Indian Journal of Community Health
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Innovative solutions to reform geriatric oral health in India: Alliance for healthy aging
Get PDFGeriatric population is showing an increasing trend, owing to the increased awareness as well as improved healthcare facilities and access. The aging Indian population of the modern-day has diverse and more complex dental needs, unlike the olden-days. Hence, the authors propose innovative strategies to cater to the dental needs of the increasing geriatric population in India. Barriers for provision of geriatric dental care in India are elucidated, which are lack of geriatric training, access problems and financial issues. Approaches to confront these barriers have been explained. The increasing and compounding dental needs of the aging Indian population requires multifaceted and contemporary strategies
Epidemiological and Clinical factors associated with mortality of confirmed Covid-19 cases admitted and treated in a tertiary care hospital of Patna, Bihar
Get PDFBackground: A significant proportion of the individuals having the illness of moderate to severe nature due to COVID-19 infection require immediate critical care. High incidence of mortality among elderly population or those with comorbid conditions were reported. Objectives: The study was carried out with objectives to assess the epidemiological and clinical factors associated with mortality among the COVID-19 cases admitted and treated in AIIMS, Patna. Methods: This was a hospital?based cross?sectional analytical study of epidemiological and clinical features of COVID?19?positive patients admitted and treated during the outbreak from March 20, to August 31, 2020. Results: The median age of COVID-19 cases was 51.5 years (IQR : 37-62 years) which was significantly higher (p-value = 0.001) as compared to females. Male-female ratio of cases was 2.88:1. Out of 1696 cases, the case-fatality rate was 309 (18.22%). The mean age of cases who died due to COVID-19 was significantly higher (p-value=0.001) as compared to those who survived. The odds of mortality was significantly higher in males as compared to females (Adjusted OR = 1.534, 95% CI = 1.10 – 2.13, p=0.011). The odds of mortality showed a significant increasing trend with increasing age (Mantel-Hanszel p-value for trend = 0.015). The covariates like gender, age groups 45-59, 60-74 and 75>=, breathlessness and CKD were found to be significantly associated with mortality after controlling for the confounders. Conclusions: Factors like gender, higher age, lower oxygen saturation causing breathlessness and chronic kidney diseases could be attributed to high risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients
Risk factors of pulmonary tuberculosis: A community-based case control study
Get PDFStudies on risk factors of tuberculosis help to focus on risk of tuberculosis and take appropriate policy action which help to eliminate tuberculosis. Hence present study was carried out to study risk factors of pulmonary tuberculosis. Community-based case-control studywas carried out among 78 age and sex matched cases and controls. Cases were incident cases of pulmonary tuberculosis aged 18-45 years of either sex. Data on housing condition was recorded with direct observation. Cases and controls were comparable for age, sex, presence of diabetes, HIV and immuno-compromised status. Mean body mass index was significantly low in cases as compared to controls (18.06 vs. 22.05; p<0.0001). On binomial logistic regression odds of tuberculosis was 5.544 (95%CI=2.513-12.232; P=0.000) among those exposed to indoor air pollution after controlling for other factors. We conclude that exposure to indoor air pollution was significantly associated with risk of pulmonary tuberculosi
Doctors on duty: the real-life heroes during pandemic: Your opinion matters!!!
