ABSTRACT
Background & objectives: COVID-19 cases have been rising rapidly in countries where the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern (VOC), Omicron (B.1.1.529) has been reported. We conducted a study to describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 patients with ‘S’ gene target failure (SGTF, suspected Omicron). Furthermore, their clinical outcomes with COVID-19 patients with non-SGTF (non-Omicron) were also compared. Methods: This study was conducted in Tamil Nadu, India, between December 14, 2021 and January 7, 2022 among patients who underwent reverse transcription-PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 in four laboratories with facilities for S gene screening. Consecutively selected COVID-19 patients with SGTF were telephonically contacted, seven and 14 days respectively after their date of positive result to collect information on the socio-demographic characteristics, previous history of COVID-19, vaccination status and clinical course of illness along with treatment details. To compare their outcomes with non-SGTF patients, one randomly suspected non-Omicron case for every two suspected Omicron cases from the line-list were selected, matching for the date of sample collection and the testing laboratory. Results: A total of 1175 SGTF COVID-19 patients were enrolled for this study. Almost 6 per cent (n=72) reported a history of previous infection. 141 (13.5%) suspected Omicron cases were non-vaccinated, while 148 (14.2%) and 703 (67.4%) had received valid one and two doses of COVID-19 vaccines, respectively. Predominant symptoms reported included fever (n=508, 43.2%), body pain (n=275, 23.4%), running nose (n=261, 22.2%) and cough (n=249, 21.2%). Five (0.4%) of the 1175 suspected Omicron cases required oxygen supplementation as compared to ten (1.6%) of the 634 suspected non-Omicron cases. No deaths were reported among omicron suspects, whereas there were four deaths among suspected non-Omicron cases. Interpretation & conclusions: Majority of the suspected Omicron cases had a mild course of illness. The overall severity of these cases was less compared to the suspected non-Omicron cases.
ABSTRACT
Background: Medical Council of India emphasises the training on bioethics for medical graduates and included the same in medical curriculum reforms. However, the universal implementation of structured training in bioethics remains elusive due to many challenges. Hence the study was planned to describe the perception about the bioethics training needs among trainee interns and junior residents training at tertiary medical teaching hospitals across Tamil Nadu.Methods: A web-based cross-sectional survey was conducted during September-December 2019.Google forms survey was designed, and link was disseminated using affinity groups and snowballing techniques through social media among current medical interns and junior resident doctors working at tertiary care teaching hospital settings across Tamil Nadu. Data was analyzed using MS Excel auto generated through google forms and descriptive statistics were performed.Results: Among 136 respondents of online survey from across 25 medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, 73 (57.5%) were females, 57 (42.2%) had training on bioethics and 31 (54.4%) during internship period. During these trainings, experts in bioethics scholarship conducted training for only 34% of participants. Self-reported inadequate levels of awareness on bioethics was seen in 20.6% subjects and 17.8% subjects professed awareness on Indian Council of Medical Research clinical research ethics guidelines. Combination of curriculum and self-directed learning was the favoured teaching-learning method.Conclusions: This study reveals major gaps in knowledge and attitudes of young medical professionals towards bioethics training and can be addressed through testing novel methods of training.
ABSTRACT
Background: Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic syndrome due to insulin deficiency, characterized by hyperglycaemia. Indian diabetes risk score (IDRS) is the most commonly used one to determine the risk status. However there is lot of inconvenience and possible errors in measuring the waist circumference to determine the IDRS, hence the study was planned to evaluate if neck circumference could replace waist circumference in determining the diabetes risk.Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted among 300 study participants fulfilling the eligible criteria. Socio-demographic variables, parameters required for determining the IDRS was assessed, in addition, neck circumference (NC) was measured using standard protocol. Another risk score was calculated by replacing waist circumference (WC) with neck circumference and scoring was named as IDRS-NC. Pearson correlation and Wilcoxan sign rank test was done to find out the relationship between WC and NC and also to determine if IDRS-NC could replace IDRS.Results: Out of 300 study population, majority of the participants are in the age group of <35 years 129 (43%) and around 2/3rd of the participants were females. Among the study participants proportion of participants belonging to low risk, medium risk and high risk assessed using IDRS and IDRS-NC was 18.7%, 41%, 40.3% and 31.7%, 38%, 30.3% respectively. There was a strong positive correlation (r=0.837) between the neck circumference and waist circumference. Wilcoxan sign rank test was significant between the 2 scores having a p value of <0.05.Conclusions: In our study there was a positive correlation between neck circumference and waist circumference.
ABSTRACT
Background: Nowadays the teens playing outdoor games are difficult to be seen and of course, they play all these games not in reality but in a screen using video games. The biggest revolution in electronic world has put our teens more addicted towards video games which not only affect their academic performance but also have impact on their behaviour and health. The objectives of the study were to assess the pattern of video game usage among the study population; to determine the influence of video game in behaviour of the study population.Methods: The study was conducted as a cross sectional study during January and February 2018, among medical students of tertiary care hospital, Chennai. The data was collected using preformed pretested questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21.Results: Out of 211 study participants, majority 168 (80%) were males. Around, 97 (45.9%) participants, liked to play during night hours and most 114 (54.1%) of them preferred adventure and racing games. The change in behavioral patterns like, skipping sleep 20 (25.3%), using bad words 22 (27.8%), betting 40 (50.6%), risky stunts 38 (48.1%) were observed. Around half of the participants 97 (46%) were giving complaints of various health problems like finger pain, 72 (34.1%) wrist pain, 63 (29.8%) neck pain, and 54 (26%) eye pain due to usage of video games.Conclusions: The behavioral patterns explored in this study are alarming which suggest that this age group has to be sensitized on the self control to use the video games.