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Background: Social desirability bias is one of the oldest forms of response bias studied in social sciences. While individuals may feel the need to fake good or bad answers in response to sensitive or intrusive questions, it remains unclear how rampant such a bias is in epidemiological research pertaining to self-reported lifestyle indicators in a multicultural Asian context. The main purpose of the current study is, therefore, to examine the sociodemographic correlates and impact of social desirability responding on self-reported physical activity and dietary habits at an epidemiological scale in a non-western multi-cultural Asian setting. Methods: Prior to the main analyses, confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to determine the factorial validity of a western derived concept of social desirability. Multiple regression analyses were conducted on cross-sectional data (n = 2995) extracted from a nationwide survey conducted between 2019 and 2020. Results: A unique factor structure of social desirability was found and was therefore used for subsequent analyses. Multiple regression analyses revealed older age groups, the Indian ethnic group, those with past or present marriages, and having no income, had a significantly greater tendency to act on the bias. Conclusion: The construct of social desirability bias was fundamentally different in a multicultural context than previously understood. Only a small proportion of variance of self-report lifestyle scores was explained by social desirability, thus providing support for data integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with multimorbidity are commonly seen in primary care. An increasing number of multimorbidity patterns are being reported in the Western literature with a few from Asia. The main objective of this systematic review was to describe patterns of associative multimorbidity, defined as associations beyond chance or patterns of diseases, in the Asian population. We searched Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE (Ovid)), Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), and Scopus (Elsevier) databases from their inception to April 22, 2019 using medical subject headings, keywords in titles, abstracts, and text. We used the Modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for risk-of-bias assessment. Eight articles from China, India, Indonesia, and Japan met the inclusion criteria. Patterns of associative multimorbidity were reported as dyadic/triadic disease combinations or disease clusters. The most common multimorbidity pattern, "cardiovascular and metabolic diseases," was identified in six of eight articles. The other four multimorbidity patterns are comprised of "mental health problems," "degenerative diseases," pulmonary diseases," and "cancer diseases." The eight articles showed methodological heterogeneity in terms of the list of chronic diseases, ascertainment of multimorbidity, statistical methods, and study populations. This systematic review identified five common patterns of associative multimorbidity in Asia. "Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases" and "mental diseases" were two patterns that were similarly reported in the Western world. Alignment of the definition of multimorbidity and the statistical methodology are needed to identify the unique patterns of multimorbidity in Asia so that clinical practice guidelines on multimorbidity can be developed for the Asian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Stroke is one of the top contributors to burden of disability-adjusted life-years worldwide. Family physicians have key role in optimising secondary prevention following stroke by managing clinical risk factors and promoting overall control in accordance with clinical practice guidelines. Methods: Our objectives were: (i) to examine level of overall risk factor control together with control of singular risk factors one-year after an index-stroke event in individuals attending primary care facility and (ii) to describe factors associated with satisfactory risk factors control in individuals following stroke. Study Design: Retrospective cohort study. We conducted a study looking retrospectively at records from our electronic chronic disease database. Our study included individuals following stroke who visited primary care setting in Singapore between January 2012 to December 2016. Results: There were 24,240 individuals in our study. Overall control was better in individuals without diabetes following stroke (49.2%) as compared to those with diabetes (28.1%). Among individuals without diabetes following stroke, factors significantly associated with overall control were sex (male) [OR (reference: female): 1.23, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.39], ethnicity (Malay) [OR (reference: Chinese): 0.72, 95% CI: 0.58, 0.90], BMI (high risk) [OR (reference: low risk): 0.72, 95% CI: 0.62, 0.84) and atrial fibrillation [OR: 1.47, 95% CI: 1.21, 1.78]. Among individuals with diabetes following stroke, factors significantly associated with overall control were sex (male) [OR (reference: female): 1.28, 95% CI: 1.12, 1.46], ethnicity (Malay) [OR (reference: Chinese): 0.81, 95% CI: 0.65, 0.99], ethnicity (Indian) [OR (reference: Chinese): 0.70, 95% CI: 0.55, 0.88], BMI (high risk) [OR (reference: low risk): 0.71, 95% CI: 0.59, 0.84), BMI (moderate risk) [OR (reference: low risk): 0.84, 95% CI: 0.72, 0.98), atrial fibrillation [OR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.51], chronic kidney disease [OR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.54, 0.72] and smoking status [OR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.54, 0.88]. Conclusion: We reported sub-optimal level of overall control. Among individuals following stroke, those with diabetes had higher proportion of sub-optimal control as compared to those without diabetes. Irrespective of diabetic status, being female, having high BMI, and of Malay ethnicity as compared to Chinese ethnicity were associated with poorer overall risk factor control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a short communication to reflect on experiences at North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) conference from the perspective of Asian family physicians. They feel that NAPCRG can play an important role to level up the skills and talents in countries with less-established primary care research capacity and capability. NAPCRG should not be restricted to networking functions for only North America, Europe and Oceania but should include Asia, South America and Africa. These international academic networks will strengthen primary care research in the world., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)