Assessment of Knowledge and Attitude regarding Emergency Contraception among Medical Students of North India

Author(s):  
Priyanka Choudhary ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajiv Kumar Gupta ◽  
Parveen Singh ◽  
Rashmi Kumari ◽  
Bhavna Langer ◽  
Pawan Sharma ◽  
...  

Background: Emergency contraception (EC) which is the only method indicated after the unprotected sexual intercourse prevents unintended pregnancies and its harmful consequences like unsafe abortion or unintended child delivery. Since medical students are the future medical professional and would be the main channel to provide preventive, promotive and curative services to the population at large, their knowledge and attitude towards EC is an important context in the overall health scenario of India. The study aimed to assess the knowledge and attitudes of medical students towards use of EC.Methods: This cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted among 2nd professional MBBS students in a Government Medical College in North India. The self administered questionnaire intended to seek information on knowledge and attitude of the students. The data so collected was expressed in percentages and Chi square test was used as test of significance.Results: All the respondents had heard of EC with mass media as the main source of information. More than 90% of the respondents knew about the indications for use of EC as well as the timing of the use of EC. Female respondents had better knowledge about composition of EC as well mechanism of action (p<0.05). More than 90% would recommend EC in case of unprotected sexual intercourse and 83.5% had positive attitude towards EC.Conclusions: Although knowledge about EC was good on certain parameters, yet lack of in depth knowledge among future health care providers is a cause of concern. So, attention be given to special issues relating to EC from early years of medical education till internship. 


Author(s):  
Aditya N. Gajera ◽  
Manish J. Barvaliya ◽  
Apexa Shukla ◽  
C. B. Tripathi

Background: Studying the knowledge and attitude of medical students towards emergency contraception, as they are the future medical professionals and they will serve as the main channel for providing proper knowledge and making positive impression of it in general population. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of undergraduate medical students towards emergency contraception.Methods: Medical students were given pre-validated questionnaire and divided in two groups. Group A students did not learn about emergency contraception, whereas group B students learnt about it. Interview of both groups were conducted separately. For group A, 1 hour seminar was conducted and after 7 days, same questionnaire was provided again for data collection.Results: 154 students were included in group A whereas 162 students in group B. Average knowledge and attitude was significantly increased after seminar in group A [knowledge 41±16.88% vs. 59.32±14.46%; P<0.05; attitude 36.24±10.93 vs. 41.5±10.87; P<0.05]. Average knowledge of group B students was 64.73±12.15% whereas average attitude score was 42.9±9.79. Amongst all, 86.4%, 87% and 89.3% students were not able to describe about emergency contraception, different methods and advantages of intra-uterine device as emergency contraception, respectively. There are 82.1% students showed positive interest in learning more about emergency contraception and 70.1% agreed to recommend its use in future. Students having good knowledge showed more positive attitude towards emergency contraception [r= 0.41, P<0.05].Conclusions: Students have poor knowledge of special issues arises with emergency contraception. Proper attention should be given to these aspects during their teaching. Students have shown their positive interest to learn more about emergency contraception. Objective based seminar will be more helpful in improving knowledge and attitude.


Author(s):  
Saajid Hameed ◽  
Shambhu Kumar Yadav

Inapt medical use is a major problem to ensure effective and safe treatment. Most common health diseases are treated by the people themselves without medical supervision, commonly referred to as self-medication (SM). However, it is also known that responsible SM must be accompanied by relevant health information. It has become a serious problem that raises concerns about misdiagnosis and drug reactions as well. To determine the pattern of SM procedures, to identify common diseases and common drugs used, SM causes and to examine the relationship between the level of medical education and SM practices among undergraduate medical students. A structured and validated questionnaire was used for the study to collect information regarding age, gender, awareness of SM practice, type of drugs self-medicated and source of information. Students were also interviewed to check their knowledge and attitude towards self-medication. Results obtained from this study were presented in tabular form and data were interpreted by using Microsoft Excel 365 software. Out of 387, 365 students (94.32%) students accepted self-medication practice. Most of the self-medicators used the medicines for fever (24.11%) followed by common cold (17.26%) and headache (16.71%). Paracetamol was used by 51.78% of students. Most of the students took self-medications for quick relief and for minor ailments.our study shows that SM is most prevalent in medical students of North India. Schedule H drugs have also been used without a prescription. This highlights the need for improved drug control.


Author(s):  
Priyanka . ◽  
R K Pal

Introduction: Excessive use of the Internet affects the academic achievements of students. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of Internet addiction and the pattern of Internet use among undergraduate medical students. Method: This analytical cross-sectional study conducted on 177 undergraduate medical students in batch 2016, 2017 and 2018, who were included in this study by convenience sampling method. The study tool was  Young’s Internet Addiction Test containing questions regarding the pattern of Internet use. Data entry and analysis was done by using Microsoft excel and SPSS version 21. Qualitative data were described in terms of frequency and percentage while quantitative data were expressed as mean and standard deviation. Chi square test and multiple linear regression were used to find out the relationship between various factors and Internet Addiction (IA).  The significance level was considered 0.05. Results: The mean age of the participants was 20.3 years (± 1.19), and 62 % of the subjects were males. The prevalence rate of Internet Addiction (IA) was found to be 56.5% and 42.9% of them were in mild and 13.6% were in moderate addiction category. Being male (β= -0.143, p=0.038), staying at a hostel (β= 0.167, p=0.018), not having a time preference for using the Internet (β= -0.174, p=0.012), spending more time on the Internet everyday (β= 0.201, p=0.000), being always online (β= 0.276, p=0.000) and more years of using the Internet (β= 0.175, p=0.015) were significantly related with IA in students. Conclusion: A large proportion of medical students were found to be addicted to the Internet. Therefore, this issue should be addressed immediately.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bala Bhasker ◽  
Suchet Sachdev ◽  
Neelam Marwaha ◽  
Sandeep Grover ◽  
Tarundeep Singh ◽  
...  

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