Study of menstrual cycle synchrony in female medical students sharing common accommodation.

Context: Menstrual cycle synchronization is a phenomenon in which menstrual onset shifts progressively closer with time. It is an adoptive conditional phenomenon seen in the females who associate closely and share a common environment. Aims: To ascertain whether menstrual cycle synchrony exists in the roommates living in a closed space in a medical hostel. Settings and Design: This is a prospective observational study comprising 62 female medical students of a mean age of 22 years living in twin sharing accommodation with a history of regular menses (26-32 days). Methods and Material: These participants were followed on a monthly basis for 13 months. Menstrual cycle history was obtained using standardized Google forms. Menstrual cycle initial and final onset differences, expected cycle cut-off values, and absolute differences were calculated. The menstrual cycle synchrony score was obtained by subtracting the expected difference from the onset difference. Wilson's absolute difference method was used for determining menstrual synchrony between pairs. Statistical Analysis Used: The descriptive analysis was done using mean and standard deviation. One sample t-test was used to assess the synchrony between roommates. P value ≤0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The initial onset difference of the menstrual cycle was 7.58 ± 4.25 days, whereas the final onset difference was 6.06 ± 3.92 days. The calculated synchrony score was -9.28 ± 5.05, which was statistically significant. Menstrual cycle synchrony was observed in 17 pairs (54.8%) and asynchrony in eight pairs (25.8%). Conclusions: Long-term association between roommates has potential to cause menstrual cycle synchrony. It has significant implications in reproductive medicine for reproductive scheduling and family planning.

Anthropometric Predictors of Bio-Impedance Analysis (BIA) Phase Angle in Healthy Adults.

INTRODUCTION: Phase Angle (PhA) is a ratio of whole body reactance and resistance obtained from Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA). It indicates cellular health and integrity and is considered as prognostic tool in medical disorders. In spite of prognostic potentials of PhA, it has limited usefulness in clinical practice and in population studies because of non-availability of normal population reference limits for comparison. Moreover, it is influenced by various factors like age, sex, race and body composition (i.e. body fat, muscle mass, visceral fat, body cell mass, total body water, etc). AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate predictors of phase angle which will be useful in formulation of reference values for Indian population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: BIA was performed by Tanita Body Composition Analyser on healthy adults aged 17-24 years. The inbuilt software measured the phase angle by the formula: Phase angle (PhA) = Reactance (xc)/Resistance (R)* (180/π). Phase angle values were compared across categories of age, sex, weight, height, Body Mass Index (BMI), total fat, visceral fat and muscle mass. RESULTS: Mean value of phase angle was found to be 5.65. Phase angle was significantly (p< 0.001) higher in male than in female. Phase angle was significantly predicted from height (p< 0.001), weight (p< 0.002), muscle mass (p< 0.002) and visceral fat (p< 0.02) in multiple regression models. CONCLUSION: Phase angle differs across anthropometric and body composition categories. Thus height, weight and muscle mass should also be taken into consideration while deriving population specific reference limits of phase angle.

Contemplation on marking scheme for Type X multiple choice questions, and an illustration of a practically applicable scheme.

Ever since its inception 100 years back, multiple choice items have been widely used as a method of assessment. It has certain inherent limitations such as inability to test higher cognitive skills, element of guesswork while answering, and issues related with marking schemes. Various marking schemes have been proposed in the past but they are not balanced, skewed, and complex, which are based on mathematical calculations which are typically not within the grasp of medical personnel. Type X questions has many advantages being easy to construct, can test multiple concepts/application/facets of a topic, cognitive skill of various level of hierarchy can be tested, and unlike Type K items, they are free from complicated coding. In spite of these advantages, they are not in common use due to complicated marking schemes. This is the reason we explored the aspects of methods of evaluation of multiple correct options multiple choice questions and came up with the simple, practically applicable, nonstringent but logical scoring system for the same. The rationale of the illustrated marking scheme is that it takes into consideration the distracter recognition ability of the examinee rather than relying on the ability only to select the correct response. Thus, examinee's true knowledge is tested, and he is rewarded accordingly for selecting a correct answer and omitting a distracter. The scheme also penalizes for not recognizing a distracter thus controlling guessing behavior. It is emphasized that if the illustrated scoring scheme is adopted, then Type X questions would come in common practice.