scholarly journals A comparative study on health seeking behaviour of parents towards their child’s illness in rural and urban field practice area of a medical college

Author(s):  
Kalyan Chakravarthy Burra ◽  
Chandrashekhar Varaprasadrao Dimmala

Background: The attitude of parents towards their children’s health and illness is an important factor with regards to child’s overall development. In most developing countries, the health of the children is strongly dependent on parental healthcare behavior. This current study mainly looks into these aspects.Methods: A community based cross sectional study involving urban and rural area field practice areas of a medical college in the study period of November 2016-January 2017 with a sample size of 100 families each having children in urban and rural areas have been fixed purposively. House to house survey done by simple random method using pretested semi structured interview schedules.Results: Around 55% of rural parents took treatment from RMP (quacks) with 55% of urban counterparts opting for wait and watch method. Only 8% of respondents from both areas too their children to a pediatrician. About 12% of urban area went to government hospital and none from rural utilized government hospital facilities.Conclusions: Large proportions of respondents did not seek appropriate medical care for childhood illnesses. 

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 2122-2130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johana Ortiz ◽  
John Van Camp ◽  
Sylviana Wijaya ◽  
Silvana Donoso ◽  
Lieven Huybregts

AbstractObjectiveTo identify and compare the sociodemographic determinants of stunting, wasting and overweight among infants of urban and rural areas in the Ecuadorian highlands.DesignCross-sectional study.SettingNabon (rural) and Cuenca (urban) cantons, Azuay Province, Ecuador.SubjectsA total of 703 children aged 0–24 months and their caregivers (227 rural and 476 urban) recruited during the period from June to September 2008.ResultsStunting prevalence was significantly higher in the rural area (37·4 %v. 17·7 %;P< 0·001) while wasting (7·1 %) and overweight (17·1 %) prevalence were more similar between areas. Determinants of stunting for the pooled sample were male gender (OR = 1·43; 95 % CI 1·06, 1·92;P= 0·02), preterm delivery (OR = 1·65; 95 % CI 1·14, 2·38;P= 0·008), child's age (OR = 1·04; 95 % CI 1·01, 1·07;P= 0·011), maternal education (OR = 0·95; 95 % CI 0·92, 0·99;P= 0·025) and facility-based delivery (OR = 0·57; 95 % CI 0·45, 0·74;P< 0·001). The latter was also a determinant of overweight (OR = 0·39; 95 % CI 0·25, 0·62;P< 0·001). Rural determinants of stunting were maternal height (OR = 0·004; 95 % CI 0·00004, 0·39;P= 0·018), diarrhoea prevalence (OR = 2·18; 95 % CI 1·13, 4·21;P= 0·02), socio-economic status (OR = 0·79; 95 % CI 0·64, 0·98;P= 0·030) and child's age (OR = 1·07; 95 % CI 1·02, 1·11;P= 0·005). Urban determinants were: maternal BMI for stunting (OR = 0·91; 95 % CI 0·84, 0·99;P= 0·027), cough prevalence (OR = 0·57; 95 % CI 0·34, 0·96;P= 0·036) and facility-based delivery (OR = 0·25; 95 % CI 0·09, 0·73;P= 0·011) for overweight, and hygiene for wasting (OR = 0·57; 95 % CI 0·36, 0·89;P= 0·013).ConclusionsInfant malnutrition was associated with different sociodemographic determinants between urban and rural areas in the Ecuadorian highlands, a finding which contributes to prioritize the determinants to be assessed in nutritional interventions.


Author(s):  
M. Sheeba Apoorva ◽  
Vimala Thomas

Background: The phase of menopause is a physiological event which occurs as a result of progression of reproductive ageing. Women from developing countries view variations due to menopause as natural process and there is no need for medical care. The objective of the study was to assess the health seeking behaviour among the post menopausal women.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the rural and urban field practice areas of department of Community Medicine of Gandhi Medical College, Hyderabad. About 300 urban and 300 rural women were interviewed using a semi-structured and pretested questionnaire from August 2015 to September 2017.Results: Among the rural women, 100 (25.4%) women did not seek health care and among those who sought health care, majority (34.3%) preferred government healthcare services followed by 23% who consulted private facility. Of the urban women, 14.7% did not seek health care, 42% of the women approached private practitioner followed by 23% who sought health care in government hospital. Majority of the women (42.2%) did not seek health care as they thought they will be normal with time.Conclusions: More than one third of the women are not aware of menopause and related problems. Among those who did not seek health care, higher proportion felt they will be Ok with time followed by financial constraints, fear/shy, family problems and lack of transport. 


