Background: Easily correctable refractive errors are the commonest cause of visual impairment in school children in India. Children who need but cannot afford spectacle correction are high in our country. Important factor for the success of the corrective services is compliance to spectacle wear. Objective: To assess the spectacle wear compliance among school children who were provided spectacle free of cost. To study the determinants of spectacle acceptance and reasons for non compliance. Materials and Methods: All (1378) government school children of 7-15 years age group in both rural and urban fi eld practice areas of a medical college in Bangalore were screened and students with refractive error were provided spectacles free of cost. An unannounced follow up was done after 3 months to assess compliance. Data was analyzed to determine the factors associated with spectacle wear compliance. Results: Among 36 boys and 47 girls who received spectacles free of cost, 31 were from rural and 52 from urban schools. 48(57.8%) children were actually wearing the spectacles at the time of follow up. 42(87.5%) compliant children reported improvement of performance in school related activities. Compliance was better in younger children and those from urban schools. Children of father with lower level of education and with power -0.5D were more likely to be non compliant. Conclusion: To achieve the goal of vision 2020 timely detection of refractive errors should be followed by cost effective intervention. The barriers to spectacle acceptance should be studied and addressed. Original ArticleOur study has been under taken to look at spectacle-wear compliance among children who received spectacles free of cost in a school based program and the factors determining spectacle-wear. The study was also aimed at fi nding the possible reasons for non-compliance.The goal of vision 2020 cannot be achieved only by timely detection of refractive errors unless efforts are taken to remove the barriers to spectacle availability and acceptance in this age group. Abstract Access this article onlineWebsite: www.ijmedph.org
exception of the upper classes, people cannot afford such type of social protection. For most people living in poor developing countries illness still represents a permanent threat to their income earning capacity. Beside the direct costs for treatment and drugs, indirect costs for the missing labour force of the ill and the occupying person have to be shouldered by the household.
Background:In India, the number of new breast cancer cases is about 115,000 per year and this is expected to rise to 250,000 new cases per year by 2015. It needs to be noted that breast cancer is leading in the age groups of 15–34 years which is a cause of concern as this denotes the need for educative and awareness programs targeting younger members of the society, to implement early practices of breast examination. This study was carried out with the intention of assessing the level of knowledge and awareness of carcinoma breast and breast self-examination (BSE) in female college students.Materials and Methods:This cross-sectional study was carried out in a well-known basic sciences college. After the pretest questionnaire was given, an awareness talk was given about breast cancer and BSE. A posttest questionnaire was administered. The data of pre- and post-test were collected and analyzed using SPSS.Results:Pretest and posttest were collected from 1030 students. The age of the study participants was ranged between 18 and 23 years. Most of them were aware of breast carcinoma, but half of them thought breast cancer affects the elderly. Regarding different aspects studied, 58% had a knowledge of at least one of the symptoms and 59% knew at least one of the risk factors for breast carcinoma. Only 185 (18%) women knew about BSE and 107 women practice it.Conclusions:This study concluded that the awareness of the breast cancer was good but the knowledge of signs and BSE was poor, which is utmost important for early detection and in reduction of mortality.
Background. Active case finding (ACF) for tuberculosis (TB) is a promising tool to enhance early case detection among marginalized populations. As opposed to passive case finding, it involves systematically searching for TB in individuals who would not spontaneously present for care. The National TB Program (NTP) of India has initiated ACF for TB through the existing general health system since the end of 2017. However, prior to scale-up, there is need for exploring the implementation challenges and solutions to improve the efficiency of this program. Objectives. (1) To explore the enablers and challenges in the implementation of ACF for TB by NTP in the Bengaluru rural district of Karnataka, South India, and (2) to explore the perceived solutions to improve the efficiency of ACF activity. Methods. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted in the Bengaluru rural district during July 2018. In-depth interviews using purposively selected health care providers involved in active case finding (n = 9) and presumptive TB patients (n = 8) were conducted. Manual content analysis was conducted by two independent researchers to generate categories and themes. Results. The challenges in conduct of ACF were as follows: inadequate training of health care workers, shortage of staff, indifferent attitude of community due to stigma, lack of awareness about TB, illiteracy, inability to convince patients for sputum test, and delay in getting CBNAAT results. The field staff recommended the installation of mobile CBNAAT machine, involvement of general health staff in activity, training of health workers on counseling of patients, and issue of identity cards for community health workers/volunteers so that people recognize them. Conclusion. The health system challenges in conduct of ACF need to be addressed by training the health staff involved in activity and also improving the access to TB diagnostics.
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