Background:Diarrheal diseases are an important cause of mortality and morbidity globally in children under 5 years of age.Objective:To find the prevalence and risk factors of diarrhea among children under 5 years.Materials and Methods:A population-based analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in the urban slums of Bankura, West Bengal on the prevalence of diarrhea and feeding practices, nutrition, and immunization among 152 children under 5 years (69 males and 83 females).Results:Overall prevalence of diarrhea was 22.36%; 21.73% males and 22.89% females were affected with diarrhea. There were 57.69% diarrhea cases in children of 7-12 months age group, followed by 25.71% in those of 13-24 months age group; with increasing age, the prevalence of diarrhea gradually decreased. Diarrhea was noted to be 20.33% in exclusively breastfed children and 31.57% in children who were breastfed for less than 6 months. In bottle-fed children, the frequency of diarrhea was 26.08%. The prevalence of diarrhea was 21.83% in completely immunized children and 30% in partially immunized children. Risk of diarrhea was 19.80% in normal participants and 27.45% in undernourished children.Conclusion:The present study identified a high prevalence of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 years. Findings of the study also revealed the demographic features, feeding practices, immunization practices, and nutritional status as risk factors of diarrhea, which can be tackled by effective education of the community.

Background: Personality of medical students have been shown to affect both their academic performance as well as their capabilities to develop rapport with patients, with evidence that they change through the medical course. This research aimed to explore the personality traits of undergraduate medical students and assess whether personality parameters changed throughout the medical education course. Methods: A pseudo-longitudinal design was utilized for this study. A total of 346 MBBS students studying in a Medical College of Eastern India were recruited at different stages of their coursework. These participants were similar in their sociodemographic makeup and differed only with respect to their year of MBBS study. The personality characteristics were assessed among these participants using the short-form revised Eysenck personality inventory. Results: The minimum possible score for each subscale was 0, and the maximum was 12. Mean scores of the participants for the extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie scales were 6.17±3.09, 7.51±3.16, 3.40±1.61, and 4.98±2.48, respectively. Females scored significantly higher in neuroticism and lie dimensions. There were significant differences of psychoticism scores between rural and urban background participants. Significant negative trend was seen from the first to the final year of study in the extraversion dimension (Kendall’s tau =-0.094, p-value=0.025). Conclusion: Medical students in India scored high on the neuroticism and low on the psychoticism scales of personality with a trend of increasing extraversion over the years of their coursework.

BACKGROUND Deficient or insufficient vitamin D status is found as a major chunk amongst all age groups all over the Indian subcontinent. Low levels of serum 25 (OH) D are associated with atherogenic lipid profile, and the resultant dyslipidemia is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other atherosclerotic disorders in adults. As, not much literature was available on the deficiency of vitamin D and its effects, in the North Bengal region of West Bengal, India, this study was done to find out the association between vitamin D status and lipid profile of the participants and predict the risk of dislipidaemia with changes in vitamin D status. METHODS 430 medicine OPD attendees were selected for the study, interviewed after taking consent, blood parameters were examined and collected data were analysed for correlation and multinomial regression using SPSS v.25. RESULTS The mean value and standard deviation of serum 25 (OH) D level was found to be 21.53 ± 7.06 ng / ml. 35 % of vitamin D deficient subjects were found to be dyslipidemic. A negative correlation was observed between vitamin D status and total cholesterol & LDL status. While vitamin D status changed from “Sufficient” to “Deficient”, the chance of dyslipidemia increased by approximately 4.6 times. CONCLUSIONS Serum vitamin D influences largely the lipid profile of the study population. KEY WORDS Vitamin D, Serum 25 (OH) D, Dyslipidaemia, Cholesterol

