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Background: Domestic work being unrecognized as a formal form of occupation in India, workers are often deprived of basic social security, including access to proper health care. Self‑negligence coupled with societal neglect makes them vulnerable to injury and a variety of illnesses. Objectives: We aimed to study the morbidity pattern of women domestic workers residing in a slum area of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Materials and Methods: An observational descriptive cross‑sectional study was carried out by interviewing and clinically examining 106 randomly selected women domestic workers. Results: The majority (82.08%) had health complaints: heart burn being most common (40.57%). Musculoskeletal and dermatological issues were common. Anemia (31.25%) was a common prediagnosed morbidity. Pallor (33.96%) and dental caries (31.13%) were common; 50.94% reported workplace injury. Of those having complaints, 77.36% sought health care, 59.43% of whom relied on health facilities. Lack of time (54.05%), felt need (35.14%) and money (21.62%) affected adequate care seeking. Participants with cardiorespiratory complaints tended to visit health facilities significantly more (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Health vulnerabilities and neglectful behavior among domestic workers are evident, making the need to sensitize them about their health risks and ways to overcome such issues very vital. Awareness should also be generated about government health schemes to encourage timely health checkup and necessary intervention.
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Background: Domestic work being unrecognized as a formal form of occupation in India, workers are often deprived of basic social security, including access to proper health care. Self‑negligence coupled with societal neglect makes them vulnerable to injury and a variety of illnesses. Objectives: We aimed to study the morbidity pattern of women domestic workers residing in a slum area of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Materials and Methods: An observational descriptive cross‑sectional study was carried out by interviewing and clinically examining 106 randomly selected women domestic workers. Results: The majority (82.08%) had health complaints: heart burn being most common (40.57%). Musculoskeletal and dermatological issues were common. Anemia (31.25%) was a common prediagnosed morbidity. Pallor (33.96%) and dental caries (31.13%) were common; 50.94% reported workplace injury. Of those having complaints, 77.36% sought health care, 59.43% of whom relied on health facilities. Lack of time (54.05%), felt need (35.14%) and money (21.62%) affected adequate care seeking. Participants with cardiorespiratory complaints tended to visit health facilities significantly more (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Health vulnerabilities and neglectful behavior among domestic workers are evident, making the need to sensitize them about their health risks and ways to overcome such issues very vital. Awareness should also be generated about government health schemes to encourage timely health checkup and necessary intervention.
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Background: The altered spectrum of diseases in geriatric age group and atypical manifestations of these conditions make geriatric health care truly unique. The challenge ahead for health care in the coming years is to ensure the quality of life to a large group of the elderly population. In spite of the recognition that the elderly has specific medical conditions, a dedicated health care policy to improve geriatric health care is yet to be developed India. Objectives: To study the disease pattern, hospital stay and outcome among the geriatric patients based on age, gender and other variables. Materials and methods: An observational prospective study done after permission of human research ethics committee. All patients aged 60 years and over admitted to the wards were included into the study. Detailed information about current admission and other history was noted. Thorough clinical evaluation was done by physical examination and investigations and noted in the case record form. Observations: Total 100 participants included in the study. They were divided into two groups 60-64 years and ? 65 years. Nearly 90% patients had more than one aliments or diagnosis. Non-communicable diseases like Cardiovascular disease (48%) was the commonest reason for admission, followed by Respiratory disease (42%), renal disease (40%), gastrointestinal disease, neurological disease and endocrine disease in descending order of frequency. Conclusion: Non-communicable diseases are common cause of morbidity and mortality with infection are adding the morbidity as well as mortality among the elder population.
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Background: India today has over 61 million people residing in urban slums. Slums, on one hand, lack the basic requirements of housing, sanitation, and water supply that are detrimental for good health and on the other hand subject its residents to extreme poverty, unemployment and stress. Exposure to these environmental factors is expected to cause a distinct sort of morbidity pattern, which this study seeks to explore.Methods: This cross-sectional study was a secondary data analysis of aggregated data of patients who availed health services at the mobile medical unit (MMU) of the Ujjivan program run by Piramal Swasthya in the last one year. The project has a fleet of MMUs that makes at least one predestined monthly visit to each service point in urban slums of Bangalore (42 sites), Pune (18 sites) and Mumbai (19 sites).Results: Musculoskeletal disorders (30.69%) and cardiovascular diseases (25.56%) together accounted for 56.25% of the total disease burden. The analysis of blood pressure readings of all the registrations showed that the mean systolic and diastolic pressures were 129.71 and 84.92 mmHg respectively. 51.58% of all individuals had hypertension and 23.51 % had diabetes.Conclusions: According to the study a major proportion of urban populous seeking healthcare at the MMU are women and elderly and do so for non-communicable diseases. Hypertension and diabetes are major health threats among them. MMU could be used as an effective mode of service delivery for women and the elderly especially, for chronic diseases
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Background: Adolescents represent about 21.8 percent of India’s population. Various health risks with potentially life-threatening consequences become prominent in this age group. This study was undertaken with the objective to determine the morbidity profile of school going adolescents in Tamil Nadu.Methods: This descriptive, cross sectional study was planned and conducted from January 2016 to August 2017. The study population included 987 adolescent boys and girls aged between 10 to 19 years studying in high and higher secondary Government schools of Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu. Semi-structured questionnaire was used as data collection tool.Results: The mean age groups of this school going adolescent are 14.2 yrs. In the present study 583 (59%) of the study participants were affected by one or more morbidity condition. Among them, 395 (67.7%) were in the age group 10-14 years and 188 (32.2%) in the age group 15-19 years. 122 (21%) and 461 (79.1%) of male and female were affected respectively. In the present study, fever (21%) was the commonest reported morbidity followed by acute respiratory infection (15.7%) and acute gastrointestinal disease (13. 4%).Conclusions: This study shows that adolescents are prone to a wide range of morbidity conditions. Apart from respiratory and gastro intestinal diseases, reproductive tract infections and sexual health problems are important morbidities affecting this age group. There is strong need to sensitize health care practitioners at all levels, in both government and private sectors towards health problems in adolescent age groups.
