Background: Perceptions and levels of understanding of spiritual care vary among nurses, which may affect their competency to meet the patient’s spiritual needs. Therefore, determining nurses' perception of spiritual care is the first important step in addressing the spiritual needs of patients, and may also help nursing management in developing spiritual care education and training programs.Purpose: This study aimed to assess the competence of Malaysian nurses toward providing spiritual care and identify the relationship between nurses’ spiritual care competence and their sociodemographic factors. Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design to assess nurses' competence in spiritual care by using a simple random sampling method which involved 271 staff nurses from a public hospital in Northeast of Peninsular Malaysia. Spiritual care competence scale in Bahasa Malaysia version was used for data collection. Data analysis was performed using descriptive (frequency, percent, mean, standard deviation) and inferential (Chi-square and Pearson’s correlation test) statistics.Results: This study showed that 69.7% of staff nurses had an average level of competence toward providing spiritual care for the patients (M=95.44, SD=4.34). The highest mean difference among the domains was personal support and patients counseling (MD=5.789), while the lowest mean difference was assessment and implementation of spiritual care (MD=1.258). Furthermore, there was no significant relationship between spiritual care competence and sociodemographic factors (gender, age, marital status, educational level, nurses' experience, race, religion, and previous participation in training spiritual care programs).Conclusion: The majority of nurses have an average level of competence toward providing spiritual care. There is no significant relationship between nurses’ spiritual care competence and sociodemographic factors.

Neonatal Nav1.5 (nNav1.5) is the alternative splice variant of Nav1.5 and it has been widely associated with the progression of breast cancer. The immunological context of nNav1.5 with respect to breast cancer metastases remains unexplored. The presence of antibodies against nNav1.5 may highlight the immunogenicity of nNav1.5. Hence, the aim of the present study was to detect the presence of antineonatal Nav1.5 antibodies (antinNav1.5-Ab) in the serum of patients with breast cancer and to elucidate the effects of breast cancer therapy on its expression. A total of 32 healthy female volunteers and 64 patients with breast cancer were randomly recruited into the present study as the control and breast cancer group, respectively. Patients with breast cancer were divided equally based on their pre- and ongoing-treatment status. Serum samples were tested with in-house indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect antinNav1.5-Ab, CD25 (T regulatory cell marker) using an ELISA kit and Luminex assay to detect the expression of metastasis-associated cytokines, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, IL-8, chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) The mean difference in the expression of antinNav1.5-Ab among the three groups (control, pretreatment and ongoing-treatment) was significant (P=0.0005) and the pretreatment breast cancer group exhibited the highest expression. The concentration of CD25 was highest in the pretreatment breast cancer group compared with the control and ongoing-treatment groups. There was a significant positive correlation between antinNav1.5-Ab and IL-6 in the pretreatment group (r=0.7260; P=0.0210) and a significant negative correlation between antinNav1.5-Ab and VEGF in the ongoing-treatment group (r=−0.842; P-value=0.0040). The high expression of antinNav1.5-Ab in the pretreatment group was in accordance with the uninterrupted presence of metastasis and highlighted the immunogenicity of nNav1.5 whereas the low expression of antinNav1.5-Ab in the ongoing-treatment group reflected the efficacy of breast cancer therapy in eliminating metastases. The augmented manifestation of T regulatory cells in the pretreatment group highlighted the functional role of nNav1.5 in promoting metastasis. The parallel expression of antinNav1.5-Ab with the imbalanced expression of cytokines promoting metastasis (IL-8, IL-6 and TNF-α) and cytokines that prevent metastasis (IL-10) indicated the role of nNav1.5 in breast cancer growth. The expression of antinNav1.5-Ab in accordance to the metastatic microenvironment indicates the immunogenicity of the protein and highlights the influence of breast cancer therapy on its expression level.

Background: Mobile health technologies are widely being used for delivering health behaviour interventions. However, there is insufficient evidence that they are integrating theory and only a few researchers utilized a qualitative approach in their study. Objectives: This paper aims to identify requirements in developing a breast examination awareness mobile app based on the component of the Health Belief Model (HBM) for integration in health promotion strategy. Methods: A qualitative approach using semi-structured in-depth interview was utilized in this study. A purposive sampling method was conducted among public women attending hospital services, software and content experts in a tertiary teaching hospital in the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia. These interviews were recorded, transcribed and organized using NVIVO 11. The main themes were identified through thematic analysis of the interview transcripts. Results: A total of 37 participants recruited in this study. The themes that emerged from the analysis are vulnerability, forecasting, reactive, influence, outcome and obstacles. The sub-themes findings supported the HBM’s component in terms of the requirement for are an infographic risk factor, video (symptoms, self-examination), info (metastasis, survival, screening, triple assessment, treatment, myth and facts, benefit of early treatment, support groups), features (screening reminder, sharing button, prompt) and mobile app’s design. Conclusion: The research findings could provide a guide for future app development from public women, content and software experts. The information will be used to develop a breast examination awareness mobile app integrated with health theories.

This article provides violent crime data in Malaysia from 2006 to 2017. The violent crimes include murder, rape, gang robbery, robbery and voluntarily causing hurt cases. A total of 330,395 violent crime cases were reported in this 12 year period and the data were tabulated state by state for all thirteen states of Malaysia, including two states in Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak) and one federal territory (Kuala Lumpur). In general, violent crimes show a decreasing trend from 2006 to 2017 in Malaysia. However, armed gang robbery and armed robbery show a fluctuating pattern from 2008 to 2011. A similar pattern was also recorded for unarmed gang robbery from 2008 to 2010. The violent crime data deposited here are available for further analysis, e.g., for identifying risk factors such as demography, lifestyle, socio-economic status, government policies etc. which may be associated with violent crime incidence and pattern across the country.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to validate the Press Ganey Questionnaire (PGQ) (Bahasa Melayu version) using Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) patients. Design/methodology/approach This cross-sectional study comprised 252 patients visiting HUSM. Patients were selected using the convenience sampling method. The PGQ (Bahasa Melayu version) had three main factors: during your visit; your care provider and overall assessment. Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling. Findings The exploratory factor analysis resulted in item reduction from 21 to 17, which contained four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. Meanwhile, confirmatory factor analysis results showed that data fitted the model: χ2/df at 1.764, comparative fit index at 0.952, Tucker–Lewis index at 0.941 and root mean square error of approximation at 0.073. The average variance extracted value for the four factors was greater than 0.50, which indicated that PGQ convergent validity was met. Overall, PGQ produced good reliability with composite reliability score equals to 0.966. Four factors were reclassified as “during your registration,” “hospital staff attitude,” “doctor’s attitude” and “overall assessment.” Research limitations/implications Patient satisfaction is an important and frequently used indicator for measuring healthcare quality; hence, a validated and reliable instrument is important for measuring patient satisfaction that leads to healthcare service quality assessment. Practical implications Validated PGQ provides some useful information for doctors, medical assistants, nurses and staff in the emergency department to help them become more prominent and efficient in their role as healthcare providers. Social implications Validated PGQ will help healthcare providers to deliver the best and exceptional care toward emergency patient, and thus improve their quality of work life. The findings in this study can be used as a guide or as baseline data for further research in this area. Originality/value The PQG (Bahasa Melayu version) was confirmed as a reliable and valid instrument for measuring patient satisfaction. This research is the first PGQ validation study in Southeast Asia, specifically focusing on Malaysian respondents.