Author(s):  
Y. Vishnu Vardhan ◽  
D. Srinivas Rao

Background: Reduction of national fertility levels was directly proportional to the preference of male child in many families in India. We conducted this study on 214 married adults, in both sexes to find out whether this strong preference still exists in this decade or not, and if it does what could be the reasons.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study done by face to face interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire containing both qualitative and quantitative variables, among 214 married adults.Results: Upon analysing the results, we identified that higher son preference (61.23%) is seen in many rural families, and is strongly associated with low socio-economic status, literacy rate and caste. The reasons by which these families prefer male child were also broadly categorized and identified. Economic utility (78%) and old age security (61%) was found to be the major reasons most families has quoted in preferring a son.Conclusions: By improving the literacy rate and job opportunities in the community, fertility rate can be reduced, especially in rural areas where the other options are limited.


Author(s):  
Netra G. ◽  
Ayesha S. Nawaz ◽  
Aswin Kumar ◽  
Mane Kusum ◽  
B. A. Varadaraja Rao

Background: The public health experts have coined the name ‘Modern Day Epidemic’ for accidents. Accidents especially domestic are a world-wide public health problem. The relationship between domestic accidents and human health is direct and associated with a chain of socio-economic consequences. The objectives were to study the magnitude and types of domestic accidents in the urban field practice area and to study the healthcare seeking behaviour following domestic accidents.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was carried out during September 2016 - November 2016 in the urban field practice area of a Medical College in Davangere. A sample size of 2000 was covered by interviewing 366 households. By using pre-designed, pre-tested questionnaire information was collected on basic socio-demographic details, housing conditions, nature and timing of domestic accidents and the health care seeking behaviour.Results: The magnitude of domestic accidents was 5.2%, with falls being the most common domestic accidents (67.2%) occurring during the evening hours. Health seeking behaviour was found to be satisfactory.Conclusions: In our study the domestic accidents were more commonly found in the extreme age groups. Falls were the most frequent type of domestic accidents which occurred during the morning and evening hours, therefore there is a need for adequate lighting during evening hours to prevent dim light as well as proper designing of house to make it elderly and children friendly. The health education should be given regarding necessary safety precautions to reduce the occurrence of domestic accidents. 


Author(s):  
Netra G. ◽  
B. A. Varadaraja Rao ◽  
Prakash Kengnal

Background: Health insurance is also called as medical insurance offering coverage that pays for unexpected medical and surgical expenses to the policyholder. A health insurance plan is one of the most secured and safest way to provide financial coverage to the insured family. Objective of this study was to assess utilization, satisfaction, out of pocket expenses and to determine the health seeking behaviour of the insured residents of the rural field practice area of SSIMS and RC, Davanagere.Methods: The study was done in the rural field practice area of the medical college, Davangere from January 2016 to December 2016. A sample of 600 families were studied by systematic random sampling and data was collected from the head of the family using structured questionnaire by house to house interview. Statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS v10, percentages, proportions and Chi-square tests were applied to find the association among the variables.Results: The utilization of health insurance in the present study was 50.2% and satisfaction regarding the health insurance schemes was 93.4%.Conclusions: The study reveals that the out of pocket expenses is high among the uninsured families compared to the insured families. The Insurance policies should be revived to do favour the patients so that more families will be encouraged to enrol and utilize so that the out of pocket expenses will be reduced.


Author(s):  
Shweta Goswami ◽  
Pardeep Khanna ◽  
Ramesh Verma ◽  
Vinod Chayal ◽  
Varun Arora

Background: Antenatal breastfeeding education and motivation along with postnatal encouragement and lactation support are likely to improve rates of early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding. This study was done to know whether antenatal and postnatal visits were utilized for promotion of optimum breastfeeding in addition to the routine obstetric services.Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional type of community based epidemiological study was conducted in rural and urban field practice area attached to Department of Community Medicine, Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak. A total of 500 mothers were studied. A pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule was used for interviewing the study subjects and house to house visits were carried out to collect the information.Results: Health functionaries were the source of information in 49.6% mothers in urban area as compared to only 29.2% in rural areas. Breastfeeding related information was better in the mothers counseled by health functionaries than not counseled group.Conclusions: Health functionaries should be instructed to inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding during antenatal as well as postnatal visits. Existing breastfeeding education and postnatal support is not adequate in the population studied and needs to be strengthened.


