RESUMO
Lack of appropriate human resources planning is an important factor in the inefficient use of the public health facilities. Workforce projections can be improved by using objective methods of staffing needs based on the workload and actual work undertaken by workers, a guideline developed by Peter J. Shipp in collaboration with WHO—Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN). A cross-sectional study was carried out to estimate the nursing stuff requirement for the rural hospitals and provide a quantitative description of imbalances, if there is any, in the allocation at the district level during 2011. The average WISN turns out to be 0.35 for entire district, which means only 35% of the required nurses is available or 65% understaffed. So, there is an urgent need for more allocations and deployment of staff so that workload can be tackled and evenly distributed among all nursing personnel.
RESUMO
India adopted WHO’s strategy of repeated rounds of mass drug administration (MDA) with diethylcarbamazine to eliminate lymphatic filariasis. The present study attempted to assess the coverage and awareness of and compliance with MDA for elimination of lymphatic filariasis in Burdwan district of India, following MDA round in July 2010. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the four randomly-selected clusters in the district of Burdwan, West Bengal, India, covering 603 individuals from 154 households, using a predesigned pretested schedule. The drug distribution coverage, compliance, and effective coverage were 48.76 %, 70.07%, and 34.16% respectively. Only 41.4% of the study population was aware of the MDA activity. This evaluation study noted that MDA is restricted to tablet distribution only. There is an urgent need to improve compliance with drug intake through strengthening of the awareness programme involving both government health workers and community volunteers.
RESUMO
Hemoglobinopathies are common genetic disorders of hemoglobin, which can be prevented by population screening and offering genetic counseling. In absence of population-based screening for hemoglobinopathies, the hospital-based diagnosis register provide idea about the extent of problem in the community. The present study was undertaken to find out the burden of hemoglobinopathies and spectrum of this disorders among the population who were screened in the hospital-based screening program. A record-basedanalysis of subjects who underwent screening for hemoglobinopathies in Burdwan Medical College and Hospital over a period of 3 years and 4 months revealed that overall 29.3% of subjects were positive for hemoglobinopathies. Beta thalassemia heterozygous was the most commonhemoglobinopathy in this region closely followed by hemoglobin E heterozygous. In view of high prevalence of hemoglobinopathies in this region, a routine premarital screening program is needed for identification and prevention of high-risk marriages.
RESUMO
Toxoplasmosis is a well-documented cause of bad obstetric history (BOH) and a major reason of congenitally- acquired infection. The study was conducted to determine the seropositivity of toxoplasmosis in women with BOH, attending the antenatal clinic of the Mamata General Hospital, Khammam, Andhra Pradesh, India. The study subjects included 105 antenatal women with BOH and 105 antenatal women who had previous normal deliveries. A serological evaluation was carried out to determine the presence of Toxoplasma gondii-specific IgG and IgM antibodies, using commercial diagnostic kits, by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. The seropositivity for Toxoplasma was 49.52% in the study group compared to 12.38% in the control group. The difference in seropositivity was significant (p=0.00). The seroprevalence gradually increased with advancing age. Abortion (51.92%) was the commonest form of pregnancy wastage, followed by stillbirths (36.53%) and premature deliveries (7.69%). The seropositivity of toxoplasmosis was significantly higher in the study group than that in the control group, and the seropositivity played an important role in determining the foetal outcome. Considering the subclinical pattern of infection, routine serological test is recommended for all pregnant women for both IgG and IgM antibodies.
RESUMO
Integrated Child Development Services, a national programme of the Government of India has health, nutrition, and pre-school education components of services. To ascertain awareness, perception of mothers about functioning and different services of ICDS a cross-sectional community based study was conducted between June to September 2007 in Howrah and Purulia districts of West Bengal. A total of 1235 mothers were included as study subjects. As per opinion of the mothers 73% AWCs opened regularly, behaviour of the AWWs was friendly (71.6%) and 63% mothers opined that ICDS is beneficial to their children. 84.2% mothers were aware of any ICDS services. Quantity and quality of supplementary food was acceptable to 88% and 72.7% mothers respectively. 79.2% and 87.5% mothers did not receive any advice on child feeding and growth chart. Making beneficiaries aware about services by targeted interventions will ensure better utilization of ICDS.
RESUMO
Process indicators have been recommended for monitoring the availability and use of emergency obstetric care (EmOC) services. A health facility-based study was carried out in 2002 in four districts of West Bengal, India, to analyze these process indicators. Relevant records and registers for 2001 of all studied facilities in the districts were reviewed to collect data using a pre-designed schedule. The numbers of basic and comprehensive EmOC facilities were inadequate in all the four districts compared to the minimum acceptable level. Overall, 26.2% of estimated annual births took place in the EmOC facilities (ranged from 16.2% to 45.8% in 4 districts) against the required minimum of 15%. The rate of caesarean section calculated for all expected births in the population varied from 3.5% to 4.4% in the four districts with an overall rate of 4%, which is less than the minimum target of 5%. Only 29.9% of the estimated number of complications (which is 15% of all births) was managed in the EmOC facilities. The combined case-fatality rate in the basic/comprehensive EmOC facilities was 1.7%. Major obstetric complications contributed to 85.7% of maternal deaths, and pre-eclampsia/eclampsia was the most common cause. It can be concluded that all the process indicators, except proportion of deliveries in the EmOC facilities, were below the acceptable level. Certain priority measures, such as making facilities fully functional, effective referral and monitoring system, skill-based training, etc., are to be emphasized to improve the situation.