ABSTRACT
The study aims at evaluating the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding leprosy and its management among patients, their caregivers (relatives), and future healthcare providers (medical interns). Question- naire-based study was approved by Institutional Ethics Committee and participants were recruited after obtaining informed consent. Validated Questionnaire (face-validity and content-validity, content-validity- ratio cut-off 0.75) was used after pilot-testing for reliability (Chronbach's alpha>0.8 accepted). Vernacular- version of the questionnaire was developed by translation and back-translation. The questionnaire administered to clinically-diagnosed cases of leprosy, their caregivers (relatives), and future healthcare providers (medical interns) of BS Medical College Bakura, (a tertiary care rural medical college hospital). The calculated sample size was 88 for patients and their caregivers, considering 95% confidence interval, 10% allowable error and 35.67% response rate. The figures regarding knowledge about leprosy, and its treatment ranged between 71.6% to 26.1% among patients and between 85.2% to 37.5% among their caregivers for different knowledge domains. Lack of proper knowledge was also found in upto 52% of medical interns. Myths prevailed in upto 12.5% of patients, 23.9% caregivers, 6.7% of medical interns. There was attitudinal crisis and stigma in upto 45.5% of patients, 56.8% of caregivers, and 33.3% of medical interns. The stigma resulted in 33.4% of patients losing their job, 25% separated in their own home and 16.7% divorced. Awareness about leprosy is still lacking among patients and their caregivers despite repeated public health campaigns by NLEP. The absence of knowledge regarding leprosy among a few medical interns and even the presence of myths in their minds is an ominous sign. More effective awareness programmes and counseling involving the general population are necessary to eliminate stigma from the society
ABSTRACT
Background: With the continuous evolution of medical education, an appropriate assessment method is the need of the hour. Most unavoidable drawback of traditional practical examination (TPE) is its subjectivity, which can be overcome by newer methods such as objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE). Hence, many studies have been conducted to reevaluate the efficiency of TPE and nowadays assessment of undergraduate students who are going to be Indian Medical Graduate (IMG) always remains the topic of debate. Aim and Objectives: The aim of our study is to compare OSPE and TPE by obtaining the feedback of examiner and examinee and also by the marks obtained by students. Materials and Methods: It was an analytical study with longitudinal design. The study was conducted after receiving approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Total 140 students were included in the study. In 2nd professional MBBS at third semester, two internal examinations were held in 2019, first one was TPE and the second one was based on OSPE. After the completion of OSPE, students’ and teachers’ opinion were collected by given pre-validated questionnaire. Results: There were significant (P =< 0.05) difference between mean score in OSPE (17.1) and TPE (14.26) among students. According to students, OSPE reduces examiner’s bias (84.2%), was less stressful than TPE (78.5%) and also fair and objective as compared to TPE (85%). According to teacher’s opinion, OSPE requires more time, demands critical thinking of students (77.7%), more objective and eliminates bias (94.4%), ensures uniformity (64.4%), but they opined that depth of knowledge cannot be assessed by OSPE (83.3%). Most of the students (93.5%) and teachers (77.7%) said that OSPE should be included in Pathology practical examination. Conclusion: In our study, both teachers and students have given feedback in favor of OSPE as an assessment tool in practical examination of undergraduate medical students. In our opinion, OSPE should be included as an assessment tool in 2nd year undergraduate pathology practical examination to prepare future IMG.