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Background: Self-treatment is recognized as one of the global public health issues. Geographical distance, constrained financial resources, and lack of awareness are the main barriers for people in remote areas to access health care. Self-treatment may also have risky consequences such as side effects and antibiotic resistance. It is assumed that the rate of self-treatment is high in the unreachable hilly tribal areas because of the geographical factor. Aim and Objective: The primary objective of the present study is to find out the prevalence and reason of self-medication, and the sources of drug information. The secondary objective is to assess the awareness of routine medical check-up among the tribal population of the hilly areas of the Koraput district of Odisha. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted after receiving clearance from the Institutional Ethical Committee, SLN MCH, Koraput. The study was conducted from February 2022 in some hilly villages near Koraput, which is a typical mountainous commune with the terrain divided by many mountains. Simple random sampling was done using computer software for selecting participants (sample size: 200). The participants were contacted and our interviewer visited door-to-door for face-to-face interviews. The research team developed a structured questionnaire to use in the face-to-face interviews. The questionnaire included questions about demographic characteristics, access to medical facilities, frequency of routine medical check-ups in the past 12 months, health information sources, and distance to the nearest health facility. A series of questions regarding self-treatment practices were also asked: Whether they had purchased any medication without prescription in the past 3 months, what the symptoms were, and what kind of medicines they bought, and the reasons they bought the medicines on their own. Results: The study found that prevalence of self-medication was 92 (46%, C.I. 95%). The majority of residents had self-medication when they suffered from common cold and cough (16% of participants), fever (8%), diarrhea (6%), body pain or myalgia (8%), and allergy (2%). The most prevalent groups of drugs used were antipyretics such as paracetamol (36%), antibiotics (30%), antihistamines (14%), and analgesics such as diclofenac and nimesulide (26%). The most common reason for choosing a local practitioner or private pharmacist and health worker was the subjects’ proximity to them. Of the self-medicated population in our study, 62% procured medicines from local practitioners, chemists, or health workers residing in their villages or nearby villages. Conclusion: Rational use of drugs requires that patients receive medications appropriate to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their own individual requirements for an adequate period of time and at the lowest cost to them and their community. Self-medication unfortunately does not follow the standard, scientific, and rational criteria. Due to self-medication quality of medicine, scientific, and rational procurement, rational prescription is always questionable.
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Background: As part of series of advocacy on development of diabetes register, one of the target health facilities is private general practices. In suburban Kwale community Delta State, Donak hospital was chosen to study the process of developing and implementing diabetes register program. Specific objectives include to evaluate the extent of completeness of data for patients follow-up, diabetes services within the private practice based on data collection, prevalence of high blood pressure, and patients’ compliance with medical appointments.Methods: The study followed a clinical observational method and after necessary ethical considerations, medical information was gotten from the record unit Donak Hospital, Kwale. The patients identified as potential diabetes or prediabetes were contacted for follow-up and 113 (65 females and 48 males) participants consented, all adults. Data collection were those required for a diabetes register proforma and were analyzed using Microsoft Excel Analysis Tool-pack. Results: There was no dedicated diabetes register per se except for usual medical records. The private practice has 100% record of contact details and blood pressure completeness for the participants. The scope of service offered to the patients was basically primary healthcare services. Over 50% of the participants have high blood pressure. On the patients’ compliance with medical check-up; only 23% of the participants complied with check-up appointments.Conclusions: The development of diabetes register in private practices can improve services. These services include documentation of appointments to enable follow-up strategies to encourage compliance to medical check-ups and a record diabetes education that may be provided.
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Objective To discuss the effect of the appointment checkup process optimized with the theory of constraints in shortening the appointment waiting time. Methods The patients who underwent ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging examination, and CT examinations were selected from the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University from March 2017 to February 2018. Firstly, we applied the theory of constraints to investigate and analyze the status of medical technology examinations. Secondly, we optimized the process according to the results of the investigation. Finally, we compared the appointment duration of medical examinations before and after the optimization. Results Thanks to support of departments involved, the longest ultrasonography appointment waiting time was reduced from 3. 74 days to 1. 32 days. The longest appointment time for magnetic resonance imaging examination was reduced from 3. 74 days to 1. 33 days. The longest appointment waiting time for CT was reduced from 2. 62 days to 1. 55 days, and the goal of completing the checkup the day after the prescription was reached in the continuous improvement phase. Conclusions The optimization of the medical technology examination appointment process based on the constraint theory can effectively shorten the checkup appointment duration, maximize utilization of medical resources and optimize the services.
