Frequency of Hypothyroidism in Chronic Hepatitis C patients treated with Standard Interferon Therapy Hypothroidism in HCV patients on Interferon Therapy

Chronic hepatitis C is a major health problem associated with high mortality and morbidity. It is the most common chronic blood borne infection leading to chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. One of the treatment used for hepatitis C is interferon therapy which can lead to thyroid dysfunction i.e. Hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. OBJECTIVE: “To assess the frequency of hypothyroidism in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with standard interferon therapy”. METHODS: Thisdescriptive case series study was carried out at Outpatient Department of Medicine, King Edward Medical University/ Mayo Hospital Lahore for 06 months from July to December 2014. After ethical approval of the study, 200 patients of ages 15 to 65 years with both genders having chronic hepatitis C on Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)& normal thyroid functionstest were taken by Non-probability, purposive sampling technique. Informed written consent was taken from all the patients. Serum thyroid stimulating hormone level (TSH) was sent of all patients to Centre for Nuclear Medicine (CENUM), Mayo Hospital Lahore before and after the completion of three months of interferontherapy and hypothyroidism was considered as TSH>4.0 mIU/L (normal range: 0.2-4.0 mIU/L). RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 36.29 + 8.5 years. Out of total 200 patients, 123 (61.5%) were male and 77 (38.5%) were female. At baselines mean TSH of the patients was 3.16 + 2.57 mIU/L. After 3 months of therapy 163 patients (81.5%) were euthyroid and 37 patients (18.5%) were having thyroid dysfunction. Among patients with thyroid dysfunction 29 (14.5% of total patients) were hypothyroid. Among hypothyroid patients, according to gender distribution 8 (27.6%) patients were male and 21 (72.4%) patients were female. The difference was statistically significant (P=0.0003). CONCLUSION: It is concluded from this study that there is significant frequency of hypothyroidism in patients of chronic hepatitis C treated with standard interferon therapy and females are at more risk of developing thyroid dysfunction particularly hypothyroidism after standard interferon therapy.

Exploring Pre-Service Teachers Motivation for Joining the Teaching Profession in Karachi, Pakistan

Teacher recruitment and retention remains an important concern, as not many people make teaching a profession of choice, which results in teacher shortage. The teacher shortage worldwide has given mount to conduct studies on pre-service teachers' motivations for joining teaching career. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate pre-service teachers' motivation for joining the teaching profession and their perception about teaching. Furthermore, it explored the association between the motivational factors and the perception constructs. It also compared the pre-service teachers' motivation across the selected demographic variables (i.e. prior qualification and achievement grades in higher secondary). Using a cross-sectional survey, Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT-Choice) scale was directly administered to 220 pre-service teachers enrolled in B.Ed. (lions) programme in Karachi, which were recruited from six teacher education institutes. Results revealed that the pre-service teachers highly considered teaching a sacred profession which would help them to promote peace and harmony through teaching (religious motives). Further, the desire to influence the next generation by providing service to society was also an important factor for the pre-service teachers in joining the teaching profession (social utility value). On the other hand, they reported to choose teaching as a last resort career (fallback career). The pre-service teachers perceived teaching as highly demanding (task demand) with moderate return in salary and status (task return) and they exhibited a relatively higher level satisfaction with their choice of profession. A positive relationship was found between the intrinsic career value (r=0.62, p<0.001) and perceived ability (r=0.61, p<0.001) to satisfaction with choice. Contrarily, a negative association p<0.01) was observed between the intrinsic career value and social dissuasion. Comparison across prior academic qualification revealed that the arts group preservice teachers were more intrinsically motivated (intrinsic career value) than their science group counterparts (p<0.01). Further, the low achieving pre-service teachers reported to have more positive outlook for the teaching profession by scoring significantly higher on religious motive (p<0.05), intrinsic career value (p<0.001), social utility value (p< 0.001), ability (p<0.001) and personal utility value (p<0.01) as compared to the high achievers. Interestingly, fallback career (p<0.05) was relatively rated high by the pre-service teachers falling in the category of high achievers as compared to mediocre and low achievers. The study provides insights to the teacher educators for counselling their students about their future aspiration and opportunities pertaining to the field of teaching. The tool adapted can be a valuable addition to the contextual literature which can