Knowledge and attitude; STIs, HIV, Aids, RTIS, breast cancer and reproductive health among young females in Faisalabad district, Pakistan

Reproductive health is concerned with the people's ability to have a satisfying and safe sex life ensuring their capability to reproduce with a liberty of making a decision that if, when and how often they have to do so. In Pakistan, culturally females are married at a young age; become mothers and are at risk of health complications i.e. HIV/ STD and STI. There is less utilization of reproductive health services throughout Pakistan that ultimately affects health status of people at very young age. Most of the communities are not aware of reproductive health services, thus not availing these facilities. So the present study was designed to examine the females perceptions, attitude and practices about reproductive health services as well as to determine the level of their empowerment to take decisions and make choices regarding their own reproductive health besides determining the level of the quality, availability and accessibility of reproductive health services and to suggest some measures for policy makers to improve the reproductive health state of young mothers in district Faisalabad. A sample of 600 young married females of age 15-32 years was selected through multistage sampling technique. 2009. Rural and urban area of District Faisalabad. Uni-variate [frequency distribution and percentage] and Bi-variate analysis [Chi square and Gamma Statistics] was carried out. Most [44.0%] of the respondents belonged to age category of 26-30 years; 35.5% were married for 18 years; 39.3% had been married for 5 years; 71.8% had primary and above level of education. Majority [65.9%] had up to Rs.10,000 per month income, 49.2% possessed 6-10 family members, 73.5% had at least 2 and above live children. Majority had the knowledge of reproductive health [67.7%] and HIV/AIDs [54.7%] whereas most of females had no knowledge of STIs [69.8%], RTIs [52.3%] and its development [51.8%]. Most of the females experienced headache [62.8%], swelling of different body parts [61%] and back pain [62.7%] during their reproductive life. Bi-variate analysis showed highly significant relation among age at marriage, number of children, cultural hindrance and age of respondents vs. their reproductive health. Although most of the females were young and educated mothers with good reproductive health experience but still lacking in knowledge about STIs, HIV/AIDS, RTIs and breast cancer that is because of cultural hindrance, early age marriage pattern and male dominancy which indicates that we need to pay more attention towards female education and empowerment and decision making authority status at domestic level through community mobilization with the help of NGOs, Religious scholars and existing health system/ Health personnel's .i.e. doctors/ nurses /LHV/FHW

Correlation between glycated haemoglobin levels and random blood glucose

Glycated haemoglobin or glycosylated haemoglobin [HbA1c] is a form of haemoglobin that is measured primarily to identify the average plasma glucose concentration over prolonged periods of time. Levels of HbA1c represent the average blood glucose levels of diabetic patients over the previous 120 days. The objective of this study was to see the correlation between HbA1c levels and random glucose levels. This descriptive study included 106 randomly selected patients with known diabetes from the outpatients department. Random sugar levels were measured by using venous blood samples. HbA1c levels were measured in venous blood by BIO-RAD D-10 HPLC Method. Data were recorded on a proforma. Pearson's correlation was applied to find out any significant correlation between the glycated haemoglobin levels and the random blood glucose levels. Results were plotted on simple scatter plot and p<0.01 was considered significant. A significant linear positive correlation exists between levels of HbA1c and random blood sugar

Frequencies of congenital anomalies among newborns admitted in nursery of Ayub teaching hospital Abbottabad, Pakistan

Congenital anomalies play a significant role in perinatal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. The frequency of these congenital anomalies varies in different populations. Objective of this study was to find out the frequencies of congenital anomalies admitted in nursery of Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad. In this descriptive, cross-sectional study all patients admitted in NICU from October 2009 to January 2010 were included. The patients were examined for major and minor congenital anomalies. The observations were recorded in tabulated form. A total of 2,360 patients were admitted in NICU during the study period. One hundred patients were noted to have congenital anomalies. The most frequent anomalies involved the central nervous system [31%]. Meningomyelocele was the commonest defect [71%, 22 out of 31 cases of CNS defects], among these males were more [77%, 17 out of 22 of meningomyelocele cases] than females [14 out of 31]. These were followed by patients born with congenital heart defects [16%]. Patients with urogenital anomalies [6%] were all male except for one who had ambiguous genitalia. Cases of meningomyelocele were the commonest presenting congenital anomaly. More stress should be laid on the role of peri-conceptional vitamin supplementation like folic acid for the primary prevention of congenital defects

Effect of montelukast on patients with mild persistant asthma

To determine the clinical effects of oral montelukast sodium [a leukotriene receptor antagonists] in asthmatic patients aged 15 years and above. This was a 2 month [60 days] study carried out in the Department of Pharmacology and therapeutics, Basic Medical Sciences Institute with collaboration of Chest Medicine, JPMc, Karachi. Patients> 15 years and above suffering from persistant asthma [prebronchodilator FEVI = 60% of the predicted value] and insufficiently controlled on inhaled corticosteroids were included in the study. Total of 100 patients completed the study. The study comprised of two arms of 50 patients each. Group A was the control group on the placebo group receiving inhaled corticosteroids and a placebo drug. Group B was the active group or the drug group receiving inhaled steroids as well as 10 mg montelukast at bed time. Asthma control was assessed by spirometery [name model No.] at the onset i.e. start of the study and then after 60 days i.e. end of the study as per the specifications and guide lines laid down by the global initiative for asthma. Along with this the patients were evaluated weekly in which PEER was measured using a peak expiratorv flow meter. Similarly the ptient was asked to maintain a daily diary in which day time asthma symptoms were recorded along with nocturnal awakenings. use of beta2 agonists use, asthma exacerbations and asthma free days and use of health related resources for worsening asthma symptoms. Montelukast improved airway obstruction FEVJ-PEFR and patients reported end points i.e. day time asthma symptoms, nocturnal awakenings [P<0.001 compared with placebo]. The comparison of difference in mean value of PEFR, FEVI and nocturnal awakenings among two groups from baseline to 811 week was compared by students t-test [test for two independent groups for mean]. 95% confidence interval of the difference of mean was also calculated. Montelukast, compared with placebo significantly improved asthma control during a 8 week treatment period

Unusual presentation of hydronephrosis, case report

A 15 year old boy having gross abdominal distension of long duration, presented with sudden deterioration of the general condition He was initially diagnosed as a case of gross ascites but investigations proved it to be a case of unusual presentation of right sided hydronephrosis secondary to pelviureteric junction obstruction. The patient was operated and right ided nephrectomy was performed