Get PDFBackground: Data for front-line health-care workers, risk of disease is limited so as the resources available. Although inspiring stories on doctors fighting against COVID-19-19 were covered we are still unaware of the challenges at ground level. The present study throws light on it and provides way through towards resolving the issues. Objectives:1. To assess the perceptions of the doctors towards the process of COVID-19-19 crisis management. 2.To identify the challenges and recommend solutions based on their views, suggestions. Methods: A cross sectional study on perception of doctors (94) involved in COVID-19 duty was conducted during July to September 2020, with the help of pre-validated semi-structured questionnaire through online google survey form. The questionnaire had demographic details, views on before, during and after the COVID-19 duty along with 4 open ended questions on their good and bad experiences, problems & suggestions. Descriptive statistics for quantitative & thematic analysis for qualitative data was used. Results: Nonresponse rate was 26%, mean age 27.55 year. Majority were from clinical departments (78%). 42% felt that training was proper, 60% adequate PPE kit, 52.6% were aware of management strategy, 86% stressed,82% found difficulties in communication. 42% were provided proper quarantine facility yet, 58% faced discrimination. Few themes emerged under challenges like lack of resources & training, stress & burnout, for which patient sensitization, refresher training, psychological & administrative support was suggested. Conclusion: Although COVID-19 pandemic has impacted life of doctors in either way, the challenges could easily be tackled by the recommended simple solutions
Assessment of Indian Medical Graduate (IMG)’s knowledge about emergency contraception (EC) in a medical college of Himachal Pradesh
Get PDFBackground: Undergraduate curriculum of the medicine is created to ensure achievement of goal of “health for all” in India. In addition, it aspires graduates to meet or exceed global benchmark in knowledge, attitude, skills and communication (1). Objectives: 1) To assess undergraduates’ knowledge regarding the types and correct usage of available Emergency Contraceptives. 2) To utilize the data base for capacity building by focusing on the Core Competency of Emergency Contraceptives. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done among 442 undergraduates of all the Profs in our college in September 2017 after approval from Institutional Ethical Committee (17/66) and informed verbal consent from the participants. This pretested, pre-designed and self-administered 11-questionnaire proforma in English was used as a tool of investigation. Results: Maximum participation was from 3rd and 4th year. 7.2 % had a very poor knowledge, attempted 3 or less questions correctly. Only 14.5% attempted 8 or more questions correctly. Conclusion: Young population of our country forms the broad base of the pyramid, they should be provided with correct knowledge about EC for improving their reproductive health. Since these graduates are going to serve the community, their knowledge and skill in this core competency is going to help the community
COVID Infodemic is turning public into Covidiots: What can be done?
Get PDFAn unprecedented pandemic of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID 19) has overwhelmed the health systems of countries across the world. The government and other scientific bodies are providing authentic information to educate the public and promote desirable behavior to prevent new infections and reduce deaths. COVID-19 pandemic is the first in human history in which social media and new digital technologies are being used as key tools to inform the public. However, there is a lot of misinformation also being spread through these channels. Misinformation is false, inaccurate, or misleading information that is communicated regardless of an intention to deceive. Access to social media has improved substantially, which has contributed to spread of misinformation. Today, anybody can write anything on social media such as Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube etc without any evidence or falsely attribute the wrong information to well-known experts or renowned institutions. They may be doing it to support their own biases or malign the government purposefully or innocently without checking authenticity. The number of mentions in media for Ebola were 11.1 million, for MERS, 23.2 million, HIV, 40 million, SARS, 56.2 million and COVID19 it has crossed 1.1 billion.3. A google search for COVID 19 on 08 June 2021 gave 5340 million hits compared to 216 million for a much older disease HIV/AIDS. This editorial is an attempt to help spot the false information and deal with it
Mental well-being of general population during COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFBackground: COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected the mental health of people worldwide, with emergence of new mental health problems and worsening of the existing ones. Objectives: This research was conducted with the objective to study the level of mental wellbeing among adult general population during COVID-19 pandemic in India and to identify the association of socio demographic factors with the level of mental wellbeing of study subjects. Methods: It was a community based online cross sectional study involving general population more than 18 years of age. Data collection was done by using a goggle form link which was circulated via online platforms. Data was analyzed using Microsoft excel and SPSS version 21. Qualitative data was expressed in proportions or percentages and quantitative data was expressed in mean and standard deviation. Chi square test and logistic regression analysis was done to find out association of demographic factors with mental wellbeing. Results: 58.4% subjects had normal mental wellbeing score while 25.1% were found to be at risk of developing psychological distress and 16.5% were at risk of depression. Lower wellbeing scores were significantly associated with younger (<36 years) as well as older age (>55 years), female gender, divorced or widowed, unemployed, businessmen and students. Lowe scores were also associated with increased consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Conclusion: A large proportion of study population had a poor mental wellbeing during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic
