ABSTRACT
Background: The rapid increase of caesarean section (CS) rate throughout the world has become a serious public health issue since the level of CS is well above the WHO (1985) recommended 15% and it is increasing over time. Objectives of the study was to determine the prevalence of caesarean section and women’s attitudes towards CS, to investigate rural-urban differences and any associated factors between attitude with socio-demographic factors.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in urban and rural areas of three districts of Manipur from 2015 to 2017 among 600 eligible married women aged 18-35 years selected by simple random sampling. Household was taken as sampling unit and electoral roll (2013) as sampling frame. An interview schedule was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics like mean, SD, proportion and inferential statistics like χ2 test was used. p-value 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.Results: Mean age of the participants was 29.7±4.6 years. The overall prevalence of CS rate was 18.5% and the first child CS rate was 19.9% and majority of them belongs to 30-35 age groups. Majority of the women (84.2%) have neutral attitude and only 7.6% have favorable attitude towards CS. Favorable attitude towards CS was more among women who married at ≥30 years, whose husband was >30 years and was a government employee and who ever had CS.Conclusions: Although the prevalence of CS is well above the WHO (1985) recommendation. Majority still preferred vaginal delivery and the demand for CS is low in the present setting.
ABSTRACT
Background: Tattooing has emerged as common activity among adolescents. Therefore, it is important to informed adolescents about possible health hazards associated with it. The objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of tattooing and knowledge of health risks associated with it among higher secondary students and association between knowledge on risk factors with selected socio-demographic variables.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from September to October 2015 among 1325 students studying in class XI and XII in Thoubal district of Manipur in Northeast India. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Based on the obtained score, knowledge was divided into adequate and inadequate. Descriptive statistics like mean (SD) and percentages were used. Chi-square test was used for testing the significance and p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant.Results: Total of 1378 students participated in the study. Almost all the students (99.5%) have heard of tattoo but only 75 of them (5.5%) had ever tattooed. Majority (87%) of the students had inadequate knowledge. Ever tattooed was more among male students compared to female. There was significant association between adequate knowledge and male students, parents who had secondary and above education. Significant association was found among those who had adequate knowledge and risk of transmission of disease through tattooing.Conclusions: Prevalence of ever tattooed was 5.5%. Though majority of the participants had heard of tattoo but most of them had inadequate knowledge about health risk associated with tattooing.