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
India is facing a dual burden of overweight/obesity and under nutrition among children less than 5 years of age. Neck circumference is recently studied marker for malnutrition among adults and older children. Objective: To correlate neck circumference with body mass index and to associate it with wasting and underweight status. Material & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among children less than 5 years of age attending the outpatient setup of a tertiary care setup in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Demographic details and anthropometric measurements were done for the children with necessary permission before the start of the study. Anthropometry was done using standard guidelines and WHO charts were used for classification of wasting and underweight Results: We included 260 study subjects in our study. The mean age of the children was 21.55 ± 17.31 months and majority of them were females, belonged to Hindu religion (58.07%), belonged to Class 4 (33.08%) and the mothers were educated up to senior secondary (34.62%). Neck circumference had significant positive correlation with birth weight (r=0.138) and body mass index (r=0.211). The average neck circumference was significantly lower in case of wasted (p<0.05) and underweight children (p<0.05). Conclusion: Neck circumference correlated significantly with body mass index and was significantly lower in wasted and underweight in children less than 5 years of age.