An Exploratory Study to Find the Early Trend and Pattern Recognition of COVID-19 Infection in India: A Severity Model-Based Prediction
Get PDFBackground: Recent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has inflicted the whole world critically. Although India has been listed amongst the top ten highly affected countries to date, one cannot rule out COVID-19 associated complications in the near future. Aim & Objective: We aim to build the COVID-19 severity model employing logistic function which determines the inflection point and help in the prediction of the future number of confirmed cases. Methods and Material: An empirical study was performed on the COVID-19 patient status in India. We performed the study commencing from 30 January 2020 to 12 July 2020 for the analysis. Exploratory data analysis (EDA) tools and techniques were applied to establish a correlation amongst the various features. The acute stage of the disease was mapped in order to build a robust model. We collected five different datasets to execute the study. Results: We found that men were more prone to get infected with the coronavirus disease as compared to women. On 165-days based analysis, we found a trending pattern of confirmed, recovered, deceased and active cases of COVID-19 in India. The as-developed growth model provided an inflection point of 72.0 days. It also predicted the number of confirmed cases as 17,80,000.0 in the future i.e. after 12th July. A growth rate of 32.0 percent was obtained. We achieved statistically significant correlations amongst growth rate and predicted COVID-19 confirmed cases. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the effective application of EDA and analytical modeling in building a mathematical severity model for COVID-19 in India
Knowledge and attitude of medical students towards bioethics- A cross sectional study from a medical college in northern Tamil Nadu
Get PDFStudies have shown that a significant proportion of healthcare professionals were unaware of the universally recognized bioethical principles. The study was conducted to assess the knowledge and attitude towards bioethics among undergraduate medical students of a Medical College and also to find out the association of knowledge and attitude towards bioethics with other factors. This was a Cross Sectional study conducted at a medical college of Chengalpattu district between April to September of 2019. Study participants included medical undergraduate students from second academic year to fourth academic year of the medical college who had clinical exposure. Data was collected from a total of 224 subjects using a pretested, self-administered questionnaire. 89.3% of the respondents had poor knowledge about medical ethics. The prevalence of good+excellent knowledge about bioethics was highest among 17-19 years age group (95.8%) and least among >22 (60%) years age group, highest among those with <12 months of clinical exposure (100%) and least among those with 25-36 months of exposure (57.8%) and both these associations were found to be statistically significant by Chi square test. (P= 0.048 and <0.001 respectively). Majority of the subjects (>58%) had a favourable attitude towards the correct ethical practices with respect to most of the issues (11/15). However, majority of them (>53.1%) also had a favorable attitude towards certain issues (4/15) which are debatable. The most preferred sources for learning about medical ethics were seminars (81.7%), clinical discussions (78.1%) and lectures (57.1%). Majority of the subjects had poor knowledge about bioethics. The knowledge was better among students of earlier years of course compared to those in the later part. Majority of the subjects had a favorable attitude towards the correct ethical practices in most of the cases. The most preferred sources for learning about medical ethics were seminars, clinical discussions and lecture
E-learning in medical education: students’ experience, challenges and perspectives: a cross-sectional study in India
Get PDFBackground: Due to COVID-19 pandemic, online classes were initiated in medical colleges for continuation of learning. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 537 undergraduate medical students in an Indian medical college using Google forms. The questionnaire contained sections on students’ online or e-learning experience and role of instructor in enhancing it; challenges and further scope of improved implementation of e-learning. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics. SPSS 23 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: Among study participants, (46.7%) regularly joined e-classes on time. Prior scheduling of classes (88.6%) and sharing of study material in e-learning application (84%) by teachers/instructors; interactive discussion with teachers (71.1%) and their response to students’ queries through e-learning application (77%) facilitated learning among participants. For (42.6%) e-learning represented considerable challenge in acquiring clinical medical skills. Theory lectures were found suitable for learning by e-learning mode while clinical case discussions were not preferred. Conclusion: E-classes had some definite advantages; however, undergraduate medical students preferred blended approach as e-learning represented a challenge for learning clinical medical skills. Instructors were found to have definite role in enhancing e-learning experience. Providing solutions to barriers like poor internet connectivity and resolution of technical glitches are essential for improved implementation of e-learning