Background: Due to an array of reasons like easy accessibility and awareness about the available drugs, self-medication has steeply increased the already existent drug misuse. As the health professional students are exposed to all the information of drugs, it would be worthwhile to survey if this knowledge is misused to self-medicate. The present study was aimed at determining the impact of educational intervention on the prevalent attitudes and pattern of self-medication among medical, dental and nursing students as they constitute a vulnerable group for such practices.Methods: A total of 360 health professional students participated in the study. A validated questionnaire and self-medication scale (SMS) were used for the survey, before and after the educational workshop.Results: Of the 360 students 70% were females. 93.89% reported practicing self-medication, which reduced to 78.63% after the educational workshops. Average number of self-medication encounters before the workshop was 4.03±0.30. Analgesics were most commonly used. The modified SMS scores were significantly reduced (p<0.0001) after interventional workshops indicating that the enhanced knowledge, increased the reluctance to self-medicate and make students think twice before self-medicating so as to reduce such harmful, casual drug use habits. Educational workshops statistically (p<0.0001) enhanced the participants knowledge of ADRs, OTC drugs, expiry date, package inserts etc. 77.78% nursing students were habituated to at least one drug which was significantly higher (χ2=20.45, p<0.0001) than that of medical and dental students taken together.Conclusions: Educational intervention reduces the evil of self-medication and enhances safe drug use habits among healthcare professional students.
Background: Cancer is major public health problem affecting millions of people worldwide. The prevalence of cancer is increasing in developing world due to increase in life expectancy, increased urbanization and adoption of western life styles. Thus, the present study was carried out to assess the extent of awareness towards cancer among women of urban slums in their reproductive age group. Methods: Community based cross sectional study was carried out by interviewing women of reproductive age group residing in urban slums using pre-designed and pre-tested proforma to assess awareness towards cancer. Descriptive statistics was applied to assess the awareness level and the association between two attributes was calculated by chisquare test. Results: A total of 182 women were interviewed. Out of which 39.56% were in 20-24 years age group. 46.15% were housewives and most of them belonged to middle class families. Though the knowledge regarding cancer, especially about modes of transmission, symptoms and laboratory diagnosis was found satisfactory but was accompanied by misconceptions. 71.43% women were aware about its prevention, mostly by changing life styles and by getting screening done at regular intervals. Conclusion: Thus, impetus has to be laid upon screening regarding cancer during reproductive age group and enlightenment of the women about cancer screening centres available at the hospitals, so as to heighten the knowledge of facilities for a better reproductive life.
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