Background: Organ transplantation is one of the greatest scientific advances and remains one of the most challenging and complex field of modern medicine. In the USA and UK, the organ donation rate is 26 and 14 per million, whereas in India, it is only 0.34 per million population. Healthcare professionals act as the critical link in the organ procurement process because they are the first individuals to establish relationship with the potential donors' family.Methods: An institution based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among first year undergraduate medical students during November 2017. Convenient sampling method was used to obtain the sample size. Out of 150 students in first year, 136 students fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were studied.Results: Out of 136 students who participated in the study, 58 (42.6%) were boys and 78 (57.4%) were girls. All the 136 (100%) students had heard about organ donation, but only 24 (17.6%) of them were aware of organ donation associations. Very few students (5, 3.6%) know about any law related to organ donation in India. Mass media like TV, Internet and Newspapers have played a major role in imparting awareness regarding organ donation among students besides relatives and friends. Majority of the students i.e. 104 (76.4%) were ready to donate their organs if need comes and two third of them accepted that they would allow organ donation from a member of their family after Brainstem death.Conclusions: There is a positive attitude of medical students towards organ donation but there is lack of sufficient knowledge on the topic. Improving their knowledge by including organ donation topic in medical curriculum can help to reduce this gap.
INTRODUCTIONSexually transmitted diseases remain a major public health problem in many parts of the world. 340 million new cases of curable STIS occur every year. 75 to 85% are seen in developing countries and rank second as the cause of healthy life lost among women of reproductive age group, after maternal morbidity and mortality. In India during [2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011] 30 million STI/RTI's were reported contributing to major country's disease burden and has a high incidence of STD's with an estimated incidence rate of 40 million new cases per year.2 Any given point of time 40% of women has RTI/STI but only 1% completes the treatment of both partners. The "syndromic approach" is a simple practical tool to improve diagnosis and treatment. Under the syndromic approach, the diagnosis of STI is based on identification of consistent group of symptoms and easily recognized signs and provision of effective treatment that will deal ABSTRACT Background: Sexually transmitted diseases remain a major public health problem in many parts of the world. 340 million new cases of curable STIS occur every year. 75 to 85% are seen in developing countries and rank second as the cause of healthy life lost among women of reproductive age group, after maternal morbidity and mortality. Methods: The study was conducted at Rama Murthy Pantulu Peta in the field area of urban health centre of greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, Visakhapatnam during September 2015 to October 2016. The study design was a community based descriptive study. Based on the prevalence of STI as stated by National AIDS Control Organization, a sample of 1541 is calculated. Results: The overall prevalence of RTI/STI in our study is 18.88%. The prevalence of symptoms suggestive of STI/RTI among female respondents is found to be 27.97%. Majority of females complained of vaginal discharge (26.68%),vulvas itching (10%), lower abdominal pain (6.34%) followed by abnormal vaginal bleeding (5.91%).The prevalence of symptoms suggestive of RTI/STI is found to be 9.75% among male respondents and majority complained of Urethral Discharge (8.4%) followed by inguinal/scrotal swelling (5.2%). Conclusions: The prevalence of Reproductive tract infections is more in females when compared to males in our study. Health education regarding the sexual and personal hygiene should be targeted to both males and females so as to decrease the prevalence of Sexual transmitted diseases in the urban health centre areas of Visakhapatnam.
Food safety describes handling, preparation and storage of food in ways to prevent foodborne illness. The contamination of food may occur at any stage in the process from food production to consumption ("farm to plate"-theme for World Health Day 2015).Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, particularly affecting infants, young children, elderly and the sick. Foodborne diseases include a wide spectrum of illnesses and a growing public health problem worldwide. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional community based study was done among 150 women in the field practice area of urban health training centre, Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam. Data was collected by administering questionnaire after taking informed consent. Data was entered in Epi data version 3.1 and analysed by using SPSS version 16.Results were represented in form of proportions and Fischer's Exact test was used to find significant association between variables. RESULTS: Among 150 participants, most of them were in age group of 21-30 years with mean age 33±11years.About 68% belonged to low socioeconomic status, 76.7% were housewives, and 79.3% were literates. Among the participants, 94.7% had good knowledge regarding food safety, 30.7% had good practices showing gap between knowledge and practices. In 12% of cases there was history of foodborne illness. There was significant association between knowledge and literacy status; knowledge and past history of foodborne diseases (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: There is need for an education program in the community to improve the practices among women regarding food safety to fill the observed gap between knowledge and practices.
Background: Unlike commercial radio, community radio works with local communities and helps in catering their specific needs and necessities and works as an innovative tool in bringing social change by using the participation of common man from the community in the program. Community radio stations are operated, owned, and influenced by the communities they serve. The objectives of the study were to describe the background information of the community radio services and to assess the perceptions of the rural community about the effectiveness of community radio and challenges in delivering its services.Methods: This study was designed on mixed method approach. Knowledge about health was assessed through a cross-sectional study. Perceptions about the effectiveness of community radio were gathered through focus group discussions. In-depth interviews with service providers obtained limitations and constraints that hinder the effectiveness. Villages surrounding an engineering college in Srikakulam district of north coastal Andhra Pradesh which is being provided community radio services by the institute. People in the selected villages who were provided community radio services and the staff of the engineering college involved in the program.Results: Preliminary results indicate that the beneficiaries found that programmes on care during pregnancy and delivery related issues were most beneficial. Drop out of trained community personnel to provide the health education was a major drawback as per the service providers.Conclusions: This beneficial approach to community needs support from the Government to implement it in every remote corner of our country.
Background: High rates of diabetes have been reported throughout urban India, though limited data exists concerning the prevalence of diabetes in rural areas, where 70% of the population resides. Socioeconomic and cultural differences may necessitate a different approach towards the treatment and prevention of diabetes in rural as opposed to urban areas. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a novel, community-centered model in rural villages of Hyderabad, India over the course of 6 months and compare results to traditional methods currently used by rural clinics in Ahmedabad, India. Methods: As opposed to traditional methods that rely on direct patient-provider interaction, our community-centered method relied on a four-tier system consisting of providers, leaders of each village, “ambassadors” within each village, and patients. A total of 1,013 individuals aged ≥ 25 years (mean age 47.2 years) were sampled at random gender and age from 12 villages in Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Vitals were taken and blood glucose was measured in all participants using a GlucoSpark glucometer. Baseline statistics were similar for both populations. Results: In villages surrounding Hyderabad, the prevalence of diabetes was 9.6% (95% CI 7.2-11.9), of which 6.2% (5.1-7.3) were known cases and 3.4% (2.2-4.6) had not previously been diagnosed. The prevalence of diabetes in Ahmedabad was determined to be 12.9% (10.8-15.1), with 5.2% (3.8-6.6) diagnosed and 7.7% (6.2-8.2) previously undiagnosed. Notably, average glucose levels in the Hyderabad population were significantly lower than in the Ahmedabad population after 6 months (t=3.3, p<0.001). Conclusion: While this study is not representative of rural India as a whole, it highlights the importance of community-centered health in rural settings. Findings suggest that approaches towards diabetes treatment, prevention, and education should vary with patient populations and be considered carefully. Disclosure S. Shah: None. K. Prasad: None. B.D. Saboo: None. S. Shah: None. D. Hasnani: None. V. Chavda: None. K. Hcb: None. R.K. Meruva: None.
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