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Background: E-learning is a modern and flexible mode of education and is being used as an alternative to conventional mode of education during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However evidence suggests that effectiveness of e-learning is influenced by many prevailing factors. Methods: A cross sectional study aimed to evaluate health care students’ perception towards implementation of e-learning was conducted for a period of 4 months, from April 2020 to July 2020. Research instrument consisted of a self-designed, qualitative questionnaire with three domains was validated using field pretest method and administered among health care students of King Khalid University using social media platforms. Chi square test was used to estimate the effect of e-learning on various domains whereas linear regression analysis was used to find the association between subjects’ characteristics to overall domain scores. P value

Introduction: The prevalence of secondary failure to oral hypoglycemic agents among type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients ranges from 30 to 60%. The alternative approaches to overcome this issue are either switching to triple oral hypoglycemic agents (OHA) or intensifying the regimen by adding insulin. Objective: To compare the glycemic control achieved with biphasic insulin plus metformin and triple OHA in T2DM patients who were not adequately controlled with two OHA regimen. Methods: A qualitative prospective study was conducted at Asir diabetes center, Abha, KSA. Poorly controlled T2DM patients with two OHA for at least 1 year with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) >7.0% were included. Subjects were divided into group I (a third OHA was added to the existing two OHA regimen) and group II (switched over to Biphasic insulin and metformin). At baseline and 3-month intervals, level of HbA1C, Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG), Postprandial Plasma Glucose (PPG), Blood Pressure (BP), lipid profile and hypoglycemic episodes were obtained and evaluated for one year. Results: 41.1% of patients were in group I and 58.9% were in group II. At the end of the study, there was a significant reduction in HbA1c in group II subjects comparing to group I (8.18 ± 1.32 vs 8.79 ± 1.81, p = 0.0238). FPG and PPG were improved also in group II. The mean body weight increased from baseline in group II is +4.48 kg and decreased from baseline in group I (−0.46 kg). 11.3% from group I and 23.7% from group II reported hypoglycaemic incidences. Conclusion: Biphasic insulin and metformin regimen could be an appropriate therapeutic option for achieving good glycemic control compared with triple OHA in patients with two OHA failure. Keywords: Glycaemic control, Type 2 diabetes, Biphasic insulin, Metformin, Oralhypoglycemic agents

Objective: The problem of antimicrobial resistance in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an emerging problem where the complete elimination of antimicrobial resistance is impossible due to the irrational use of antibiotics worldwide and in Saudi Arabia. Thus, the present study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of bacterial pathogens and to assess the multidrug resistant (MDR) strains to different antibiotics in Aseer Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Method: A retrospective analysis of 163 subjects diagnosed with variable infections during the period of February - May 2015. The study was conducted at a 500 bedded tertiary health care center. The data were collected from microbiological laboratory and patient case sheet. The bacterial isolates are categorized as sensitive or resistant based on the zone of inhibition of antibiotics. Results: Total of 15 different strains of gram positive and negative were isolated where, a urine specimen was found to have the highest number of bacterial isolates (28.8 %) and intensive care unit (ICU) had more number of isolates. Among 46 antibiotics tested, only 12 antibiotics were included in the analysis. Almost, most of the gram positive and gram negative bacterial isolates had resistance to more than three antimicrobials, which satisfies the criteria to call them as multidrug resistant bacterial isolates. Conclusion: Overall prevalence of antibiotic resistance to the commonly used antibiotics was high in the bacterial isolates selected in our study center, which warrants the infection control to reduce resistance. Key words: Resistance, Prevalence, Antimicrobials, Bacterial isolates, Saudi Arabia.

Introduction: Developing countries contribute to major number of patients living with epilepsy, around five million people are living with epilepsy in India alone. Most of the epileptic children may require multiple antiepileptic therapy due to the failure of monotherapy. Basic research evidence suggest that sodium valproate and carbamazepine (CBZ) may have synergistic anticonvulsant effects when they are used together. In addition to that, chronic disorders make the patients economically weak and produce more burden. Aim and Objective: Therefore, this study was designed to compare the efficacy of valproate monotherapy with valproate and CBZ dual therapy. Methodology: It is a prospective, comparative study conducted at a secondary care referral hospital and private clinic. A nonprobabilistic convenient sampling was done to recruit the study subjects. A total of fifty subjects were recruited into the present study, and they were divided into two groups, i.e., monotherapy group (CBZ) and dual therapy group (CBZ and valproate). After providing appropriate counseling, subjects were interviewed to estimate the quality of life (QOL) using child version of TNO-AZL Children's Quality of Life questionnaire. Hospital patient records, prescription data from the pharmacy were also used to obtain the direct and indirect cost of treatment. Results: Our study results showed that monotherapy has a potential to produce a higher level of QOL than dual therapy. It also involved with decreased seizure frequency. Although there was no statistically significant difference in terms of cost for both the treatment groups, still dual therapy is associated with higher cost burden. The average costs per QOL and changes in the frequency of seizure are also identified to produce higher economic burden to the patients.Conclusion: Thus, the present study has concluded that monotherapy may be considered as better cost-effective treatment in partial seizures than dual therapy, unless if there is no treatment failure with monotherapy.