INTRODUCTIONThe twentieth century began with approximately 1.6 billion human beings in the world and with an increase of 96 million people per year, will end with over 6 billion people. Nearly 50% of this population is constituted by female. India has one of the world's largest populations of teenagers over 23 million, representing over 26% of the total in the world. According to UNICEF, there are 243 million adolescents comprising 20% of the total population of India and their numbers are expected to increase over time.
Background: Diabetes Mellitus is one of the leading non communicable diseases in India. Associated complications are also on rise. Knowing about self-care becomes important to prevent these complications in them. This study was done to determine the level of awareness and practice of foot care among type 2 diabetes patients attending a tertiary care center.Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study done by interviewing 106 diabetic patients attending a teaching hospital in Kolar, using pretested questionnaire.Results: In the present study the mean (SD) of awareness and practice of foot care were 5.33 (3.09) and 6.54 (2.94) respectively. Low mean scores were significantly associated (p<0.05) with lack of formal education and not receiving advice on foot care by doctors. Only 51.9% of them were educated regarding foot care while 77% of the subjects were advised to do physical activity. Only 8.5% of them had good knowledge, 35.8% had satisfactory level and more than 50% of them had poor or very poor knowledge regarding foot care. On the other hand about 15.1% of the study participants’ foot care practice was good, 36.8% were satisfactory and 48.1% were poor or very poor in foot care practice. A strong positive correlation (r=0.85) was observed between level of awareness and practice of foot care which was statistically significant (p<0.001).Conclusions: Low mean scores of awareness and practice suggests that there is a need for focused educational intervention on foot care to all diabetic patients in order to prevent foot complications in them.
Background: Primary aim of health information system is, using it in decision-making. Not many systematic studies on actual status of health information system are available. So this study was undertaken to evaluate the current status of Health Information System (HIS) at the primary level in relation to selective components of Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Programme and to determine its utilization for identification of problem and decision making at that level.Methods:Cross sectional study done in Bangalore Urban District. HIS was analyzed for completeness, timeliness and utilization. Monthly reports of previous 3 months from PHCs were looked for completeness and timeliness. Utilization of information was assessed by interviewing the medical officers of 4 PHCs for actions they intend to take for modifying the performance; prior to and also after providing them with analyzed information of the available data (customization of data). Both these were compared for differences and specificity of responses. For customization of the data, sub center reports were reviewed and few beneficiaries were interviewed.Results: 85% of the reporting formats were incompletely filled. It was observed an increase in number of medical officers giving more specific actions such as review in monthly meeting, ask explanation by specific sub-center health worker for not giving follow up care to improve the performance than the responses which were more general prior to receiving the customized data. It shows that MOs are not utilizing the available health information for identification of problem or to make decisions.Conclusions:This study showed that medical officers are signing the monthly reports prepared by health workers, without actually using the information at least to identify the problem as it was seen that coverage in one sub-centre was consistently low for all the three months but didn’t focus their actions towards that sub center.
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