failure Model (SHFM) in a Pakistani systolic heart failure cohort in predicting mortality in this population. STUDY DESIGN Cohort study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY The Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology - National Institute of Heart Diseases, Rawalpindi, from March 2011 to March 2012. METHODOLOGY One hundred and eighteen patients with heart failure (HF) from the registry were followed for one year. Their 1-year mortality was calculated using the SHFM software on their enrollment into the registry. After 1-year predicted 1-year mortality was compared with the actual 1-year mortality of these patients. RESULTS The mean age was 41.6 ± 14.9 years (16 - 78 years). There were 73.7% males and 26.3% females. One hundred and fifteen patients were in NYHA class III or IV. Mean ejection fraction in these patients was 23 ± 9.3%. Mean brain natriuretic peptide levels were 1230 ± 1214 pg/mL. Sensitivity of the model was 89.3% with 71.1%...

Objective: The objective of this study was to identify the quality of statistical procedures used, the accuracy of study design, sampling and relevant statistical analysis Study Design: Retrospective Survey study. Place and Duration of Study: Army Medical College from June 2014 to Jan 2015. Methodology: Three hundred and forty two original research articles published in Pakistan Armed Forces Medical Journal were reviewed. The selected research articles were all original articles. Case series and case reports were excluded. Results: Among 342 articles, the major error was that the objectives, results and conclusion were not in accordance with each other in 115 (33.6%) articles. In 48 (14%) articles study design was incorrect and does not matched with the objectives. In 26 (7.6%) articles sample size was not appropriate as per the guidelines of journal. In 12 (3.5%) articles sampling technique used for sample selection was not mentioned. In 62 (18.1%) articles type of variables was in...

Objective: To compare heroin users with their age and gender matched relatives as regards non-invasive investigations like chest x-ray, electrocardiography (ECG) and 2D-echocardiography. Study Design: Case control study. Place and Duration of Study: Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology-National Institute of Heart Diseases, Rawalpindi, from Feb 2010 to Jul 2010. Material and Methods: Sixty one heroin users (cases) and their 100 non-substance abuser age and gender matched relatives (controls) were included through non-probability consecutive sampling. Chest x-ray (CXR), 12-lead electrocardiography (ECG) and two-dimensional echocardiography (2D-ECHO) were done of each one and the result was interpreted by respected consultants. The data were analyzed on SPSS version 15. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation (SD) were described for quantitative variables while frequency and percentages for qualitative variables. Independent samples t-test compared quantitative variables ...

Determination of the lag length of an autoregressive process is one of the most difficult parts of ARIMA modeling. Various lag length selection criteria (Akaike Information Criterion, Schwarz Information Criterion, Hannan-Quinn Criterion, Final Prediction Error, Corrected version of AIC) have been proposed in the literature to overcome this difficulty. We have compared these criteria for lag length selection for three different cases that is under normal errors, under non-normal errors and under structural break by using Monte Carlo simulation. It has been found that SIC is the best for large samples and no criteria is useful for selecting true lag length in presence of regime shifts or shocks to the system.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of Seattle Heart Failure Model (SHFM) in a Pakistani systolic heart failure cohort in predicting mortality in this population. Study Design: Cohort study. Place and Duration of Study: The Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology - National Institute of Heart Diseases, Rawalpindi, from March 2011 to March 2012. Methodology: One hundred and eighteen patients with heart failure (HF) from the registry were followed for one year. Their 1-year mortality was calculated using the SHFM software on their enrollment into the registry. After 1-year predicted 1-year mortality was compared with the actual 1-year mortality of these patients. Results: The mean age was 41.6 ± 14.9 years (16 - 78 years). There were 73.7% males and 26.3% females. One hundred and fifteen patients were in NYHA class III or IV. Mean ejection fraction in these patients was 23 ± 9.3%. Mean brain natriuretic peptide levels were 1230 ± 1214 pg/mL. Sensitivity of the model was 89.3% with ...