Introduction: In 21 st century, road traffic accidents (RTA) are considered as increasing epidemic of non-communicable disease which is abandoned and needs special attention to prevent them. The aim of this study was to assess the factors and pattern of injuries associated with road traffic accidents. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 112 RTA victims and 56 drivers in Palpa District of Nepal. The association of factors and pattern of injuries with exposure to accidents was assessed using Fisher's exact test. Bivariate logistic regression examined the association between driving and socio-demographics factors and exposure to road accidents. Results: Of 112 RTA victims, 50% were in the age group of 21 to 40 years and 71.4% were male. Drivers who were in the age less than or equal to 30 years were more likely (OR: 3.6; 95% CI: 1.0, 14.3) to expose to an accident than those who were above 30 years. Similarly, those having driving speed less than 40 km/hr were less likely to expose to an accident than those with speed 40 -60 km/hr (OR: 6.0; 95% CI: 0.8, 73.5) and those with speed more than 60 km/hr (OR 7.8; 95% CI: 1.0, 100.1). Moreover, the driving experience was also found positively associated (OR: 5.6; 95% CI: 1.1, 35.5) with the exposure to an accident. Conclusion: Being in younger age group, male gender, morning time, the driving speed, driving experiences, and driving hours on the road were positively associated with RTA. The efforts should be made to enforce laws in control of speed targeting experienced drivers and those with younger age groups.

Objectives: This descriptive study of 219 undergraduate medical students at Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Nepal was conducted to evaluate the relationships of their demographic variables with a health-promoting lifestyle profile. Methods: The Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP) questionnaire was used to study students' lifestyles. We compared the HPLP scores according to gender, residence type, school background and year of study. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple comparison test were conducted to identify significant differences among university year (first, second, third and fourth) groups. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the effects of various demographics on the overall HPLP score and the six health-promoting lifestyle subscales. Results: The overall HPLP mean score of participants was 2.60 ± 0.29, with the highest mean scores being for spiritual growth (2.99 ± 0.42) and interpersonal relations (2.90 ± 0.35), and the lowest mean scores being for health responsibility (2.39 ± 0.39) and physical activity (2.25 ± 0.54), respectively. The overall HPLP score of the students was the highest for the first year students at 2.65 ± 0.26. The male students had a better overall HPLP score, although female students obtained better score in some sub-scales such as health responsibility, interpersonal relations and nutrition. The students from a public school background had significantly higher scores for health responsibility, physical activity and stress management than those who graduated school level education from a private school. Conclusions: The results of this study reveal that the status of health promoting behaviors among the students was acceptable with ample room for improvement. Implementation of health education and promotion programs with an How to cite this paper: Paudel, S., GC,

Introductions: Personal hygiene deficiency have been found to be a serious public health problem and people often affected are school children. These have been attributed to inadequate knowledge of personal hygiene and its practices. This study was designed to explore the existing knowledge and practices of personal hygiene among the students studying at secondary level schools in Bhaktapur district, Nepal. Methods: This study was a cross- sectional study to investigate personal hygiene knowledge and practices of secondary level, grades nine and ten school children, Bhaktapur district, Kathmandu valley, Nepal. Pre-tested, self- administered questionnaire were used. Data were collated and analyzed descriptively. Results: The result showed that the secondary school students who participated in the study were evenly distributed by gender (50.4% males and 49.6% females),most of the respondents (78.8%) were in the 15-16 year age bracket. Majority of the respondents (88.5%) had good knowledge level on personal hygiene. Female students were found having more knowledge level than male students. Conversely, majority of them were noted with moderate to poor level of hygiene practices. Conclusions: Secondary school students of Bhaktapur have good knowledge on personal hygiene while lot more improvement is required in terms of practices. Integrated approach by parents, school and social media to enhance hygiene practices could be useful.

Introduction: Evidence based practice (EBP) is the use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The aim of this study was to explore the practices, attitudes, knowledge and perceived barriers in relation to EBP among faculty members at Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS), Nepal. Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey study. Participants were faculty members (both clinical and non-clinical) at PAHS. The main outcomes were attitude towards the usefulness of EBP, the frequency of use of EBP in practice, and the barriers to carrying out EBP. Results: One hundred and seventy-two faculty members participated in this survey. Ninety five percent knew it was used for clinical decision making and the majority used it for teaching. Senior faculty spent more time on searching for evidence and reading compared to junior faculty. There was no difference between clinical and non-clinical departments. The main barriers to EBP were inadequate teaching learning support by 49% (85/172) followed by inadequate time 30% (52/172). Conclusions: The study showed that faculty at PAHS had a generally positive attitude towards EBP. EBP could be better facilitated by proper teaching and allocation of dedicated time.

The purpose of this study was to find out the practice related to occupational health and safety among the brick factory workers. The study was based on descriptive cross sectional design. Random proportionate sampling technique was applied to select the respondent from each randomly selected five brick factory. The total numbers of 300 samples of brick factory workers were selected. Semi-structured questionnaire and observation checklist were used for data collection. Most of the participants had knowledge about occupational health and safety. Similarly about 54.7% of them use gloves, 25.3% use boot and 18% use mask as personal protective equipment. Majority of participants were aware about occupational hazard but their practice level of personal protective equipment is low for protecting themselves. So the practice of personal protective equipment should be encouraged in the brick factory for the promotion of occupational health and safety.

Background: The incumbent of medical professional is expected to be socially responsible and emotionally empathetic along with good communication propensity to fasten the doctor-patient relationship. Whilst doctor's proficiency to recognize a patient's perspectives, and convey such an understanding back to the patient; in our case, the empathy and compassion level of promising medical professional is unknown in Nepal. Thus, this study aimed to analyze the compassion and empathy score of final year's undergraduate students of four medical colleges in Nepal. Methods: Self-reported empathy measures were obtained using the Jefferson Scale of Physician-Student version. Results: The degree of empathy for the participants was 97.28 (SD = 14.44) with a median score of 96.00 and a range of 44 (min) to 133 (max). There was a significant difference on scores of the Jefferson scale of physician empathy between NMC Nepalgunj and BPKIHS (p = 0.00) and between NMC Nepalgunj and Manipal Pokhara (p = 0.00), as well as between UCMS and Manipal Pokhara (p = 0.044). These results were significant at the 95% confidence interval. Conclusions: The mean empathy score for the Nepali students is lower than medical students from developed countries but almost similar to medical students from other Asian medical students. The female Nepali medical students scored slightly higher than their male counterparts. Thus colleges have to develop academic programs to improve empathy and compassion among medical students through providing adequate time to consult with patient and faculties.

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