Sri Lankan inpatients receive a discharge summary in English known as a diagnosis card. The authors investigated whether supplementing the diagnosis summary with native language improved patients' knowledge of illness and medication. Participants were 130 newly diagnosed patients with noncommunicable chronic diseases (92 men, 70.8%; 38 women, 29.2%; M age = 55.4 years, SD age = 12.8 years) who were randomized to a control group receiving an English discharge summary and intervention group receiving a supplementary native language discharge summary. A questionnaire assessed knowledge of illness and prescribed medications at discharge and at 2 weeks. The groups were comparable for knowledge of diagnosis and prescribed medications at discharge. At 2 weeks, the intervention group had significantly higher scores than did the control group for knowledge on diagnosis, M = 81.41, SD = 34.63, versus M = 27.95, SD = 41.26, respectively, p < .001; and on medications, M = 54.48, SD = 33.91, versus M = 12.55, SD = 20.44, respectively, p < .001. The increase in scores was explained by the dichotomous variable, whether supplementary discharge summary was given or not (p < .001). A higher proportion in the intervention group read the discharge summary to gain knowledge of diagnosis (81.5%) and medication (80%) than in the control group (4.6% and 6.2%, respectively; p < .001). A total of 121 participants (92.1%) preferred a discharge summary in native language. This simple model may be useful to improve patient knowledge relating to illness in countries that predominantly use another language for medical communications, rather than a native language.

Directives is an important area of study in child language development and language socialization since it illustrates children's ability to affect the behavior of others around them by using language. However, we have no account of directives by children in Sinhala. A study of Sinhala directives by children is important given that research on diverse languages contribute to significant changes in our knowledge of both the typology and the linguistic resources used for directives in general. The main aim of this study is to record the forms of directives used by children speaking Sinhala as a first language. Sinhala, the dominant language of Sri Lanka, is little studied in terms of pragmatics. Therefore, a secondary purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of Sinhala pragmatics. Using recorded data and observation from children and their caregivers, this paper studies the use of Sinhala directives by middle class children and their adult caretakers in Sri Lanka. The study shows that children from 2-4 years of age are able to use directives appropriate to their pragmatic function. It also shows surprising findings on children's use of (im)polite language, an area that needs more research.

Introduction: The telephone helplines of the central STD clinic, Colombo provide sexual health information and guidance on STI care and treatment for the general public. However, caller profiles have not been explored or analyzed systematically during the recent past.Objectives: To describe the caller profiles and the content of the calls received to the telephone helpline.Methods: Details on all 215 telephone calls received to helpline during April-July, 2019 were recorded using a data extraction sheet after the verbal consent of the client.Results: Most callers (93%) were males with the median age of 22 years (range 15-65) and well educated (51%). The majority were first-time callers (84%). Reasons for calling included to inquire service delivery points (78%), HIV or HIV testing (62%), HIV symptoms (58%), Pre Exposure Prophylaxis related (11%), STI symptoms (21%) and sexual dysfunctions (12%). Thirty-four (34%) were due to misconceptions related to sexual health and HIV. Most callers (59%) discovered the hotline through internet (n= 126) while almost 10% were linked at a lecture and 6.5% by a peer and the rest as a result of TV programmes or newspaper articles Conclusions: People are using telephone helpline effectively. Therefore, further advertising on helpline through social media and other web sites and expansion of the services to the periphery is recommended. Reasons for less inquiries made by females should be further explored and attended. Timely actions to alleviate misconceptions regarding sexual health and HIV while raising awareness on available services need to be encouraged.

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