Factors associated with awareness and practice about foot care among patients admitted with diabetes mellitus: A cross sectional research from a medical college hospital of southern India.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) causes micro and macro vascular complications. One of the complications of DM is diabetic foot that results in amputations and decreased quality of life. The aim of this study was to assess the awareness and practice about foot care and associated factors among admitted patients in a teaching hospital of coastal Karnataka, India. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a medical college hospital after obtaining institutional ethics approval from 24th December 2016 to 21st January 2017. Adults with diabetes (N=317) admitted in the hospital were interviewed with a validated structured questionnaire for awareness and practice regarding foot care. The scores obtained were further graded into good and poor. Data was analyzed with SPSS version 22 for descriptive statistics. Bivariate logistic and linear regressions were used to determine the association between variables and awareness/practice scores. RESULTS: Mean age of the participants was 56.98 (±10.54) years with males constituting the majority (63.4%). Good awareness and practice scores were observed among 69.1% and 41.6% participants, respectively. Good awareness scores were associated with male patients (p=0.027), currently not married (p=0.044), below poverty line socioeconomic status (p=0.014) and presence of foot ulcer (p=0.021). Good practice scores was associated with secondary schooling (p=0.003) and receiving insulin (p=0.045). Moderate correlation with coefficient 0.493 (p<0.001) was observed between awareness and practice scores. CONCLUSION: Seven and four out of 10 study participants had good awareness and practice scores about foot care, respectively. A tailor-made health education module addressing the lacunae identified in the awareness and practice domains needs to be provided to the patients with diabetes mellitus.

Are the medical interns ready to deal with the treatment, prevention and control of Nipah virus infection at the tertiary care hospital?

CONTEXT: Nipah virus infection is an emerging life threatening zoonotic disease. Health care workers are at the highest risk of getting the infection. OBJECTIVES: To assess the level of knowledge and attitude regarding Nipah virus infection among medical interns of a tertiary care hospital, Mangaluru and also to assess the readiness of medical interns dealing with cases of Nipah virus infection. SETTING AND DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 94 medical interns of a teaching hospital in Mangaluru. METHODS AND MATERIAL: Questionnaire comprising of 33 questions was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice behaviors of the medical interns. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Descriptive statistics as mean and standard deviation and Pearson correlation coefficient. RESULTS: The mean knowledge, attitude and practice scores were 10.28 (± 2.31), 8 (± 2.9) and 15.85 (± 3.7). Three (3.2%) of the medical interns correctly knew the best modality of diagnosis of Nipah. All the interns correctly answered the samples to be collected for diagnosis and 72 (76.6%) correctly answered the lab where samples have to be sent. Majority i.e. 64 (68.1%) of the medical interns correctly enumerated the preventive measures to be employed. Eighty four (89.4%) of them were aware about the availability of vaccine. The correlation between the adequate facilities available with practice domain and training provided with practice domain were found to be statistically significant. CONCLUSION: In this study, the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding Nipah virus infection were found to be inadequate. There is an urgent need to address these gaps.