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Background:The outcome of any disease is influenced by the decisions to seek care, timely arrival at appropriate diagnostic and treatment services and the receipt of adequate care from service providers. Satisfaction in service provision is increasingly being used as a measure of health system performance. Satisfaction manifests itself in the distribution, access and utilization of health services. Objectives: To determine the areas and causes of low satisfaction among the patients and suggest methods for improvement.Materials and Methods:Multistage stratified random sampling was used to select the government allopathic health facilities of Lucknow district and systematic random sampling for the selection of the patients for the interview.Results:The accessibility was difficult in 42% patients and waiting time more than 30 min for 62.5% of those attending the tertiary level health facility. The satisfaction with the duration of the outpatient department (OPD) (64.6%) and the presence of signboards (46.6%) was also found to be low. The overall satisfaction regarding the doctor-patient communication was more than 60% at all the levels of health care facilities but that with the examination and consultation was less than 60% at the primary level as compared to more than 80% elsewhere. The most important motivating factor for the visit to the tertiary (48.2%) and secondary level (71.9%, 67.1%) of health facilities was the faith on doctors or health facility.Conclusions:The level of patient satisfaction is severely deficient in several areas and needs improvement for the achievement of optimal health of the people.

LED and CFT phototherapy units were equally efficacious in the management of non-hemolytic hyperbilirubinemia in healthy term and late preterm neonates.

Objectives:1) To determine the prevalence of isolated systolic hypertension (ISH) in the adult population of Lucknow district. 2) To study the determinants of ISH especially the relationship with age.Materials and Methods:A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in four randomly selected areas of Lucknow district. A total of 800 subjects, aged 20 years and above, 400 from urban and 400 from rural area of Lucknow district were included in the study. The statistical tools used for analysis were Pearson's Chi-square test and multiple logistic regression.Results:The prevalence of ISH according to JNC-7 criteria was 4.3%, which was 5.1% in men and 3.6% in women. A significant increase in the prevalence of ISH was seen with an increase in age. Multivariate logistic regression analysis of the determinants showed that age, BMI and smoking were significant independent risk factors of ISH.Conclusions:Given the risk of cardiovascular disease associated with ISH, the findings of this study emphasize the need for further research to document the impact of modifiable risk factors of ISH and the effect of hypertension screening and specific health promotion in bringing down the burden of ISH and related cardiovascular morbidity.

Background: Several studies have shown comparable visual outcomes of SICS and phacoemulsification (Gogate et al 2007, Ruit et al 2007.Objective: To compare the safety and efficacy of different types of surgical procedures (phacoemulsification versus SICS) for cataract surgery in immature cataract. Material and methods:A prospective randomized controlled trial was carried out involving 93 and 89 patients with immature senile cataract selected for phacoemulsification and SICS respectively. Statistics:Mean values with standard deviations were calculated. P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.Results: There was no difference between the groups in terms of gender, age and pre-operative visual acuity (p = 0.09). In phacoemulsification group (n=93) more than two thirds and in SICS group (n=89) more than three quarters of the patients had good visual outcome (6/6-6/18) on first postoperative day (p=0.065). Poor outcome (<6/60) was recorded in 6% (phacoemulsification group) and 1% (small incision cataract surgery group). Mean visual acuity was 0.43 ± 0.27 in phacoemulsification group and 0.47 ± 0.24 in SICS group. Mean surgery time was significantly shorter in SICS group (p=0.0003).Statistics: Data were computed and analyzed using the SPSS software program vs 10. The p value of < 0.05 was considered significant. Conclusion:There was no significant difference in visual outcome on first post operative day in between phacoemulsification and SICS technique. However, performing SICS was significantly faster. Small incision cataract surgery with implantation of rigid PMMA lens is a suitable surgical technique to treat immature cataract in developing countries.