Author(s):  
Satyajit Pattnaik ◽  
Kokila Selvaraj

Background: Traditionally dengue was perceived as an urban problem. But of late many cases are being reported from rural areas. This study was undertaken to assess the preventive measures taken by people in a rural area against dengue. Methods: This was a cross sectional study done in the rural field practice area of a private medical college in Tamilnadu. Hundred houses were selected from five villages through a multi stage simple random sampling. A pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule was used for data collection. Results: All household surveyed reported using some form of personal measures against dengue. The most common personal protective measure was use of mosquito nets (58%) followed by mosquito coils (9%). Almost all (98%) of the respondents use the PPM at night time only. Conclusions: It was found that many people are using PPMs but mostly during the daytime. This practice has to be corrected with more awareness and health education. 


Author(s):  
Chetanjit Baruah ◽  
Kajal Gupta ◽  
Sudhir Kumar Gupta ◽  
Pankaj Kumar Mishra

Background: Substance abuse is a serious problem because it is engulfing the younger generation with serious health, social and economic concern. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of substance abuse among male adolescents and study the habit pattern of substance abusers.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 776 male adolescents residing in urban and rural field practice areas under the department of Community Medicine, through randomly selected house to house visit. Data regarding the current use of alcohol and tobacco was collected in a predesigned and pretested proforma by oral questionnaire method.Results: The prevalence of substance abuse among male adolescents was found to be 22.8% and majority of them used some form of smokeless tobacco, followed by smoking tobacco. Consumption of alcohol or tobacco by adolescents is significantly associated with alcohol or tobacco consumption by their family members.Conclusions: Prevalence of substance abuse was high among the male adolescents and they should be motivated through IEC to give up the habit. 


Author(s):  
Ekta Arora ◽  
Jasleen Kaur ◽  
Shyam Sunder Deepti ◽  
Tejbir Singh ◽  
Mohan Lal

Background: Depression is not "one size fits all," particularly when it comes to the genders. Many factors contribute to the unique picture of depression in women-from reproductive hormones to social pressures to the female response to stress. It is estimated that by the year 2020, the burden of depression will be increased to 5.7% of the total burden of the disease.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted and 1000 married females were selected by systematic random sampling from rural and urban areas of District, Amritsar, India. Pretested and predesigned questionnaire and PHQ9 scale was used to obtain valid results.Results: In this study, 269 women are found to be suffering from depression as per the scale applied. Respondents having no social involvement are more prone to depression (31.1%) and majority of those, who faced some problem in public places, were found to be depressed (28.8%).11.2% women were depressed amongst those who act skilfully in response to a problem. 29.6% amongst those who got panic while 34.7% were found to be depressed amongst those who had an escapist attitude.Conclusions: Awareness through public education, early detection and organized national mental health programs can curb the increasing epidemic of depression.


Author(s):  
Anna Garus-Pakowska ◽  
Mariusz Górajski ◽  
Ewelina Gaszyńska

(1) Background: Frequent contact of the dentist with potentially infectious material (PIM) is undeniable. The aim of the study was to determine the frequency and type of injuries, as well as to identify barriers to reporting and barriers to the implementation of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) among dentists from urban and rural areas. (2) Methods: We surveyed 192 dentists using an anonymous questionnaire. (3) Results: During the 12 months preceding the survey, 63% of dentists from the village and 58.8% of dentists from the city suffered at least one superficial cut, and deep cuts 15.1% and 17.6% respectively. Contact with PIM through spitting on the conjunctiva was 58.9% and 52.1% (village vs. city). Needle stick injuries were 50.4% and fingers were affected in 48.8% cases. The causes of injuries were: inattention 54.7%, rush 27%, unpredictable behavior of the patient 19%, recapping 18.2%. Work in the countryside was associated with a 1.95-times greater chance of not reporting injuries. The distance from a hospital with antiretroviral treatment may be a barrier to the implementation of PEP. (4) Conclusion: The circumstances of the injuries and the reasons for not applying for antiretroviral treatment point to the areas of necessary dentist education in this topic.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document