Background and ObjectiveThe shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas, is a major concern in India, which in turn affects the effective delivery of health care services. To support new policies able to address this issue, a study was conducted to determine the discouraging and encouraging factors affecting medical students’ interests towards working in rural areas.MethodsThis cross-sectional, descriptive qualitative study has been conducted in three states of North India. It comprised six focus group discussions, each consisting of 10–20 medical students of six government medical colleges. The verbatim and thematic codes have been transcribed by using a ‘categorical aggregation approach’. The discussions were thematically analyzed.ResultsNinety medical students participated in the study. The discouraging factors were grouped under two broad themes namely unchallenging professional environment (poor accommodation facilities and lack of necessary infrastructure; lack of drug and equipment supplies; inadequate human resource support; lesser travel and research opportunities) and gap between financial rewards and social disadvantages (lower salary and incentives, social isolation, political interference, lack of security). Similarly, the encouraging factors were congregated under three main themes namely willingness to give back to disadvantaged communities (desire to serve poor, underprivileged and home community), broader clinical exposure (preferential admission in post-graduation after working more than 2–3 years in rural areas) and higher status and respect (achieving higher social status).ConclusionsThis qualitative study highlights key factors affecting medical students’ interest to work in rural areas. A substantial similarity was noted between the factors which emerge from the current study and those documented in other countries. These findings will help policymakers and medical educators to design and implement a comprehensive human resource strategy that shall target specific factors to encourage medical students to choose job positions in rural areas.

Introduction. With the advent and extensive use of the Internet and smartphones, social networking has become a pervasive part of human interaction. The use of these social networking sites or the Internet affects the physical, mental, and spiritual health of the people. Hence, there is need to understand how the time spent on social networking is affecting the quality of life (QOL) as a whole, especially among college-going students who are most likely users of social networking sites (18–21 years). Materials and Methods. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 220 college-going students (18–21 years) in Chandigarh in 2012. The data were collected using a pretested self-administered questionnaire, adapted from Young’s Internet usage questionnaire. Appropriate statistical analysis was done. Results. Almost all (98%) of the respondents use the Internet. As compared to nondaily users of social networking sites, daily users were better able to handle stress related to (1) relationships (moderate to severe stress among daily users vs. nondaily users, 15.2% vs. 30.5%) and (2) work (moderate to severe stress among daily users vs. nondaily users, 18.2% vs. 35.4%). The daily users of social networking sites feel significantly more satisfied with their classmates, the way they handle the problems, their physical appearance, and their accomplishments in their life. Conclusion. Social networking sites are steadily penetrating in the lives of adolescents in India. The advantages on quality of life for daily users of social networking sites versus nondaily users are enormous. Also currently, Internet use might not have reached the levels where it embarks on the existing state of health; therefore, continuous and critical observation of the changing trends is warranted.

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Objective This study aimed to assess the prevalence of cognitive impairment and psychiatric morbidity among the patients attending the rural noncommunicable disease clinic after controlling for various confounders (i.e., psychological morbidity, obesity, gender, level of education, duration of the illness and age). Methods One-hundred twenty-four patients were evaluated on the Hindi Mental State Examination for the cognitive function, Physical Health Questionnaire-9 for depression, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 for anxiety disorders. Results About one-fourth (26.6%) of the participants had cognitive impairment. The prevalence of cognitive impairment was more among patients with hypertension (35.5%) as compared with the diabetes mellitus (13.6%) and those with comorbid hypertension and diabetes mellitus (26.6%). About one of the participants had depression (35.5%) and 29% of the patients had anxiety disorder. No significant difference was found in the level of cognitive deficits between those with hypertension and diabetes mellitus, when the confounding factors were not taken into account in the analysis. However, after controlling for psychiatric morbidity, obesity, gender, level of education, duration of the illness and age, those with hypertension were found to have significantly higher level of cognitive impairment compared with those with diabetes mellitus. A higher level of dysfunction was seen in the domains of orientation, registration, attention, recall, language, and visuospatial domains. Conclusion Present study suggests that patients of hypertension have higher level of cognitive impairment, when compared with those with diabetes mellitus, even after controlling for various confounders. Lack of difference between the two groups can be accounted by the confounding variables.

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