Vol 9, Issue 3, Jul-Sep, 2019

Introduction: The highest estimated cause of death in South East Asian Region (SEAR) attributes to diarrheal diseases (Global Food Infection Network, 2011). According to the CDC, 20 to 40% of foods borne illness associated with the consumption of contaminated food were from catering establishments. The purpose of the study was to assess the enteric pathogen profile and knowledge, attitude and behaviour regarding food hygiene among food handlers in our tertiary care center. Methods: Food handlers (n=123) were included in the study (June 2013- July2014) by non-random sampling after obtaining consent. Standardized WHO Five Keys for Safer Food questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviour on food hygiene among the food handlers. Stool specimens were collected for saline-iodine wet mount examination for microscopic examination of parasite ova and cysts, culture for bacterial enteropathogens and multiplex PCR for detection of Entamoeba histolytica. Results: The prevalence of stool pathogens in the hospital kitchen staff was 3.24%. The parasites detected were Entamoeba histolytica (1), Giardia intestinalis (2) and Blastocystis hominis (1) and the bacterium isolated was Campylobacter jejuni (1). Moderate level of knowledge (76.4%), favorable attitude (87%) and satisfactory self reported behaviour (92.7%) regarding food hygiene was observed. A significant positive correlation existed between attitude and self-reported behavior of food handlers (p<0.05). Conclusion: An overall prevalence of 5.12% of enteric pathogens was identified among the food handlers of JIPMER. Positive correlation between attitude and self-reported behaviour regarding food hygiene was observed among food handlers. Food hygiene behaviour was influenced by the work experience of the food handler. Key words: Enteropathogen, Knowledge, Attitude, Behavior, Food-hygiene.

Background: Cotton textile industry employees use their neck, shoulder and upper limbs extensively in their work. However, there is no adequate documentation of the type of musculoskeletal morbidity among these workers. Objectives: To study the prevalence, patterns and disability due to musculoskeletal disorders among cotton textile industry workers in Tamil Nadu. Methods: The study was conducted in a cotton textile factory in Coimbatore. The factory was selected randomly from a list of medium scale factories. Stratified random sampling among supervisors, labourers and housekeeping staff in the factory was performed. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) was used to collect information on pain in different areas of the body. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to group the pain, its severity and disability into syndromes. Based on the factor scores, the participants were grouped into clusters of pain patterns using K means cluster analysis. Results: A total of 100 participants responded to the study. The main syndromic patterns of musculoskeletal morbidity included - Acute upper limb pain, Chronic and acute pain in knee, ankles and feet, Acute and Activity limiting pain of back, hip and thighs, Chronic and Activity limiting pain in the back and shoulders, Activity limiting upper limb pain. Based on these syndromes, the participants were classified into three main clusters – cluster 1 - Acute, activity limiting pain of upper limb, low back, hips and thigh (13%), cluster 2 – Acute pain of knees, ankle and feet (12%) and cluster 3 – Activity limiting pain of upper back, shoulder and upper limb (75%). Conclusion: The cotton textile industry workers had predominantly upper limb, upper back and shoulder musculoskeletal morbidity and disability, which needs to be addressed by appropriate ergonomic measures in the factories. Key words: Cotton textile industry, Occupational health, Musculoskeletal disorders, Pain, Work related musculoskeletal disorders.