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Background: In a developing country like India, with limited resources health needs of individuals and community are enormously increasing. Health related problems may be addressed amicably by community diagnosis. Assessment and prioritization of health issues followed by formulation of action plans with strategies and their implementation can be effectively achieved, by using family health surveys.Methods: Using family health survey 500 families, constituting 2640 individuals were studied. Their health status and socio-demographic details were taken. Households and families were selected randomly. Data entry and analysis was done by appropriate use of statistical tools.Results: Study showed 52.27% males and 47.73% females. Majority (51.5%) belonged to 16-45 years followed by 6-15 years of age (25%). Among 9.09% of the under-five, fully immunized were 90.4% and partially immunized were 9.6%. 6.06% were above 60 years. Nuclear families were 68%. Majority (36%) of the families belonged to socio-economic class II (modified B.G. Prasad classification). 10.6% were illiterate and 11.3% were below seven years of age. Overcrowding was present in 24% of the families. Common morbidities were hypertension (32.2%), diabetes (26.9%), respiratory diseases (19.2%) eye problems (6.2%) and skin diseases (3.8%). Geriatric problems were present in one out of four individuals.Conclusions: Family health survey can be used as an educational tool for undergraduate medical students to understand common morbidities and determinants of diseases in the community. Family health surveys are important for a community as necessary intervention can be done for illnesses and health-related problems.
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Background: Housekeeping staff play an important role in maintaining the health and hygiene in the hospitals. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that more than 125 million workers are victims of occupational accidents and diseases in a single year. Each year an estimated 2.2 million men and women die from work related injuries and diseases and 160 million cases of new diseases arise globally. The objective of the study was to estimate the prevalence of existing morbidities among housekeeping workers at a tertiary care hospital in South India.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was undertaken in a private tertiary care hospital in south India for a period of one year (2017 September – 2018 September). Housekeeping workers who had work experience of more than one year in the current work place were enrolled in the study (n=168). The health of the workers was assessed to pick up the prevalence of various morbidities.Results: In the study population majority 133 (79.2%) were females and most of them 117 (69.64%) were in the age group of 30-49 years. There was statistically significant difference between work tenure and hypertension and diabetes (p<0.05). The common morbidities found among the study population was dental carries 111 (66.0%), pallor 24 (14.0%) and musculoskeletal disorders 20 (11.9%).Conclusions: Periodic examination and immediate corrective measures are advisable to protect the health of employees at risk. Stress management principles can be implemented to enhance physical and mental health. There is need for safety training program for housekeeping workers in the hospital.
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The current cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of on eyear. Eight villages were chosen from Miran Sahib zone of R.S Pura block using simple random sampling. A pre-designed, pre-structured and validated questionnaire was applied to all persons aged ?60 Years. A total of 418 subjects (191 males and 227 females) comprised the study population.64.40% of the respondents belonged to 60-69 year age group. Among the morbidity distribution in the study population, visual impairment (54.06%) was the most common, followed by hypertension (35.89%), arthritis (34.21%), diabetes mellitus (12.92%) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (5.50%). COPD was higher in males and arthritis was higher in females and the gender disease association was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The results have shown high morbidity in the study population especially of visual impairment and cardio-vascular diseases. Respiratory diseases especially COPD morbidity was higher in males, while arthritis morbidity was more in females.
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El propósito de esta investigación fue establecer el perfil de morbilidad infecciosa en la población indígena ubicada en el departamento de Casanare durante los años 2010 a marzo de 2012. Se utilizaron datos registrados por las instituciones encargadas de su atención y los recolectados por la Secretaria de Salud de Yopal, clasificándolos por resguardo: Cano Mochuelo, Chaparral Barro Negro y Orocue. Los resultados mostraron que las enfermedades de tipo infeccioso prevalentes en las comunidades indígenas estudiadas son: diarrea con 702 casos, infección de vías respiratorias 570 casos y parasitismo intestinal 187 casos.
The purpose of this research was to establish the infectious disease profile of the indigenous population located in the Casanare department during the years 2010, 2011 and March 2012. We used data collected for the institutions in charge of the indigenous health care and gathered for the Yopal Department of health (Casanare, Colombia) classified by indigenous reservation: Cano Mochuelo, Chaparral Barro Negro and Orocue. The results showed that prevalent infectious diseases in the indigenous community are diarrhea, respiratory tract infection and intestinal parasitism with 702, 570 and 187 cases respectively.