Aim: The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of a mobile health or mHealth application to improve hypertension health literacy among vulnerable populations in India. Additionally, we sought to estimate relationships between participant knowledge on hypertension and sociodemographic variables. Background: The World Health Organization advocates for the use of mobile technology to improve public health outcomes. Introduction:The incidence of hypertension is on the rise in India, and effective and sustainable interventions are needed. Methods: A quantitative single arm pre-test post-test interventional and correlational design was used to test the hypertension mHealth application among participants in a limited resource setting. A paired t-test was performed to compare pre-and post-test results after participant use of the mHealth application. A regression model was used to estimate relationships between participant hypertension health literacy and sociodemographic variables. Results: A statistically significant improvement in test scores among participants after use of the mHealth app was found. Sociodemographic characteristics such as living in an urban environment, married, increased number of people living in household and alcohol use were determined to have a statistically significant effect on improvement of test score. Discussion: Results indicated the application was effective among participants with varied literacy and health literacy levels. These findings contribute to the potential widespread scalability of the app among populations with varied demographics. Conclusion: This application provides an effective and valuable culturally tailored educational resource for nurses and other health providers to use to improve hypertension health literacy among vulnerable populations in India. Implications for Nursing Practice and Health Policy: This study contributes to nursing and health policy by answering a call from the World Health Organization to implement and research mHealth interventions to improve health outcomes, particularly in a low and middle income country where preventive health access is limited.
Introduction:Uncomplicated but symptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a common problem seen in practice. The study was undertaken to assess the most common pathogens responsible for uncomplicated symptomatic UTIs and the antimicrobial resistance pattern in a hospital in Bangalore. The study also explores the issue of antibiotic usage for these patients.Materials and Methods:The study was conducted in the Medicine department of a tertiary hospital in Bangalore. In all, 196 patients presented with symptoms of UTI. Bacterial growth was determined by standard microbiology techniques on freshly voided mid-steam urine samples collected from recruited patients. Patients’ demographic data, urine culture results, resistance rates to antimicrobial agents and prescribed empiric antimicrobial therapy were analyzed.Results:The prevalence of UTI was 32.1%; majority (67.9%) of the symptomatic did not have UTI based on culture report. Gram-negative bacteria constituted the largest group with a prevalence of 84.1% (53/63), with Escherichia coli being the most common (70%) uropathogen. Gram-negative isolates showed high level of sensitivity to amikacin (90.6%) and nitrofurantoin (77.4%). Most of the gram-positive organisms were susceptible to nitrofurantoin (70%) and gentamicin (50%). Uropathogens isolated demonstrated high resistance to cotrimoxazole, fluoroquinolones, and beta-lactam antibiotics. It was found out that 30.1% of the patients were wrongly managed of which 14.7% were over treated.Conclusion:UTI can be over diagnosed and over treated on the basis of clinical signs, symptoms and urine microscopy. In the era of emerging anti-microbial resistance, effective counseling and delay in antibiotic initiation or empirical therapy with a short course of nitrofurantoin is highly recommended. Empirical therapy guidelines should be updated periodically to reflect changes in antimicrobial resistance of uropathogens.
Background Slums are home to nearly one billion people in the world and are expanding at an exponential rate. Devarjeevanahalli is a large notified slum in Bangalore, South India which is characterised by poverty, overcrowding, hazardous living environment and social complexities. The poor living conditions not only affect the health of the people living there but also poses distinctive challenges to conducting health surveys. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a household survey that was done to study the health condition of people living in a slum. Methods A community-based cross-sectional survey was designed to determine the prevalence of health conditions using a mobile screening toolkit-THULSI (Toolkit for Healthy Urban Life in Slums Initiative). Devarjeevanahalli slum was chosen purposively as it is fairly representative of any slum in a big city in India. Sample size was calculated as 1100 households and demographic parameters at the household level and parameters related to priority health conditions (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, anaemia and malnutrition) at the individual level were studied. Six zones within the slum were purposively selected and all the contiguous households were selected. The last of the six zones was partially surveyed as the desired sample size was achieved. Results A total of 1186 households were surveyed and 3693 people were screened. More than three fourth (70.4%) of the population were below poverty line. Only one third had a regular job and the average daily income was 5.3$ and 2.6$ in men and women respectively. The prevalence of hypertension (35.5%), diabetes (16.6%) and anaemia (70.9%) was high in the screened slum population. Most of the people (56.5% of hypertensives and 34.4% diabetics) were screened for the first time. Almost half of the children under the age of five years were stunted. Conclusions Poor income security and huge burden of health issues were reported among adults and children in the household health screening in a large notified slum in South India. Most people were unaware of their disease condition prior to the screening. Relatively simple technological solutions enabled the local health team to screen the slum population despite many challenges. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6756-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
The objective of this study is to examine the validity of the WHO operational classification using skin smear results as the gold standard and explore the value of additional clinical signs independently and in combination with the WHO classification. Between 1985 and 2000, 5439 new untreated leprosy patients were registered at the Schieffelin Leprosy Research and Training Center, Karigiri. They were classified according to the Ridley Jopling classification as well as WHO operational classification based on the number of skin lesions. The sensitivity and specificity of the WHO operational classification tested, using skin smear results as the gold standard, was found to be 88.6% and 86.7% respectively. The Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve confirms that the best option for sensitivity and specificity is a cut off of 6 and more lesions for MB. The validity of the number of enlarged nerves and size of the largest skin lesion as independent criteria to classify patients was found to be poor. Addition of three enlarged trunk nerves to the WHO classification improved its sensitivity to 91.4%, while the specificity remained almost unchanged at 85.3%. Addition of the size of the largest skin lesion to the WHO classification reduced its validity considerably. The study concludes that the WHO recommendation of using six and more lesions for classifying a patient as MB is the best option available at the moment, and calls for further research to identify other clinical criteria that have a better validity and could be easily applied in the field.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.