Background: Anemia is very common worldwide among adolescent girls. WHO Regional office for South-East Asia sketched that “Iron deficiency anemia is the most glaring nutritional deficiency, with no less than 25-40% of adolescent girls as victims of moderate and sometimes severe anemia. In countries of this region, at least 40-50% of adolescent pregnant girls are anemic”. According to study conducted by Indian Council of Medical Research adolescent girls from 16 districts of 11 states of India showed that, the prevalence of anemia was 90.1% and 7.1% having severe anemia (Hb < 70 g/L). Adolescence being a rapid transition phase with high requirement of additional nutrition. Anemia among adolescent girls develops due to accelerated increase in the requirements for iron, coupled with poor dietary intake, menstrual loss high rate of infection and worm infestation. Objectives: This study was carried out to assess the knowledge, attitude, practice and health seeking behavior change regarding anemia after weekly iron folic acid supplementation and intensive health education among adolescent school girls of Delhi. Materials and Methods: This was an intervention study conducted among adolescent school girls of Delhi. The study was conducted among 106 adolescent school girls of XI class by administering a pre-tested questionnaire based on the following four domains – knowledge, attitude, practices and health seeking behavior regarding anemia. Weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS) and intensive health education was given for six months as an intervention. Health education package included power point presentation, pamphlets and visual display of iron rich foods like green leafy vegetables, germinated pulses (sprouts), citrus fruits and jaggery. Data entry and analysis was done using SPSS software version 17. Results: Only 34.9 percent girls had heard about anemia and 38.9 percent felt that anemia is a health problem. When asked for the reasons for anemia, around 8 (7.5%) could answer correctly. There was change in knowledge, practices and health seeking behavior after the intervention and was statistically significant. Conclusion: WIFS and intensive health education intervention has an impact on improving knowledge, attitude, practices and health seeking behavior of adolescent school girls. Additional nutritional interventional research is needed to reinforce good practices to prevent anemia. Key words: Knowledge, Anemia, Adolescent, Health education.

Background: Procrastination, generally out, is the practice of carrying out less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent ones, or doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones and thus putting off impending tasks to a later time. The primary objective of this paper was to establish preliminary psychometric properties of General Procrastination Scale (GPS)- validity and reliability. The scale. Methods: The final version of GPS was administered on a randomized sample of 140 participants, 69 males and 71 females between the age group of 16 to 27 years. The target population included college students and working younger adults across various regional subdivisions of the metropolitan city of Mumbai. The sample of the test was selected via a Non Probability sampling method of Quota Sampling. Results: The Split Half Reliability was calculated equivalent to 0.711, which was similarly close to the value of Cronabch’s Alpha correlation value, established at 0.714. The General Procrastination Scale was observed to be high on construct validity (0.76) when compared with performance on Lay’s scale of Procrastination. The quartile deviation value was obtained to be 8 and 3 inter quartile ranges were developed for the scale - Q1- 59, Q2- 66 and Q3- 75, where Q2 is equivalent to the median/mean of the scores on the scale. Conclusion: The test is a first of its kind, having been developed and standardized in a relatively collectivist culture and yet in a fairly modernized geographical region, opening grounds for greater research on cross cultural study of procrastination. The scale however has not been standardized on a statistically sufficient large sample of population. Key words: Procrastination, Scale, Young, Validity, Reliability.

Background: Despite revolutionary advances in treatment of Schizophrenia, about 30-40% patient do not achieve a state of recovery. This limited outcome interferes achieving a positive outcome and wellness. Long term outcome in schizophrenia has been poorly studied. There is a dearth of longitudinal studies that determine factors affecting outcome in patients with first episode of schizophrenia. While short term studies have yielded some findings, long term studies in this domain are rare. The present study looks at the characteristics and factors that affect non recovery in patients with first episode schizophrenia over a ten year duration. Methodology: 101 patients attending a non government private psychiatric hospital were followed up over a 10 year period and assessed for recovery and outcome parameters using the Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGIS ≤ 2), the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale for Schizophrenia (PANSS) based on RSWG criteria, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Quality of Life Scale (QOLS), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) for extrapyramidal symptoms. Independent living and family burden were studied on a 1 to 5 point likert scale with 1 being worst and 5 being good. Non recovery was defined as Good outcome was defined as a score of 2 or less on CGIS. The results were analyzed statistically and presented. Results: When non recovered subjects were assessed on various parameters, significant reductions in total PANSS scores, positive and negative symptom scores, depression scores on the HDRS (p<0.0001 in all cases). The non recovered group had significantly greater number of hospitalizations (p<0.0001), more disorganized behavior (p<0.0002), greater interpersonal issues (p=0.0013) and poor outcome on independent living (p<0.0001). Assessment of the baseline characteristics of both groups revealed that age at the time of entry into the study was lower in the non-recovery group (p<0.0001) while greater negative symptom scores (p<0.0001), greater depression scores (p<0.0001) and greater aggression was present. Conclusion: The present study shows that early age of onset of psychosis and presence of severe negative symptoms are significantly related to future non-response in long term outcome of first episode schizophrenia. It is also important mentioning that symptom reduction alone is insufficient when looked as an outcome measure in schizophrenia. Key words: Outcome, Schizophrenia, Recovery, Non-recovery, Positive symptoms, Negative symptoms, HDRS, PANSS, CGI-S, Hospitalizations.

