Articles

Analysis of Risk Factors for Death in COVID-19 Patients at Bahteramas Regional General Hospital, Southeast Sulawesi Province

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Background: Coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, is an infectious disease caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 has been classified as a pandemic since 2020.

Purpose:  The purpose of this study was to determine the risk factors for death due to COVID-19 at the Bahteramas Public Hospital, Southeast Sulawesi Province.

Method: This research is a retrospective analytic study with a cross sectional approach. The number of samples is 85 samples. The sampling technique was purposive sampling. The data were processed using the Chi-Square test and Odds Ratio.

Results: This study shows that 47 people died at the Bahteramas Hospital in Southeast Sulawesi Province from March to November 2020, the variable age (p value = 0.001 and OR value 5.216), gender (p value = 0.078 and OR value = 2.180), hypertension variable (p value = 0.071 and OR value = 2.510), and diabetes mellitus variable (p value = 0.013 and OR value = 3.300).

Conclusion: Age, sex, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus are risk factors for death due to COVID-19 at Bahteramas Public Hospital, Southeast Sulawesi Province.

 

The Correlation between Breakfast Consumption and the Probability of Developing Alzheimer’s Disease in Bangkok Population

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Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common form of dementia, is known to be widely prevalent in the worldwide population, including Thailand. The incidence of this illness in Thailand is increasing rapidly and is expected to reach a million by 2030 (Doungkaew & Taneepanichskul, 2014). We are concerned that this rise is caused by the trend during these modern days, where skipping breakfast is becoming more popular due to time constraints. Hence, we conducted a survey research by providing questionnaires to 180 individuals of all ages across Bangkok, asking for their frequency in consuming breakfast per week and their likelihood in having Alzheimer’s. This was done through an online platform, Google Form. To test whether the two aforementioned variables are correlated with one another, Statistical Product and Service Solution (SPSS) program version 29 was used for data analysis. One-Way ANOVA (F-test) was used to determine the significance between age group and the risk of getting Alzheimer’s. The result showed that age is a significant factor which can promote the illness. Age 41 and above tend to have a stronger probability in developing the disease because of the easier spread of a protein called tau-protein, which is involved in causing Alzheimer’s disease (Wegmann et al., 2019). Pearson’s correlation test has shown that there is a negative correlation between the frequency of breakfast consumption and the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. This is likely due to  low blood sugar levels and lack of beneficial nutrients contained in breakfast . In the future, we hope that this research could be beneficial to other people by raising awareness on this particular topic regarding the importance of frequency of breakfast consumption in reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.