ABSTRACT
Background: Thalassemia is a chronic debilitating disease that affects nearly 200 million people worldwide. A caregiver who has good knowledge regarding the disease can not only provide a better quality of care to his/her ward but also may spread knowledge in the society in which he/she lives which helps immensely in raising community awareness related to the disease.Methods: 50 caregivers (either mother or father) of chronically transfused thalassemic children were questioned regarding their knowledge, attitude and practice towards this disease, using a self-constructed questionnaire.Results: It was found that despite adequate knowledge regarding every aspect of this disease, there is a lack of attitude of practice towards prevention of this disease in their subsequent child or in their near and dear ones.Conclusions: There is a need to promote an attitude of practice in prevention of the birth of thalassemic children as mere knowledge regarding the disease is not enough in the present scenario where the disease burden is increasing as is the financial and emotional burden on the families. Role of Government sponsorship, a social worker and a child psychologist in the Thalassemia day care unit cannot be minimized.
ABSTRACT
We studied serum sodium levels within 2 hours of admission of 100 children aged 2months to 5 years admitted with diagnosis of lower respiratory infections(pneumonia,bronchiolitis, bronchitis, empyema and WALRI). Methods: In our study out of these 100 cases 33(33%) cases were having hyponatremia (s.sodium<135mEq/L) &0ut of33(33%) cases 17(51.5%) cases had mild hyponatremia i.e. s.sodium 131-134mEq/L, 14(42.5%) cases had moderate hyponatremia i.e. s.sodium 126-130mEq/L & 2(6%)cases had severe hyponatremia i.e. s.sodium <125mEq/L. These Children with hyponatremia were evaluated for plasma osmolality, urinary sodium and osmolality on day of admission and after appropriate fluid therapy. Results: Out of these 33 cases, the probable cause of hyponatremia was the syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone in 27(81.8%) cases (as suggested by their plasma osmolality,urinary sodium and urine osmolality). Symptoms and signs indicative of severe LRIs were about one and a half times more frequent and the mean duration of hospital stay was 49.2% longer in children with hyponatremia than with isonatremia. Two children (2%) with severe hyponatremia had complications in the form of convulsions associated with transitory altered sensorium for 2-3 days. The recovery from hyponatremia with timely intervention showed a good improvement in clinical symptomology of respiratory distress and there was no mortality in the studied cases. Conclusion: Thus it is concluded that,presence of hyponatremia in LRI’s increases the morbidity of these patients in the form of prolonged hospital stay and occurrence of complications like seizures followed by deranged sensorium in some cases.