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Background:The bio-medical waste products create particularly serious problems for the municipalities and its safe disposal is becoming a serious environmental problem. The concern regarding medical wastes is mainly due to the presence of pathogenic organisms and organic substances in hospital solid wastes in significantly higher concentrations. About one fourth of biomedical waste is considered as hazardous and may affect the health of both medical personnel and general community. Aim and objectives of the research was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice about the biomedical waste management among the staff (medical and paramedical) of a tertiary care medical institute. Methods:The design of the study was observational, descriptive and cross-sectional. It was conducted in a 500 bedded private sector tertiary care medical institute in Lucknow. The study unit consisted of medical and paramedical staff (doctors, staff nurses, and ward boys) and sample size was 241 who consented to be a part of the study. All the study units who had been in the job for atleast 6 months in IIMSR who consented for the study were included; purposive convenience sampling was implemented and study period was from January 2018 to March 2018.Results:Majority across all the types of study participants were males, married, residing in urban areas and having not undergone any formal training. Our study found that though all the study participants in various groups were having the relevant level of knowledge but attitude and practices were variable.Conclusions:This study showed that knowledge may be higher but attitude and practices are variable and are not related to educational level.
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Background:World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019, released the estimates which show that approximately 80% of the causes of blindness and severely reduced visual acuity are preventable and avoidable. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of preventable causes of blindness in an OPD setup in the city of Lucknow.Methods:Descriptive cross-sectional study was done from January, 2019 to March, 2019 at the ophthalmology department OPD, Dr Ram Manohar lohia hospital, Lucknow. Patient presenting with complains of Blurring of vision or blindness during the defined OPD days at the study place, sample size-550. Convenience sampling, all the eligible patients who were attending the OPD on defined days during the study period.Results:The current study found the prevalence of blindness in the OPD based patients to be 13.5% and 25% (WHO and NPCB standards) respectively which is higher than the other reported statistics and found cataract to be the single most contributor of cause of blindness in accordance with other literature.Conclusions:The study demonstrates that even after the implementation of a national program (NPCB), the prevalence of blindness continues to be on the higher side and cataract remains to the most common cause of preventable blindness.
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Background: Dengue virus infection is a growing health problem and is prevalent throughout India. Research focusing on length of hospital stay and its predictors is scarce from India. This is important considering the burden of the disease during epidemics and impact on hospital admissions. Hence the study was conducted with the objectives to find out the factors influencing the length of stay in hospital of dengue patients.Methods: A cross sectional retrospective observational study conducted at a tertiary care hospital from August 2016 to October 2016. Data was retrieved from case sheets at Medical Record Department of 350 lab confirmed adult dengue patients admitted in the hospital.Results: The majority of patients admitted were of economically productive age group of 18-45 years and males indicating the occupational exposure to the vector of dengue. The study found that majority had length of stay of less than a week and as age increases the length of stay also increases (statistically significant). The nil case fatality and lesser number of mean days of symptoms before admission possibly indicate that early arrival of patients to hospital can lead to very low fatality rates. Further research required to find out the other predictors of length of stay.Conclusions: The study concludes that the dengue affects the economically productive age group and more males thereby indicating occupational exposure to the vector. The age of the patient can be used as an indicator to the length of stay in the hospital.