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Background: Online video games are one of the most popular recreational activities irrespective of age, gender and culture. Gaming disorder has been recently included in the 11th Revision of the international classification of diseases (ICD-11). Thus online video game addiction among people is a serious mental health issue and unfortunately, research on this addiction is still in its infancy. Thus the present study examines the prevalence of problematic online gaming among undergraduate medical students and its association with demographic variables, and health-related measures like well-being, self-esteem and depressive mood.Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among the undergraduate students of Goa medical college using online survey method. Problematic online gaming was assessed using the problematic online gaming questionnaire short form (POGQ-SF). Additionally, well-being was assessed using the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS), self-esteem was assessed using Rosenberg’s self- esteem scale (RSES) and depressive mood was assessed using the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9).Results: According to POGQ-SF, 8% of the study participants showed problematic online gaming. It was significantly associated with sex of the study participants, frequency of online gaming, duration of internet use per day and duration of a gaming session.Conclusions: Playing online games is a widespread activity among undergraduate medical students and a substantial proportion of these students exhibit addictive behaviours with regards to online gaming. Further research in terms of longitudinal studies involving larger samples of general population is needed to throw light on causal relationship between problematic online gaming and related factors.
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Background: This study aims to measure the quality of life (QoL) scores in children with thalassemia major following up at a tertiary care center for routine blood transfusion in comparison to healthy children.Methods: A case control study design was adopted, wherein on the QoL of 36 children with thalassemia in the age group 5 to 18 following up for blood transfusion at Goa Medical College, was measured using PedsQL' 4.0. This was compared to the QoL in age and gender matched healthy children from a government school. A higher score on a subscale indicates better quality of life on this instrument.Results: The children with thalassemia had lower mean scores on physical (67.85 vs 84.24; P <0.001), social (78.34 vs 87.95; P=0.002) and school (62.64 vs 79.48; P <0.001) functioning subscales compared to the healthy children. They also had lower mean psychosocial summary score (73.32 vs 82.01; P=0.003) and total health summary score (71.95 vs 82.57; P <0.001). The physical functioning subscale had significantly higher score among the children who were on chelation and also among the ones whose parents reported as being informed about the condition.Conclusions: The children with thalassemia have poor QoL in physical, social and school functioning domains. Improvement in QoL requires consolidated efforts on part of doctors, parents, school authorities and policy makers. These patients should be provided with low cost-effective chelation therapy. The parents need to be counselled about this disease by the treating team.
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Background & objectives: Scrub typhus is one of the differential diagnoses of haemorrhagic fevers especially if associated with jaundice and/or renal failure. Goa State in the western region of India has been witnessing increased incidence of such fevers, therefore, the present study was undertaken to identify whether scrub typhus is the aetiological agent. Methods: Adult patients presenting with undiagnosed febrile illness between June 2009 to October 2010, were evaluated. Testing was done using a commercial ELISA kit for specific IgM antibodies against Orientia tsutsugamushi. Results: Of the 44 patients included in the study, 15 (34%) were found to be positive for IGM antibodies against O. tsutsugamushi. The cases were seen mainly in the months between July to November. The common symptoms noted were fever, myalgias, gastrointestinal complaints, followed by breathlessness, rash and jaundice. The pathognomonic features such as eschar and lymphadenopathy were seen only in two patients. Nearly two third of the patients had leukocytosis (67%) and low serum albumin (60%). The most common complication noticed was hepatitis (80%) followed by acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (60%), thrombocytopenia (40%) and acute renal failure (33%). Five patients died in the course of illness. Interpretation & conclusions: Our results showed that scrub typhus should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute febrile illness associated with gastrointestinal symptoms, rash, myalgia , including those with organ dysfunctions such as hepatorenal syndrome, coagulopathy or ARDS. Empirical treatment with doxycycline or macrolides may be given in cases with strong suspicion of scrub typhus.
ABSTRACT
Background. This study was done in 2008–09 to assess the nutritional status among adolescents (10–19 years of age, Classes V–XII) in 5 schools in rural Goa to inform the content of a health promotion intervention in these schools. Methods. Three methods were used. First, nutritional status was measured by assessing body mass index among 1015 students during a health camp in each school. Second, a diet analysis was done to measure energy and protein intake of 76 randomly selected underweight students. Third, a selfreport questionnaire survey measured the prevalence of hunger among 684 students. Results. One-third of students (338; 37.8% boys and 27.5% girls) who attended the health camps were underweight and 59.2% of the 684 students who completed the survey reported experiencing hunger due to inadequate food consumption. More boys were underweight than girls (p<0.001) and under-nutrition was uniform across all the years of schooling. Energy intake of underweight students was significantly lower than the recommended daily allowance. The results were shared with the School Health Promotion Advisory Boards to generate information on the stakeholders’ perception about the issue and ways to address it. Conclusion. There is an immediate need to address the high burden of hunger and under-nutrition in adolescents of both sexes in schools by instituting routine annual monitoring of nutritional status, extending the mid-day meal programme to all school-going adolescents, providing nutritional counselling for underweight adolescents and expanding research on the causes and impact of under-nutrition and evaluation of the impact of the enhanced mid-day meal programme.