ABSTRACT
Background: Tuberculosis is major public health problem especially in the low and middle income countries like India. We conducted a study to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice related to tuberculosis among the patients attending our tertiary care institute.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital on the patients attending OPD of tertiary care hospital in Maharashtra. The patients with debilitating illness or bed bound patients and those diagnosed and cured of tuberculosis or were on treatment of tuberculosis were excluded from the study. A pretested and designed questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice about the cause, clinical features and treatment of tuberculosis.Results: The mean age of the study subjects was 43.34±11.23 years with male: female ratio of 1.45. About 16.67% of the subjects stated that cause of TB is bacteria, 51.33% reported that cough was the most common symptom, 58.67% believed that it spreads from person to person and among the people who said it spreads 58.67% said that it can be preventable.Conclusions: About 1/5th of the study subjects expressed the cause of TB is bacteria or germs, and more than ½ believed that TB spreads from person to person. About 2/3rd of the patients felt that TB was a very serious disease; more than ½ of them expressed fear if they were diagnosed with TB but more than ½ of them also expressed rejection if they have a TB patient as a closed one.
ABSTRACT
Background: Allergic rhinitis is predecessor of Bronchial asthma in most of the cases. Present study was aimed to understand the prevalence of the impaired spirometric changes in patients with allergic rhinitis and to find association with various demographic factors, sputum eosinophilia and eosinophil count in the blood with the impaired Spirometry of these patients.Methods: Authors conducted a cross sectional study among the patients of allergic rhinitis presented to us in our outpatient department from January 2016 to July 2017. The patient’s with allergic rhinitis either newly diagnosed or already on treatment were included in the study. Standard guidelines as given by ARIA were followed in defining a case of allergic rhinitis. The detailed clinical history was taken, and examination was performed of all the patients and documented. Spirometric evaluation was done using the standard guidelines by a desktop based Spirometry.Results: The mean age of the study subjects was 30.22±13.13 years with male: female ratio of 0.96. The mean duration of the allergic rhinitis in our study was 3.86±3.34years. The most common complaint was itching sensation of nose followed by paroxysmal sneezing and watering of eyes. About 22.15% of the study subjects have impaired Spirometry. Upon bronchodilator therapy 30% of the study subjects had significant reversibility in FEV1.Conclusions: About ¼ of present study subjects had impaired Spirometry and about 30% of them had reversibility after bronchodilator therapy. Authors also found that the higher age study subjects had significantly higher impaired Spirometry; persistent allergic rhinitis patients had higher impairment of Spirometry and the patients with higher the sputum eosinophilia had higher impairment in Spirometry.