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Background: Cancer is the 2nd leading cause of mortality worldwide. The three leading cancers in India are cervical cancer, breast cancer and upper aerodigestive tract carcinoma. Cervical carcinoma is the 2nd most common cancer in women next to breast carcinoma. This study has been done to assess the knowledge, causation and preventive methods about the common cancers in India amongst Medical and Nursing students in a tertiary care center in rural Kerala. Preventive measures and early diagnosis of cancer can lead to decrease in mortality and morbidity. This can be achieved by creating awareness. A special emphasis has been made regarding cervical cancer and HPV vaccination in this study.Methods: A total of 337 medical and 148 nursing students from 1st year to final year were included in this study and the results were analysed by descriptive statistics.Results: Out of 337 medical and 148 nursing students, there was significant difference in knowledge between pretest/posttest and amongst the medical/nursing students. Medical students were found be more aware about the cancer, their causation and preventive methods as compared to the nursing students. 76.4% of nursing students were aware about the role of HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) in the causation of cervical cancer pretest. 98.6% of nursing students were aware about the role of HPV in causation of cervical cancer posttest following a short lecture. Following a short lecture both medical and nursing students were found to have more awareness.Conclusions: Creating awareness to the medical and nursing students who are intouch with the community and the patients is essential. Targeted health education in very important in creating a great impact about the knowledge of cancer in the community, thereby leading to decrease in mortality and morbidity.
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Background: Due to an array of reasons like easy accessibility and awareness about the available drugs, self-medication has steeply increased the already existent drug misuse. As the health professional students are exposed to all the information of drugs, it would be worthwhile to survey if this knowledge is misused to self-medicate. The present study was aimed at determining the impact of educational intervention on the prevalent attitudes and pattern of self-medication among medical, dental and nursing students as they constitute a vulnerable group for such practices.Methods: A total of 360 health professional students participated in the study. A validated questionnaire and self-medication scale (SMS) were used for the survey, before and after the educational workshop.Results: Of the 360 students 70% were females. 93.89% reported practicing self-medication, which reduced to 78.63% after the educational workshops. Average number of self-medication encounters before the workshop was 4.03±0.30. Analgesics were most commonly used. The modified SMS scores were significantly reduced (p<0.0001) after interventional workshops indicating that the enhanced knowledge, increased the reluctance to self-medicate and make students think twice before self-medicating so as to reduce such harmful, casual drug use habits. Educational workshops statistically (p<0.0001) enhanced the participants knowledge of ADRs, OTC drugs, expiry date, package inserts etc. 77.78% nursing students were habituated to at least one drug which was significantly higher (?2=20.45, p<0.0001) than that of medical and dental students taken together.Conclusions: Educational intervention reduces the evil of self-medication and enhances safe drug use habits among healthcare professional students.
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Background: Older people are potentially at greater risk of medication error. Gaining insight into the prescribing pattern especially in eye diseases as they are a common problem in elderly, in order to identify prescribing related problems is the fundamental step in improving the quality of prescription and patient care.Methods: Prescriptions fulfilling inclusion criteria were collected from hospital Medical record department (MRD) and analyzed using the World Health Organization (WHO) core prescribing indicators for rationality of prescriptions.Results: Among 811 prescriptions analysed, 52.7% (428) were of male patients, those aged 60-70 years were 77.2% (626) and patients with only cataract constituted 77% (625). Prescriptions with oral antibiotics were 57.1% (334); topical antibiotics were 35.8% (429) and topical analgesics 46.2% (553). Out of 1182 FDCs noted, 59% (479) were found to be rational and 34.6% (281) were from Essential Medicines List 2014. Only 2% (61) drugs were prescribed using generic name while 64.06% (1606) of drugs were from the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (April 2015). Average number of drugs per encounter was 3.7. Percentage of encounters with antibiotics was found to be 43.8% and no prescriptions with injections were noted.Conclusions: Although usage of antibiotics and topical drugs was conforming to WHO recommended standards, there is a need to improve prescription pattern by using generic names and drugs from Essential Drug List.
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Background: Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems. An “adverse drug reaction” is any noxious, unintended and undesired effect of a drug, which occurs at a dose used in humans for prophylaxis, diagnosis, therapy or modification of physiological functions. Reporting of adverse events and adverse drug reactions is the commonest method utilized for generating safety data. Lack of awareness about Pharmacovigilance is one of the most important causes of such under-reporting. Spontaneous reporting system is considered the main mechanism of pharmacovigilance study for gathering information about ADRs. Hence this study was undertaken to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding Pharmacovigilance among junior residents and interns in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 134 doctors using pre-validated 20 item questionnaire with details of participant’s information followed by questions regarding knowledge, attitude and prescribing practice of pharmacovigilance was used as a tool, administrated to all the resident doctors and the collected data was analysed.Results: Our study revealed that knowledge about pharmacovigilance was not adequate to JRs and INTs. Survey results revealed that the knowledge of pharmacovigilance among doctors 63 (88.73%) JR and 49 (77.78%) INTs had a knowledge score of less than 50%. This shows that only few doctors are aware about the pharmacovigilance programme. The assessment of questionnaire based on attitude regarding pharmacovigilance shows that 21 (29.58%) JR and 17 (26.98%) of INTs had attitude score of 70% and above. The attitude score was less compared to the knowledge score of JRs and INTs. 52 JR and 58 INTs stated that they have not been trained on how to report ADRs and basic orientation about pharmacovigilance which hinders the process of practicing pharmacovigilance. Conclusions: For the success of Pharmacovigilance programmes only knowledge and attitude regarding Pharmacovigilance is not enough as is evident from our study. Success of Pharmacovigilance programmes depend also upon the effective practice of Pharmacovigilance by healthcare professionals.
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Background: Fixed Dose Combinations (FDCs) are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as combination of two or more active ingredients in a fixed ratio of doses. According to the FDA, “two or more drugs may be combined in a single dose when each component makes a contribution to the claimed effects, and the dosage of each component (i.e., amount, frequency, and duration) is such that the combination is safe and effective for significant patient population requiring such concurrent therapy. However, certain disadvantages like incompatible pharmacokinetics, inflexible dose ratio, increased toxicity and cost, contraindication of one component of the FDC decreased their utility. Adverse effect of any one component also limits their use. The aim of the study is to compare and evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practices about prescribing fixed dose combinations among junior resident doctors (JRs) and interns (INTs) at SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital Dharwad.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 134 doctors using pre-validated 10 item questionnaire with details of participant’s information followed by questions regarding knowledge, attitude and prescribing practice of fixed dose combinations was used as a tool, administrated to all the resident doctors and the collected data was analysed.Results: Our study revealed that knowledge about FDCs was lacking in JRs and INTs. They were not able to point out the actual advantages and disadvantages of FDCs. Knowledge about rational/irrational, banned FDCs and availability of WHO EML was also lacking.Conclusions: There is need to improve knowledge about rationality, essential medicine list, usage and banned FDCs in undergraduate medical students to promote the rational use of drugs.
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Neurothekeoma is a benign soft tissue tumour of neural origin. It is mostly seen in young females and commonly involves the head and neck region. We present a case of a 47 year old male, who presented with a nodule on his scalp. It was clinically diagnosed to be a case of sebaceous cyst however histologically proven to be a myxoid neurothekeoma. The histologic variants include myxoid, cellular and mixed tumors. Myxoid neurothekeoma is a cutaneous neoplasm of nerve sheath origin. This case report presents the rarity of the lesion that needs to be differentiated from lesions of similar histological features.