BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Transient congenital hypothyroidism (TCH) refers to temporary deficiency of thyroid hormone identified after birth which later recovers to improved thyroxine production. Its prevalence in the Philippines has not been reported in a large-scale study. Its diagnosis remains difficult due to its numerous possible etiologies. Identifying the predictive factors of TCH may aid in earlier diagnosis and decreased risk of overtreatment. This study aimed to determine the predictive factors for TCH in children with congenital hypothyroidism (CH) detected by newborn screening (NBS) in the Philippines from January 2010 to December 2017.

In this multicenter retrospective cohort study involving 15 NBS continuity clinics in the Philippines, medical records were reviewed, and clinical and laboratory factors were compared between children with TCH and those with permanent congenital hypothyroidism (PCH). Of the 2,913 children diagnosed with CH in the Philippines from 2010 to 2017, 1,163 (39.92%) were excluded from the study due to an unrecalled or lost to follow-up status, or a concomitant diagnosis of Down Syndrome.

Among the 1,750 patients included in analysis, 6.97% were diagnosed with TCH, 60.80% were female, mean gestational age at birth was 38 weeks, and mean birth weight was 2,841 grams. Confirmatory thyrotropin (TSH) was lower and confirmatory free thyroxine (FT4) was higher in the TCH group compared to those with PCH (TSH 32.80 vs 86.65 µIU/mL [pCONCLUSION

Of all the patients with confirmed congenital hypothyroidism via the newborn screening, 6.97% were diagnosed with transient CH. Factors associated with TCH are confirmatory TSH and FT4, L-thyroxine dose requirements, thyroid ultrasound findings, gestational age at birth, and a maternal history of thyroid illness.

BACKGROUND

Hypertension is a significant global health issue linked to high mortality and morbidity rates. It contributes not only to organ damage but also to psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. Despite the rise in hypertensive patients experiencing these mental health issues, evidence remains insufficient.

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the prevalence of anxiety and depression among hypertensive patients.

Observational studies published between 2020 and 2024 were sourced from PubMed, The Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, adapted for cross-sectional studies, was utilized to evaluate study quality. A random-effects model was employed for meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence rates of anxiety and depression, alongside subgroup and sensitivity analyses to identify sources of heterogeneity.

Fifteen studies were included, with 14 eligible for quantitative analysis. The findings indicated a prevalence rate of 35% for depression (95% CI: 26%-44%) and 41% for anxiety (95% CI: 4%-78%) among hypertensive patients. Significant heterogeneity was observed in the studies (I²=98.3% for depression, I²=99.9% for anxiety). Subgroup analyses highlighted variability in assessment scales (p < 0.001), but not by region or population source. No publication bias was identified (p = 0.663 for depression, p = 0.710 for anxiety). Factors associated with depression included uncontrolled hypertension, female gender, marital status, and social support, while anxiety was linked to similar factors plus concerns about hypertension complications.

Depression and anxiety prevalence among hypertensive patients ranges from 30-42%. Uncontrolled hypertension and social support significantly impact mental health, with major barriers to psychiatric care compliance including economic constraints, lack of education, and comorbidities.

Objectives: We determined the clinical characteristics and prevalence of metabolic syndrome among adult Filipinos with overt hypothyroidism. Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study of 151 adults. Patients were recruited by sequential enrollment. Anthropometric and blood pressure measurements were performed followed by blood extraction for metabolic parameters and thyroid function tests. Clinical and laboratory characteristics were compared between patients with and without metabolic syndrome. Results: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome is 40.4% (95%CI: 32.5%, 48.7%). Patients with metabolic syndrome have a waist circumference of 88.4 ± 7.7 cm in females and 93.3 ± 9.0 cm in males. The median fasting blood glucose was 111.4 (52.2) mg/dL, median systolic blood pressure of 120 (30) mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure of 80 (20) mmHg, median serum triglycerides of 174.3 (114.2) mg/dL, median HDL-C of 42.3 (19.2) mg/dL and a proportion of patients with diabetes (23.0%) and hypertension (44.3%), respectively. The presence of increased waist circumference is the most prevalent component seen among hypothyroid patients. There were no differences in terms of age, sex, etiology of hypothyroidism and anti-TPO levels in those with and without metabolic syndrome. Conclusion The prevalence of metabolic syndrome in adult Filipinos with hypothyroidism is high. Emphasis must be placed on early screening using waist circumference and metabolic parameters among hypothyroid patients who are at high risk of developing metabolic syndrome.
Dyslipidemias ; Hypothyroidism ; Metabolic Syndrome ; Prevalence

OBJECTIVE

Epidemiological studies on the prevalence and management of depression are limited in the Philippines. This review aimed to assess the prevalence of depression in the Philippines and explore the distribution of patient journey touchpoints including awareness, screening, diagnosis, treatment, adherence, and remission of depression.