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<b>Objective:</b> The aim of the present study was to explore whether the presence of unhealthy eating habits is an effective indicator of anemia among older people or not.<br><b>Methods:</b> We used data from a prospective observational cohort study of all users who underwent an annual health checkup at a public clinic in a rural area. The subjects of the present study were 150 users aged 75 years and older who underwent the checkup between January and September 2010. The subjects were first divided by gender and further separated into anemic and non-anemic subgroups according to their estimated anemia prevalences: Hb < 130 g/L for males and Hb < 120 g/L for females. For each category, we compared the subjects’ lifestyles including eating habits between the anemic and non-anemic groups.<br><b>Results:</b> Both among the women and the men aged 75 and over, there were no significant differences in any items including eating habits between the two anemic subgroups.<br><b>Conclusion:</b> Our results suggest that the presence of unhealthy eating habits is not an effective indicator of anemia among older people.
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The purpose of this study is to identify the risk factors which affect the consecutive onset of throwing shoulder injury of a collegiate baseball team, and to calculate regression formula which could predict the future onset.Prospective study. The subjects are 69 asymptomatic collegiate baseball players. We executed medical checkups and investigated who got throwing shoulder injury during this year. We did logistic regression analysis with the medical checkup findings and the data of the onset and found out the factors which significantly affected the onset. We also calculated Odds ratio of these factors and regression formula which predict the probability of the onset of throwing shoulder injury and evaluated the validity of regression model.52%(36/69 cases) of the players suffered throwing shoulder injury during this year. Among the medical checkup findings of asymptomatic phase, pitcher and catcher, past history of throwing shoulder injury, abnormality of scapula-humeral rhythm, heel-buttock distance were thought to be the risk factors which were near-related to the onset of throwing shoulder injury. We calculated regression formula using the medical checkup findings of asymptomatic phase and we could predict the onset of throwing shoulder injury with 82.5% accuracy.In order to prevent this injury, the method used in this study could be useful for field players to predict the onset of throwing shoulder injury.
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BACKGROUND: There is room for doubt that the reference intervals currently used in many hospitals or health institutions in Korea are appropriate, because some scientists do not agree that the selections of reference individuals were valid universally. If we adopt the inappropriate reference intervals in the decision making of examinees' health status, we are liable to lead to false-negatives or false-positives. METHODS: We selected 555 healthy and 2,134 unhealthy adult samples who took medical check-up at an institution between 2000 and 2004 through semi-stratified random sampling method. Disease groups were divided into 7 subgroups: hepatic, gastrointestinal, obesity, circulatory, endocrine, urogenital and others. RESULTS: Through parametric and non-parametric methods, we produced new reference intervals and compared the newly developed intervals with current ones. Some reference values should be adjusted newly; ALT-male < or =33 IU/L, ALT-female < or =22 IU/L, AST < or =28 IU/L, cholesterol < or =198 mg/dL, triglyceride-male < or =172 mg/dL, triglyceride-female < or =133 mg/dL, fasting blood sugar 65-101 mg/dL. CONCLUSIONS: In order to reduce the rate of false-positives or false-negatives, we suggest that reference ranges of some items might be reestablished or adjusted according to gender through the further studies on current reference ranges.
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Adult , Humans , Blood Glucose , Cholesterol , Decision Making , Fasting , Korea , Obesity , Reference ValuesABSTRACT
The higher average age of employees by the advancement of compulsory retirement age, and their sedentary life style in automated environments, has become an important issue in enterprise, because of the increase of adult disease and decreased physical fitness level.<BR>The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a ten-year corporate health and fitness program to design for the purpose of assisting employees to stay well, through the results of health care examinations. The health and fitness program consist of health care examinations (medical checkup, physical fitness test and seminar for health promotion) and going through a physical training program on an individual basis.<BR>With the increase of their average age, body weight and skin folds increased, but the prevalence of obesity (skin folds ; triceps+subscapula≥35 mm) showed no significant change. However, their blood pressure increased. In blood test, fasting plasma glucose and HDL-cholesterol levels were elevated significantly, but total cholesterol and triglyceride levels showed significantly decrease through this period. Physical fitness evaluation was markedly improved. Furthermore, the absence rate due to sickness was low for this period despite the increase of their average age.<BR>The results suggest that long-term corporate health and fitness program is effective to improve employees' physical fitness level and possibly to prevent the progression of adult disease.