RESUMO
Background: Tobacco abuse is one of the biggest curses that modern society has come across. It is not confined to any one country or region alone, but has widely afflicted the globe. The most susceptible time for initiating use of tobacco in India is adolescence and early adulthood, ages 15-24 years while some start as young as 10 years.Approximately 55,500 adolescent start using tobacco every day in India, joining the 7.7 million young people under the age of 15 who already use tobacco on a regular basis.Methods: It is a community based cross-sectional study conducted among school going adolescent boys of urban field practice area of medical college during July to September 2017. Data was collected through pretested semi-structured self -administered questionnaire given to students by the investigators. Data collected were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 17 software.Results: The prevalence of ever use of tobacco was 17.5% among school going adolescent boys in urban field practice area. In the present study it was observed that 174 (95.1%) adolescent boys had knowledge regarding hazards of tobacco. 110 adolescents (60.1%) had knowledge that passive smoking was harmful.Conclusions: The study suggests that the prevalence of tobacco consumption was high among school going adolescent boys in urban field practice area of medical college. The knowledge of students regarding harmful effects of tobacco was not adequate. Attitude and practice regarding tobacco consumption is also not satisfactory.
RESUMO
Background: The use of self-medication is highly prevalent in the community. Self-medication can be defined as obtaining and consuming one (or more) drug(s) without the advice of a physician either for diagnosis, prescription or surveillance of treatment. Aims and objectives: To study the prevalence and pattern of self-medication practices in rural area of Barabanki. Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in rural area of Barabanki to assess the knowledge, awareness and perception of self-medication practices by house-to-house survey during the period of October 2013 to March 2014. Results: Out of 235 participants enrolled, 168 responded (71.5%). A total of 67 (28.5%) participants were excluded in accordance with the exclusion criteria like incomplete information and not using self-medication. Out of 168 respondents, 117 (69.6%) reported self-medication within 1 year of recall period. Most common conditions/symptoms for self-medication in students were fever (72.6%), pain (64.3%) and respiratory symptoms (57.1%), followed by infections, headache and diarrhea, etc. Self-medication was the most common category of drugs used by all the participants except highly educated who used drugs prescribed by physician. Conclusion: Self-medication is an alarming sign for society.