ABSTRACT
Background: Good quality sleep is necessary for overall health. Especially medical students are more prone to have sleep difficulties and with this context present study was done to assess the sleep quality among medical undergraduate students.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate students of a medical college in Moradabad, during April to May 2019. Assessment of sleep quality was done by means of self-administered questionnaire based on sleep quality scale. Data was analysed with help of SPSSv21 and statistical tests used were Welch t-test, Chi square test and logistic regression analysis.Results: Mean age of all 149 students was 20.99±0.91 years and mean sleep quality score of all students was 37.90±9.73. Overall 29.53% students had poor sleep quality scores. 8.7% students always have difficulty in falling asleep and 32.9% students were rarely satisfied with their sleep. Poor sleep quality has not been found to be significantly associated with age, gender, BMI and level of physical activity.Conclusions: Sleep quality vary considerably among medical students and approximately one third of medical students had poor sleep quality. Sleep quality scale used has been found reliable.
ABSTRACT
Background: Substance abuse is a serious problem because it is engulfing the younger generation with serious health, social and economic concern. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of substance abuse among male adolescents and study the habit pattern of substance abusers.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 776 male adolescents residing in urban and rural field practice areas under the department of Community Medicine, through randomly selected house to house visit. Data regarding the current use of alcohol and tobacco was collected in a predesigned and pretested proforma by oral questionnaire method.Results: The prevalence of substance abuse among male adolescents was found to be 22.8% and majority of them used some form of smokeless tobacco, followed by smoking tobacco. Consumption of alcohol or tobacco by adolescents is significantly associated with alcohol or tobacco consumption by their family members.Conclusions: Prevalence of substance abuse was high among the male adolescents and they should be motivated through IEC to give up the habit.
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Background: Termination of an unwanted pregnancy is legal in India. Many women in this region are still not aware about safe abortion services and its consequences. Especially young, economically deprived and those without a supportive male partner are at higher risk of unsafe abortion. There is no clear and established evidence on this issue in our region. In the study, the aim was to explore the health seeking behaviour of women with unwanted pregnancies.Methods: Present cross-sectional study was conducted among 303 patients visiting to obstetrics and gynecology ward of BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur from April 2018 to September 2018. Their socio demographic profile, reasons for current termination of pregnancy and health seeking behaviour was explored.Results: Most common reason given for terminating the current pregnancy was completed family size 65.3%. Unmarried girls with pregnancy were 5.6 % who wanted termination of pregnancy. Majority (67.0%) took medication for termination of pregnancy from nearby medical store without an expert consultation 15.8% of women consulted to a local quack or local dai for termination of pregnancy. 12.9% of women tried a method as advised by family/friends for termination of pregnancy. About 4% of women 1st tried traditional and herbal medicines, drinking tea or juice for termination of pregnancy. Majority of women (84.5%) visited to medical college for management of complications of earlier tried method of termination of pregnancy.Conclusions: Completed family size was found most common reason for termination of pregnancy. Self medication without consultation of authorised doctor was found most common practice of abortion leading to complications.
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Background: The prevalence of diabetes worldwide is expected to rise to 9.9% by 2045 and with this rising prevalence raises the need for good self-care practices by patients themselves, which play a key role in effective management and prevention of complications.Methods: Present community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 168 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients by interviewing them using a structured questionnaire assessing their self-care practices using summary of diabetes self-care activities (SDSCA) scale. Different domains were diet, exercise, blood glucose monitoring, medication compliance, foot care and smoking and responses were graded according to number of days in previous week a particular self-care activity of a domain was followed. Data analysis was done with help of SPSS version 21.Results: Mean age of diabetic patients in this study subjects was 54.37±13.24 years. 43.45% respondents have poor self-care practice scores. Bivariate analysis showed that self-care practices were significantly poorer among the diabetic patients less than 60 years of age, residing in rural area, either illiterate or studied till primary/intermediate, had diabetes for less than a year and were taking treatment from public health facilities. Poor self-care practices were insignificantly related with gender, marital status, occupation, monthly family income, type of family, food habits, hypertension as comorbidity, family history, BMI and mode of diagnosis. Multivariate analysis indicates that age, education and duration of diabetes are significant predictors for self-care practices.Conclusions: Self-care practices among diabetic patients were poor among 43.45% patients and there is a need for improving them across all assessed domains.
ABSTRACT
A new granular media developed by coating of iron and manganese on quartz sand surface proved to be effective for arsenic (III) removal from water. The media has shown alkali resistance. The kinetic and thermodynamic studies data were tested using pseudo-second- order, intraparticle diffusion and Elovich equation models. The rate constants, equilibrium sorption capacity and normalized standard deviations were calculated for all the three models. It was shown that all three models almost accurately predict the sorption capacity with respect to time for whole range of data points. However, sorption kinetic data were better correlated using Elovich equation model based on normalized standard deviation. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm equations could be used to describe the partitioning behavior of system at different pH and media size. The results of thermodynamic studies show that the As(III) adsorption on Mixed Oxide Coated Sand (MOCS) was endothermic in nature. Kinetic and isothermal studies data have also been used to obtain thermodynamic parameters of the process.