ABSTRACT
Background: Sleep plays an important role in our life. Adolescents undergo several changes with puberty and have a preference for later bedtimes due to internet usage. Evidence shows that many adolescents are not ob-taining the required amounts of sleep (8-10 hours) due to inadequate sleep practices. The objectives of this research were tostudy sleep-pattern among adolescents in Semi urban Coimbatore and also to determine the sleep hygiene practices among the adolescents Methodology: This study is a school based cross-sectional study. A total of 300 adolescents from class VIII to XIIth were selected using simple random sampling. Data was collected from February to May 2018. A struc-tured questionnaire for sleep pattern and Sleep Hygiene Index was used. Results: The adolescents’ mean sleep duration was 7.49 ± 1.12 hours on weekdays and 9.32 ± 1.55 hours on weekends. Mean Sleep Pattern Index (SPI) score was 22.48±6.9 and Mean Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) score was 17.51±6.3 in our study. Conclusions: Majority of the adolescents had moderate scores of sleep pattern and sleep hygiene practices. Interventions directed towards promoting good sleep hygiene strategies are required to improve the physical and emotional health of adolescents.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Tobacco consumption is a preventable public health problem. GATS -2 survey in Tamil Nadu shows that 20% of adults use tobacco, 40% had plans to quit and 48% had made quit attempts. The purpose of the study was to assess factors associated with tobacco use; quitting plan, attempts and identify obstacles for tobacco cessation. Methods: A Cross-sectional study was done among 300 tobacco users in a suburban neighbourhood of Chen-nai and data was analysed using SPSS software. Results: Ninety five percent were smokers and 86% smoked cigarettes. 70% knew that it causes cancer and respiratory diseases. 60% planned to quit, 69% made quit attempts. Those with quit plans and health prob-lems had an increased odds (AOR of 1.02 and 1.004 respectively) of making quit attempts. Advice from health professionals (48%) and family (52%) triggered quit attempts. Stress and work pressure were obstacles for quitting (70%). Availability of therapy and professional help for tobacco cessation was known only to 49% and 14.7% respectively and none availed it. Conclusion: Awareness of health hazards of tobacco use was high. Quit attempts have increased but with high failure rates due to lack of information and access to tobacco cessation services. Provision of community and facility-based tobacco cessation services and integration with existing health programmes is the present need.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Intensivists routinely works in a demanding, highly complicated environment where mor-tality and morbidity are common events and it affects their own physical as well mental health. Objective: The aim was to assess psychological factors and the various influencing factors on psycholog-ical health among study participants. Methods: The list of tertiary care hospitals in Chennai were collected and Ten hospitals were selected randomly by lottery method and 15 doctors who were working in Intensive Care Units (ICU) were se-lected from each hospital by systematic random sampling to arrive at the calculated sample size of 150. The Data was collected using the Pretested semi structured questionnaire and validated DASS-21 Scale. Results: The prevalence of Depression, Anxiety and Stress was found to be 78.6%, 86% and 60.6% re-spectively among ICU doctors. It was found that, having a history of either diabetes or hypertension and working more than 8 hours per day was an important predictor for depression and stress respectively with statistically significant association (P<0.05). Conclusions: Routine screening of physical health and mental health for doctors involved in the diag-nostic as well as treatment aspects of work towards patients in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) should be con-ducted periodically.