A structured literature search was conducted in the Medline, Embase, Biosis, and HERDIN PLUS databases to identify records published in English between 01 January 2010 and 31 December 2019 that reported key patient journey touchpoints in depression management in the Philippines. An unstructured literature search was conducted in public or government websites with no date restriction. Data from all sources were extracted and presented descriptively.

Of the 348 records retrieved, one article was included in the final analysis. The prevalence of depression was reported to be 3.34% in the Philippines. There was no data available on any of the identified patient journey touchpoints in depression.

The study findings highlight the need for more evidence-based studies in the Philippines to accurately understand the complexity of patient journey in patients with depression. This in turn can help in optimizing resource utilization, providing guidance for clinical practice, and health care reforms in the Philippines.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE

Periodontitis is highly prevalent worldwide, and previous investigations have reported increased prevalence and severity among elderly. Regular monitoring of dental health, which includes periodontal conditions, has been recommended by the Philippine Department of Health, as basis for the development and updating of policies and laws that will address the public health problem of periodontal disease among the ageing Filipino population. Therefore, this present study aimed to determine the prevalence and severity of periodontal disease among Filipino older adults who participated in the Focused Interventions for Frail Older Adults Research and Development Program (FITforFRAIL) study.

This study on the periodontal status of Filipino older adults is a cross-sectional substudy of the FITforFRAIL research of the Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines Manila. Participants aged ≥ 60 years were from four identified geographical regions in the Philippines. Three hundred sixteen completed oral health assessment, which included full mouth periodontal recording, and 183 participants were eligible for inclusion in the periodontal component. Periodontal diagnoses were determined using the Centers for Disease Control-American Academy of Periodontology (CDC-AAP) case definitions for surveillance of periodontitis and the 2018 European Federation of Periodontology (EFP)/AAP classification. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, and mean) were used to report the sociodemographic characteristics and periodontal diagnoses of the participants. The clinical periodontal measures used to indicate the extent and severity of periodontitis were presented as mean [standard error (SE)] or percentage (SE).

Using the CDC/AAP case definitions, majority (97.3%) were diagnosed with periodontitis, with 33.3% having severe periodontal destruction. On the other hand, based on the 2018 EFP/AAP classification, all participants had periodontitis and most (94.5%) presented with severe disease. Moreover, using the latter classification system, the percentage of severe periodontitis was observed to increase with age. Among the young-old, 93.1% had severe disease, while 94.1% of the middle-old and 100% of the oldest-old were found to have severe destruction.

Based on the results of the study, the prevalence of total and severe periodontitis is high among this sample of Filipino older adults. Future studies for regular monitoring of the oral health of Filipino older adults are recommended.

Background and Objective: Scabies is the second most common cause of disability due to skin disease in the Philippines. However, there were no cited studies in Global Burden of Disease 2019 and the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) computations were most likely based on statistical modelling. The Philippine Department of Health has embarked on a program to estimate the disease burden of priority diseases in the country, which include scabies. The last nationwide prevalence survey was 23 years ago. This systematic review aimed to estimate the prevalence or incidence of scabies in the Philippines. Methods: We searched PubMed, Scopus, Herdin, and Philippine Health Research Registry (search date October 2022) for studies on prevalence/incidence (including systematic reviews, cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, case series, registry or census studies) of patients diagnosed with scabies in the Philippines. We excluded narrative reviews, commentaries, and conference proceedings or abstracts. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, assessed full text reports for eligibility, appraised the quality of included studies, and collected data using a pretested data extraction form. We did not pool studies due to clinical heterogeneity but plotted the individual studies in a forest plot with prevalence estimates and confidence intervals. We reported the median and interquartile range for entire group or relevant subgroups (age, setting) of studies. We used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to assess the certainty of evidence. Results: We included nine studies (N=79,065). Most were clinic-based prevalence studies, retrospective chart reviews, conducted in dermatology outpatient clinics, Metro Manila area, and on pediatric populations. Prevalence of scabies was moderate (i.e., between 2 and 10%), ranging from 2.75% (national prevalence survey) to 6.8% (communitybased review), to high (> 10%) among pediatric patients in clinic-based retrospective chart reviews (29 to 36%) and institution-based surveys (39.0% to 45%), and a tertiary government university training hospital dermatology clinic (22.9%). The most affected age group was from 0 to 14 y/o, while males tended to have a higher prevalence than females. The cooler month of January had higher prevalence than the hotter month of June in one study. Conclusion Scabies is common in the Philippines, especially among children and elderly in institutional settings, and during the month of January. There is a need to do a national prevalence survey to identify high-risk areas and to monitor the prevalence of scabies, especially in crowded settings and vulnerable populations. This information can be used for estimating the burden of disease for scabies and guide appropriate health resource allocation.
Scabies ; Philippines ; Epidemiology ; Prevalence ; Incidence

