African journal of medicine and medical sciences
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Multicenter Study
Knowledge, access and usage pattern of HINARI by researchers and clinicians in tertiary health institutions in south-west Nigeria.
The digital divide is a global challenge. The Health Internetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) is one of the most successful efforts aimed at bridging the digital divide in access to health information in developing countries. There is a dearth of empirical studies on usage pattern of this resource in Nigeria. The aim of this study was to assess knowledge and usage pattern of HINARI by clinicians and researchers in tertiary health institutions in Southwestern Nigeria. ⋯ Knowledge and use of HINARI resources are high. However, clinicians and researchers are not deriving full benefits from HINARI because few had received training on how to use it. A learner-centered training and wide distribution of the HINARI User Name and Password within the institutions is recommended to address this problem.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Distribution of the three McKenzie syndromes among patients with low back pain in selected outpatient physiotherapy facilities in Nigeria.
This multi-centre study investigated the distribution pattern of the three McKenzie syndromes among patients with low back pain (LBP) from the out patient physiotherapy departments of some selected medical facilities in Oyo, Ogun and Lagos States of Nigeria in order to establish the distribution index for patients suffering from LBP. Patients were selected using a consecutive sampling technique. Patients were examined and classified using the McKenzie assessment protocol. ⋯ Alpha level was set at 0.05. Result showed that patients with derangement syndrome constituted 83.0% of the patients' population while dysfunction syndrome and postural syndrome were 9.0% and 8.0% respectively. It was concluded that derangement syndrome is predominant, in the studied population.
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Multicenter Study
Efficacy of herbal remedies used by herbalists in Oyo State Nigeria for treatment of Plasmodium falciparum infections--a survey and an observation.
In the course of evaluating the contribution of phytomedicine to possible drug discovery of antimalarial drugs, an ethnomedical survey of specialized children traditional clinics was done. In the observational multi center study, efficacy of eight different herbal remedies, each consisting of 3-8 ingredients and administered by herbalists were investigated in clients enrolled in the six traditional clinics in Oyo (urban center) and Otu (rural center) of Oyo State, Nigeria. The clients, aged between six months and fifteen years with clinical symptoms of malaria were enrolled in the clinics of the herbalists, as their usual practice. ⋯ The herbalists administered the remedies and Gossypium arboreum, Anarcadium occidentalis, Citrus medica, Phyllanthus amarus and Lippia multiflora were the main ingredients in the efficacious remedies. The herbalists gave detailed descriptions of each of the 8 herbal remedies proffered. The results confirm the efficacy of two of the eight herbal remedies, thereby validating the role of ethnomedicine as a possible source for the discovery of new chemotherapeutic agents in the treatment of P. falciparum malaria.