BACKGROUND: Low birth weight (LBW) is a major public health problem in developing countries including India. The epidemiological observations depicted that infants weighing lesser than 2500 g are approximately 20 times more likely to die than heavier babies, closely associated with the fetal and neonatal mortality and morbidity. The present study was undertaken with the objectives to find out the relevant socio-demographic and biological determinants of Low Birth Weight babies and to assess the degree of association between impact of health education and Low birth weight babies. METHODS: A community based cross sectional study was conducted from May -August 2013 in Dilawarganj, an urban slum, the field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, MGM Medical College, Kishanganj, Bihar. Study population comprised of women in 3 rd trimester of pregnancy belonged to DILAWARGANJ urban slum area. 100 mothers of low birth weight and normal birth weight babies at urban slum of Kishanganj (Among them 33 mothers had delivered LBW babies & 67 mothers had delivered normal babies) were selected and interviewed through house to house survey with the help of a pre-designed, pre-tested and semi-structured questionnaire. RESULTS: Among the sociodemographic factors that have been considered in the present study, it was observed that 51.5% mothers belong to age group 20 -29, 84.8% mothers from Muslim community, 66.67% mothers were illiterate, 69.7% mothers were multipara,75.76% mothers reside in a nuclear family 60.6% mothers were engaged in agricultural fields66.67% belong to lower and poor socio-economic group. It was also observed that 84.85% mothers do not consumes extra meals, 81.82% do not take adequate rest & sleep, 93.9% mothers take less than 100 IFA tablets, 69.7% mothers attend less than 3 ANC, 84.85% mothers practice exclusive breast feeding and 78.8% mother give vaccines to their babies. CONCLUSION: The study of LBW baby in Kishanganj, Bihar has highlighted the factors regarding high prevalence of LBW baby and identified socio-demographic profile and common existing problems. To combat these factors, better training to health care providers should be done and implementation of different policies by the government was needed.

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Thalassaemia is a disease of abnormal development of red blood cells which manifests as anaemia. This chronic disease may cause mental, social, financial burdens on the families, care givers and also on health care system.To assess the quality of life (QOL) of the caregivers of thalassaemic children and to identify the predictors of quality of their physical and mental health.Institution based descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in the Thalassaemia Control Unit (TCU) of North Bengal Medical College (NBMC) from December 2018 to April 2019. Total 136 caregivers of children (≤12 years) with thalassaemia were included by complete enumeration method. Physical and mental health of the caregivers were reported in Short Form-36 (SF-36) Health Survey. Collected data were entered into MS-Excel, analysed with the help of SPSS (Version 22).Mean age of caregivers was 34.3 (SD ± 1.4 years). Most of caregivers were female (89%) and had educational qualification up to Primary school (45.6%). Majority (70.6%) of the caregivers were the mothers of the children. Most of the study participants (60.3%) had favourable Physical health Component Summary (PCS) but 64.7% of the caregivers had unfavourable Mental health component Summary (MCS). Educational status was found to be the predictor for PCS but age and relationship with the child were the predictors for MCS.Counselling, psychotherapy, social support for family members or caregivers of the thalassaemic children and community involvement with their full participation should be emphasized to reduce stigma related to thalassaemia.

Pandemic AIDS is one of the leading causes of global morbidity and mortality. Awareness generation and lifestyle modification are the main preventive and control measures for HIV/AIDS. So, socio-demographic profile and pattern of risk behaviour of population must be understood, for implementing Targeted Intervention towards high risk groups & bridge populations. OBJECTIVES: To explore various socio-demographic profile of clients attending ICTC; to determine source of referral of clients & to identify risk behaviour pattern of the attendees. MATERIALS & METHODS: Institution based descriptive cross sectional study from February 2014-April 2014. Data collected according to Helsinki Declaration of 1975; revised in 2000 and analyzed using SPSS Version 20.0. Results were expressed in simple proportions. RESULTS: out of 1567 attendees, 1019 (65.03%) were males and 548 (34.97%) were females with 9.31% total seropositivity. 2.62% of clients attended ICTC on their own will. Those who either did not responded or risk unknown to them, showed 16.44% seropositivity. CONCLUSION: In absence of prophylactic & curative treatment, more & more community based epidemiological studies should be conducted, for Behavioural Change Communication (BCC) in respect to socio-demographic strata and to interrupt & control transmission of the deadly disease.

Two studies reported Basic Occupational Health Services including Primary health care system as a promising strategy to fulfill the gaps in areas of surveillance, prevention and treatment of OH hazards and health issues. Conclusion Occupational Health service provision even though excludes current legal framework in informal sectors, few efforts are done towards recognizing and fulfilling this gap. The solidification of OHS can be done by exploring its integration with primary health care set up of India in existing scenario.