scholarly journals Laboratory Profile of Women Substance Users Seeking Treatment at Tertiary Care Centre in North India: A Retrospective Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  

Background: Women substance use is on increase worldwide. In India, published research on women substance users is limited. There is a need for quantitative and qualitative research on effective interventions for women. The present study aimed to assess the drug use pattern among women substance users based on urinalysis. Methodology: Retrospective review of laboratory records (2007-2018) was carried out for females seeking treatment at an apex de-addiction centre of North India. Their drug use history and laboratory test results were examined. Descriptive statistics was applied using SPSS 22.0. Results: A total of 29,339 tests were performed for drugs of abuse. Among them 415 tests (1.41%) represented women substance users with a mean age of 33.82 (10.58) years. Female to male ratio was found to be 1:70. Majority was diagnosed for Opioid Dependence Syndrome (ODS) (56.9%) followed by Nicotine (8.92%), Cannabis (4.3%), Alcohol (3.38%), Benzodiazepines (3.13%), and Inhalant (0.7%) dependence. The positive urinalysis result showed 56.86%, 27.45%, 9.81%, and 1.96% positive for codeine, morphine, cannabis and cotinine respectively. Conclusion: Substance use disorders have been found to be fairly prevalent in women. Urinalysis plays a pivotal role in the clinical management of patients in substance abuse treatment programs.

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (07) ◽  
pp. 1147-1150
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ilyas Jat ◽  
Ghulam Rasool Rind

Introduction: Psychoactive drug use is a continual and chronic psychological and physical disease that is characterized by persistent substance use, regardless of detrimental results. Hepatitis B, C and HIV infections constitute serious healthcare issues worldwide. Objectives: To determine the frequency of HBV, HCV, and HIV among Injection Drug Users (IDUs), visiting a tertiary care centre at Karachi, Pakistan, co-relation with socioeconomic status, type of substance use and duration of substance use. Study Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting: Psychiatry Outpatient Department (OPD), Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, JPMC, Karachi. Period: 5th Aug 2016 to 5th Feb 2017. Material and Methods: Total 280 cases of both genders having Injection Drug Use history were enrolled in the study. Non-probability (consecutive) sampling was done. The data was analysed on SPSS version 20.0. Results: The average age of patients was 32.26 ±9.83 years. Majority 256 (91.4%) were male. Out of 280, 142 (50.7%) were married, 108 (38.6%) were single, 20 (7.1%) were widow and 10 (3.6%) were divorced/separated. Most of patients belonged to lower socioeconomic class. Opioids were the most common substance used and most of patients were using substance for more than 2 years. Majority of patients were preliterate or educated till primary and were jobless. HCV was predominantly present followed by HBV, HIV as 47 (16.8%), 22 (7.9%) and 9 (3.2%) respectively. Conclusion: Frequency of infections with HBV, HCV and HIV is quite high and alarming.


JMS SKIMS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-49
Author(s):  
Javaid Ahmad Bhat ◽  
Shariq Rashid Masoodi

Apropos to the article by Dr Bali, titled “Mupirocin resistance in clinical isolates of methicillin-sensitive and resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a tertiary care centre of North India” (1), the authors have raised important issue of emerging antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society. As per WHO, AMR lurks the effective prevention and management of an ever-increasing spectrum of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, fungi and viruses. Novel resistance mechanisms are emerging and spreading globally, threatening the man’s ability to treat common infectious diseases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra D. Gipson ◽  
Scott Rawls ◽  
Michael D. Scofield ◽  
Benjamin M. Siemsen ◽  
Emma O. Bondy ◽  
...  

AbstractChronic use of drugs of abuse affects neuroimmune signaling; however, there are still many open questions regarding the interactions between neuroimmune mechanisms and substance use disorders (SUDs). Further, chronic use of drugs of abuse can induce glutamatergic changes in the brain, but the relationship between the glutamate system and neuroimmune signaling in addiction is not well understood. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to bring into focus the role of neuroimmune signaling and its interactions with the glutamate system following chronic drug use, and how this may guide pharmacotherapeutic treatment strategies for SUDs. In this review, we first describe neuroimmune mechanisms that may be linked to aberrant glutamate signaling in addiction. We focus specifically on the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) pathway, a potentially important neuroimmune mechanism that may be a key player in driving drug-seeking behavior. We highlight the importance of astroglial-microglial crosstalk, and how this interacts with known glutamatergic dysregulations in addiction. Then, we describe the importance of studying non-neuronal cells with unprecedented precision because understanding structure-function relationships in these cells is critical in understanding their role in addiction neurobiology. Here we propose a working model of neuroimmune-glutamate interactions that underlie drug use motivation, which we argue may aid strategies for small molecule drug development to treat substance use disorders. Together, the synthesis of this review shows that interactions between glutamate and neuroimmune signaling may play an important and understudied role in addiction processes and may be critical in developing more efficacious pharmacotherapies to treat SUDs.


Healthline ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-107
Author(s):  
Arti Agrawal ◽  
Vikas Kumar ◽  
Sanjeev Kumar ◽  
Neha K Mani

Introduction: Dengue virus infection is a major public health issue prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical countries all over the world mostly in urban and semi-urban areas. WHO estimates about 50-100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. The present study is aimed to assess the prevalence and seasonal distribution of dengue disease during three consecutive years from 2016-2018 at a tertiary care centre of North India. Method: This is an observational retrospective study conducted on total 6,481 clinical suspected cases referred from indoor and outdoor departments of Medicine and Pediatrics of one of the medical colleges of Agra during the period from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2018. Results: The maximum positivity was recorded in the year 2016 (16.66%), followed by 2017 (14.07%) and 2018(13.56%).Our study shows male preponderance with maximum cases in the year 2018 was recorded in the month of October (22.75%) whereas the lowest in the month of May (1.96%). Most of the cases were in the age group 0-30 years with a male preponderance. The outbreak occurred during the months of August to November indicating vector transmission in the monsoon and post-monsoon season. Conclusion: From the analysis, this study reflects that the numbers of dengue cases in 2016 were maximum and outnumbered the dengue cases among three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018. The peak in dengue positivity was observed during September to October. As this disease affects the population in the monsoon and post monsoon months therefore continuous monitoring of dengue infection is important during the post-monsoon season.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document