Comparing infrastructure of anganwadi centres under integrated child development services of urban and rural Bangalore: a cross sectional study

Background: Anganwadi centres under integrated child development services is the largest Project in India to improve not only child health but reproductive, maternal and adolescent health. The aim of the present study is to compare the infrastructure of urban and rural anganwadi which is one of the basic need to provide quality services.Methods: A total of 30 anganwadi centres are involved in our study in which 20 are from rural and 10 are from urban field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore. This study employed interview method with anganwadi worker’s and observation of anganwadi centre using pre-designed, semi structured questionnaire and checklist.Results: 85% of rural and 60% urban anganwadi centres have their own buildings to carry out the services. 20% of rural anganwadi centres lack fixed name boards compared to urban anganwadi centres. 55% of rural anganwadi centres and 90% of urban anganwadi centres lack separate storage for raw food materials. 15% of rural anganwadi centres lack functional toilet facility. 40% of rural anganwadi centres lack functional weighing machine.Conclusions: Anganwadi centres are remote contact point of health care system within the community. The infrastructure of anganwadi centre such as type of building, space for cooking and activities, availability of functional equipments ensure the quality service deliveries which in turn are enhanced by timely supervision from higher authorities.

Prevalence of Stress Levels Among First Year Medical Undergraduate Students.

Medicine is one of the most sought after careers. Students with outstanding marks gain entry into medical colleges. High level of competition, parental pressure, excess workload and new environment put the medical trainees under constant stress. This study was thus undertaken to assess the levels of stress among first year medical students. Very few studies are available that assess the stress levels at such an early stage in the medical career. The stress levels were assessed using the Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), which is an internationally validated ten item questionnaire. All the 250 first year medical students of the government medical college in Bangalore answered the questionnaire along with demographic details. They were in the age group of 17-20years and the mean Perceived Stress score was 20.29 (SD = 6.24). The scores were arbitrarily divided, and it was found that 37 students (14.8%) had Low Perceived Stress, 171 students (68.4%) had Moderate Perceived Stress and 42 students (16.8%) had High Perceived Stress. With such high stress levels, we can see the urgent need to conduct more studies to further identify the causes of stress and help students take appropriate steps to combat stress.