International Invention Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences

170-171

Authors: *1Dr. Vipin Goyal, 2Dr. Vipin Kumar, 2Dr. Lalit Kumar, 3Dr. Sandeep Puri

34 year old female presented with complains of abdominal pain and slowly progressing weakness of bilateral upper limbs along with respiratory muscular weakness leading to CO2 retention and intubation. On evaluation, patient was found to have 25% ejection fraction which was unexplained even after full evaluation. Repetitive nerve stimulation-Nerve conduction velocity-Electromyography test showed neuromuscular disorder. Patient was given pyridostigmine along with steroid pulse for myasthenia gravis which resulted in dramatic improvement of ejection fraction to normal within 4 days. Keywords: Myasthenia gravis, Cardiac dysfunction, Striational antibodies, Anticholinesterase drug, Steroid pulse.

178-184

Authors: *1Dr. James Mwaura, PhD, 2Prof Elizabeth N. Ngugi, PhD, 3Dr David Nguti, PhD

The purpose of this comparative retrospective study was to evaluate the nature of male spouse-perpetrated gender based violence (GBV) during pregnancy. The objective was to establish whether diagnosis of HIV infection during pregnancy mitigates or exacerbates male spouse perpetrated psychological and sexual abuse during pregnancy. Case group comprising 96 HIV infected pregnant women, and comparison group (96 uninfected), all in their third trimester of pregnancy were interviewed upon consenting. A modified Conflict Tactics Scale 2 was administered to compare the two groups in terms of psychological aggression and sexual coercion. Results indicated prevalence and severity of male spouse perpetrated abuse to be higher for case group than comparison group across both psychological aggression and sexual coercion subscales. The odds of male spouse perpetrated violence was 6.64-fold higher in HIV positive pregnant women compared to HIV negative pregnant women (OR = 6.64, 95% CI 1.56-28.27, p = 0.010). Thus, diagnosis of pregnancy and absence of HIV infection was associated with mitigated occurrence and severity of male spouse perpetrated abuse, while diagnosis of HIV infection during pregnancy exacerbated the same. The investigator recommends immediate sensitization of health and social workers attending to pregnant women on the escalative effect of HIV positive diagnosis on male-spouse perpetrated violence. Intensive couple counseling and follow up care need to be specially designed and implemented for such couple whether they are concordant positive or discordant. Keywords: Gender based violence, HIV, AIDS, Pregnancy, Male spouse-perpetrated violence.