RESUMO
Background: Cancer is a leading cause of death globally. Every year, millions of cancer patients could be saved from premature death and and suffering if they had timely access to early detection and treatment. There are two main components of early detection: early diagnosis and screening. In India, cancers of cervix, breast, mouth/oropharynx are the most frequent cancers in women. These cancers are amenable to early detection. More than two third of the cancer patients are already in an advanced and incurable stage at the time of diagnosis
Objectives: This study was designed with the aim to know the reasons for non availment of cancer screening procedures and early diagnostic facilities
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was planned in Sangli, Miraj and Kupwad Corporation area during October 2013 - March 2014 by a pretested questionnaire. Women of 25 years and above were study subjects selected randomly from a cluster sample of ward with estimated sample size of 559 women. Statistical analysis was done with the help of IBM SPSS 22
Results: Nearly 74% of women said that cancer is curable. For awareness about signs and symptoms, risk factors and screening test 82.3% women scored less than 50% of total score. Only 17.7% women had awareness score more than 50%. But their attitude score was > 50% in 85.2% of women. For practice score, 24.4% women scored > 50%. Significant association was found between awareness, attitude and practice scores and education, occupation and history of cancer in family, friends and neighborhood of respondents
Conclusions: Low awareness is the main barrier for undergoing cancer screening and early detection. There is a need of effective health education programme
RESUMO
Various studies across the globe have emphasised that students undertaking professional courses, such as medical and dental studies, are subjected to higher stress. Excessive stress could lead to psychological problems like depression and anxiety. The objective of the current study was to assess stress among students of various professional colleges and its association with various academic, social and health-related factors. This cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2011 to February 2012 among students of medical, dental and engineering colleges from the urban area of Sangli district, Maharashtra, India, using a convenience sampling technique. The calculated total sample size was 1,200. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was used for the data collection. Analysis was done using percentage, the chi-square test, binary logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression. Out of the 1,224 respondents, 299 [24.4%] experienced stress. Among them 115 [38.5%], 102 [34.1%] and 82 [27.4%] were dental, medical and engineering students, respectively. There was a statistically significant association between stress and the field of education. Stress was observed in 187 [27.7%] females and 112 [20.4%] males; the association with gender was statistically significant. By applying binary logistic regression, medical studies, health and lifestyle factors, and academic factors were the significant predictors for stress. Students from all the three fields studied were exposed to stress. Academic factors were one of the most important stressors. The introduction of stress management education into the curriculum could prove useful in combatting this problem