ABSTRACT
Background: The salt pan workers are exposed to severe health hazards like extreme heat, intense manual labour, direct contact with salt, sunlight glare from salt crystals. This paper describes their knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) regarding their work related hazards as well as availability and use of personal protective equipments (PPEs).Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted in 4 randomly selected villages among the 10 salt worker villages in Marakkanam, Tamil Nadu. A house to house survey of the selected villages enrolled 331 salt workers. The data was collected using a pre designed and pre tested questionnaire.Results: Majority of salt worker (78.5%) reported of being aware of one or more hazards like physical stress (70.7%), direct sunlight (38.7%) and glare from salt crystals (16%) in salt work that resulted in musculoskeletal problems, ophthalmic problems, headache and giddiness. 87% of the salt workers were aware of one or the other personal protective equipments. However, only less than 10% were using the conventional PPEs. The reasons for not using PPE were mainly inconvenience in using and PPE not provided by the employer.Conclusions: Most of the study population is aware of the hazards as well as one or the other methods of protective equipment but actual use of PPE is very low because of non-availability and perception of inconvenience in using them. There is a large gap between awareness and practice regarding PPE usage among these salt workers.
ABSTRACT
Early diagnosis and prompt initiation of treatment are essential for an effective tuberculosis (TB) control program. This study was done to assess the extent of various delays among TB patients diagnosed at medical colleges of Puducherry. A cross-sectional study involving retrospective medical record review and prospective patient interviews was conducted in and around the union territory of Puducherry during the period 2009-10. Various delays and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were calculated. Level of significance was determined at 95% confidence interval (CI) (P value <0.05) and all tests were two-sided. Among 216 new sputum smear-positive TB patients, 11.1% and 10.6% were smokers and alcohol users, respectively. The median patient delay, health system delay, and total delay was 37 days, 28 days, and 65 days respectively. Being a resident of Puducherry (OR = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.18-0.87) and family size of ≤5 (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.21-0.97) were found as the determinants of patient delays and total delays, respectively.
ABSTRACT
Background: Early diagnosis of the disease and prompt initiation of treatment are essential for an effective tuberculosis (TB) control program. The delay in the diagnosis and treatment may worsen the disease, increases the risk of death and enhances tuberculosis transmission in the community. This study was done to assess the extent of various delays and their determinants among TB patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study including retrospective medical record review and patient interviews was conducted during the year 2010 in and around union territory of Puducherry in India. A structured questionnaire used in the WHO multi-country study to estimate the diagnostic and treatment delay in TB was used to interview the patients. Average estimates and proportions were calculated for continuous and categorical variables respectively. Unadjusted odds ratios (OR) were calculated. Level of significance was determined at 95% confidence level (P value <0.05) and all tests applied were two-sided. Results: A total of 138 new sputum smear positive TB patients were included in the study. The mean age of participants was 41.8 years ± 17.3 years (range 15-87 years). Majority (67.4%) of the patients were male and married (68.8%). Majority (86%) of the patients were literate. The median patient delay, health system delay and total delay was 36 days, 28.5 days and 81 days respectively. The place of residence (OR = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.18-0.87) and family size (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.21-0.97) were found as the determinants of various delays for TB patients. Conclusion: Patient and health care system delay for TB patients is long. There is need to improve the referral mechanism to ensure an early initiation of treatment for TB patients diagnosed a tertiary care hospitals.