ABSTRACT
Background: Chronic cardiovascular morbidities are major public health concern. The objective was to as-sess awareness and practice of selfcare activities among patients with chronic cardiovascular morbidity in Burdwan Medical College (BMC) and to explore constraints in selfcare practice. Materials & Methods: A facility-based, explanatory sequential, mixed-method study was conducted in Cardi-ology super-specialty outpatient department of BMC, West Bengal. A calculated sample of 185 patients with chronic cardiovascular morbidity were selected randomly; interviewed with predesigned, pretested schedule (adapted from H-SCALE) for quantitative component. For qualitative component, eight study participants, se-lected purposively, were interviewed with In-depth-interview guide. Multivariable logistic regression was done to find out predictors of selfcare practice. Thematic inductive analysis was done to explore constraints. Results: 73% study participants were aware about overall selfcare practices; 43.8% performed satisfactory overall selfcare practice. Below secondary level educational status [AOR:0.412, 95% CI (0.178-0.956)] and lower & lower-middle socioeconomic status [AOR:0.063, 95% CI (0.017-0.230)] were found to create negative influence on favourable self-care practice. Thematic analysis revealed false belief, lack of motivation, lack of proper knowledge, emotional disturbances and Covid-19 pandemic impact as major constraints in selfcare practice. Conclusion: Selfcare awareness & practice both are low. Interventions are needed to ensure healthy lifestyle of patients.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: During menopause, women experience various psychological or physical changes which need adequate attention. Moreover, women don’t seek help for these problems due to their hesitancy, lack of awareness, socio-cultural, financial constraints or as they feel this is a natural-phenomenon. The study aims to explore the postmenopausal experiences faced by women during menopause and to elicit the constraints faced by them in seeking health-care services. Methodology: This was a qualitative study with phenomenological approach conducted among post-menopausal women (≥45 years) from Oct 2022-Jan 2023 with the help of In-Depth-Interview guide in four villages of Bhatar Block, Purba-Bardhaman District. Considering the availability of the study participants, they were selected purposively from the list prepared by ASHA of each village and recruitment done till the point of data-saturation. Inductive thematic-analysis was used to identify codes and themes. Results: During menopause, women experienced physical and psychological changes in the body, changes in social life and for these changes they had to adjust to cope-up. They felt various needs like empathy from hus-bands, children, peers. On the other hand, they did not seek help from health-care services due to their knowledge gap, dissatisfaction from previous-visit, cost-issue and unavailability of resources in health-care delivery system. Conclusion: Majority of the post-menopausal women faced various problems associated with menopause, but very few had sought help. So, health care providers have an important role to generate awareness among post-menopausal women regarding physical and mental changes during this phase.