Introduction: Timely organ transplantation can save many lives as well as better the quality of life for many more. However there is scarcity of organ donation in India. Hence the current research was planned to study, awareness and attitude of the people towards organ donation. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the rural and urban residents in Sangli district (Maharashtra, India). Informed consent was taken. Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Study period was July to September 2018. The sampling technique used was convenience sampling. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test and Binary logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. Results: Four hundred and ten participants were included in final analysis. Good knowledge regarding organ donation was observed in 130 (31.7%) participants, while 261 (63.7%) had good attitude. On applying binary logistic regression; residence and education were best predictors of knowledge regarding organ donation. While knowledge was the best predictor for attitude towards organ donation. Conclusion: Knowledge can bring about change in attitude towards organ donation, hence concentrated efforts should be made to raise the awareness. Key words: Organ Transplantation, Directed Organ Donations, Attitude, Awareness, India.

Introduction: Contraceptive use among female adolescents has been found to be associated with positive health outcomes such as reduction in unplanned pregnancies, reduced maternal and child mortalities. However, contraceptive use among female adolescents is still low in developing countries despite high fertility rates in young women. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the determinants of contraceptive use among female adolescents. Methods: A community- based cross sectional study was conducted among sexually active female adolescents. Using structured questionnaire, data were collected from a randomly sampled 324 adolescent girls aged 10-19 years. Data were analyzed using Stata version 13.1. Pearson Chi-Square and Fisher’s Exact test were conducted at bivariate level and significant variables included in a single logistic model for regression. P-values of <0.05 at 95% confidence interval were considered significant. Results: Ninety-five percent of the participants showed some knowledge about contraceptives. However, the prevalence of contraceptive use was only 38.1%. The commonly used methods were injectable (56.8%) and condoms (39%). Reasons cited for non-use of contraceptives were; fear of side effects, lack of partner support among others. Age, marital status, parity, religion, partner/parent support, cost of contraceptive, peer influence and misconceptions were significantly associated with the use of contraceptives among female adolescents. Conclusion: The high level of knowledge about contraceptives did not translate into contraceptive uptake by female adolescents. There is the need for health professional to scale up health education on the benefits of contraceptives especially within the existing adolescent health clubs. Key words: Adolescent girls, Family planning, Nabdam district, Teenage pregnancy, Ghana.

Introduction: Early and accurate detection of onset of diabetic nephropathy is crucial for a timely intervention and for improving outcomes in the management of diabetic nephropathy. There is a need of new biomarkers to predict the onset of nephropathy earlier than the conventional markers. The aim of this study was to measure the association of urinary periostin level in type 2 subjects and healthy controls and to evaluate its predictive value to diagnose renal injury. Methods: This was a cross sectional study in which urine samples were collected from 50 healthy controls and 360 type 2 diabetic patients. The diabetic cases were further grouped as; normoalbuminuria (n=95), microalbuminuria (n=130) and macroalbuminuria (n=135). The urinary levels of periostin was measured by using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. Observations: Urinary periostin levels were found to be significantly elevated in all the diabetic patients compared to the controls. In multivariate regression analysis increased urine periostin level significantly correlated with aging, high albuminuria and decline of eGFR. For differentiating normalbuminuria, microalbumiuria and macroalbuminuria the best selected cut-off values with optimum sensitivity and specificity were >2.11, 2.74 and 7.81 respectively with predicted sensitivity and specificity of 88% and 100%, 98.1% and 66.7% and 100% and 69.9% respectively. Therefore, urinary periostin demonstrated moderate to high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing diabetic nephropathy. Conclusion: Increased levels of urinary periostin significantly correlated with aging, high albuminuria, declinement of eGFR and can be detected in the urine of the patients with type 2 diabetes before the onset of significant albuminuria. Urinary periostin excretion may be used as an early biomarker of renal injury. Key words: Urinary Periostin, Biomarker, Renal Injury, Diabetic Kidney Disease.