BACKGROUND: It is crucial to understand the seasonal variation of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) for the detection and management of MetS. Previous studies have demonstrated the seasonal variations in MetS prevalence and its markers, but their methods are not robust. To clarify the concrete seasonal variations in the MetS prevalence and its markers, we utilized a powerful method called Seasonal Trend Decomposition Procedure based on LOESS (STL) and a big dataset of health checkups. METHODS: A total of 1,819,214 records of health checkups (759,839 records for men and 1,059,375 records for women) between April 2012 and December 2017 were included in this study. We examined the seasonal variations in the MetS prevalence and its markers using 5 years and 9 months health checkup data and STL analysis. MetS markers consisted of waist circumference (WC), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), fasting plasma glucose (FPG). RESULTS: We found that the MetS prevalence was high in winter and somewhat high in August. Among men, MetS prevalence was 2.64 ± 0.42 (mean ± SD) % higher in the highest month (January) than in the lowest month (June). Among women, MetS prevalence was 0.53 ± 0.24% higher in the highest month (January) than in the lowest month (June). Additionally, SBP, DBP, and HDL-C exhibited simple variations, being higher in winter and lower in summer, while WC, TG, and FPG displayed more complex variations. CONCLUSIONS This finding, complex seasonal variations of MetS prevalence, WC, TG, and FPG, could not be derived from previous studies using just the mean values in spring, summer, autumn and winter or the cosinor analysis. More attention should be paid to factors affecting seasonal variations of central obesity, dyslipidemia and insulin resistance.
Male ; Female ; Humans ; Metabolic Syndrome/epidemiology* ; Seasons ; Prevalence ; Climate ; Insulin Resistance ; Triglycerides

Humans ; Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems ; Prevalence ; Mental Disorders/epidemiology* ; Smoking/epidemiology* ; Perception

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Scabies is the second most common cause of disability due to skin disease in the Philippines. However, there were no cited studies in Global Burden of Disease 2019 and the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) computations were most likely based on statistical modelling. The Philippine Department of Health has embarked on a program to estimate the disease burden of priority diseases in the country, which include scabies. The last nationwide prevalence survey was 23 years ago. This systematic review aimed to estimate the prevalence or incidence of scabies in the Philippines.

We searched PubMed, Scopus, Herdin, and Philippine Health Research Registry (search date October 2022) for studies on prevalence/incidence (including systematic reviews, cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, case series, registry or census studies) of patients diagnosed with scabies in the Philippines. We excluded narrative reviews, commentaries, and conference proceedings or abstracts. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, assessed full text reports for eligibility, appraised the quality of included studies, and collected data using a pretested data extraction form. We did not pool studies due to clinical heterogeneity but plotted the individual studies in a forest plot with prevalence estimates and confidence intervals. We reported the median and interquartile range for entire group or relevant subgroups (age, setting) of studies. We used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to assess the certainty of evidence.

We included nine studies (N=79,065). Most were clinic-based prevalence studies, retrospective chart reviews, conducted in dermatology outpatient clinics, Metro Manila area, and on pediatric populations. Prevalence of scabies was moderate (i.e., between 2 and 10%), ranging from 2.75% (national prevalence survey) to 6.8% (communitybased review), to high (> 10%) among pediatric patients in clinic-based retrospective chart reviews (29 to 36%) and institution-based surveys (39.0% to 45%), and a tertiary government university training hospital dermatology clinic (22.9%). The most affected age group was from 0 to 14 y/o, while males tended to have a higher prevalence than females. The cooler month of January had higher prevalence than the hotter month of June in one study.

Scabies is common in the Philippines, especially among children and elderly in institutional settings, and during the month of January. There is a need to do a national prevalence survey to identify high-risk areas and to monitor the prevalence of scabies, especially in crowded settings and vulnerable populations. This information can be used for estimating the burden of disease for scabies and guide appropriate health resource allocation.

Introduction: There is an increasing number of publications on health literacy from Malaysia. We conducted a systematic review of Malaysian studies to determine the prevalence of limited general health literacy and the associated factors among Malaysian adults. Materials and Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search for Malaysian studies on health literacy using PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar. Cross-sectional studies that measured general health literacy using specific rating scales among adults in Malaysia were retrieved for qualitative analysis. Quantitative synthesis of the prevalence of limited health literacy measured using two rating scales (Newest Vital Sign, NVS and various versions of European Health Literacy Survey, HLS) was performed using random effect model. Results: Twenty-five studies measuring general health literacy were retrieved for qualitative analysis; the majority were various versions of HLS and NVS. Pooled prevalence rates of limited health literacy were: HLS: 48.59%; NVS: 91.41%. Subgroup analysis of participant type revealed prevalence of limited health literacy measured using NVS was lower in clinical samples vs non-clinical samples (85.67% vs 94.70%). Moderator analysis revealed a small effect of ethnicity on prevalence of health literacy measured using HLS. Assessment of included studies showed very few of them had statistically significant associations between socio-demographic factors and limited health literacy. Conclusion Prevalence of limited health literacy in Malaysian adults was very high: almost one in two adults in HLS studies and nine out of ten adults in NVS studies. Socio-demographic factors associated with limited health literacy were inconsistent with other studies.
Adult ; Health Literacy ; Malaysia ; Prevalence ; Systematic Review [Publication Type]