Indian Journal of Preventive Medicine

This short communication paper was aimed to provide a perspective viewpoint on the chronic pain preventive strategies and methods from an evidence-informed search of PubMed database. There were studies on whiplash associated disorder, low back pain, post-operative (inguinal hernia surgery), and therapeutic adjunct to cognitive-behavioral therapy, all of which proved acceptable results in favor of preventive interventions targeted against development of chronic pain. Future studies are recommended on multidimensional multidisciplinary interventions in prevention of multifactorial presentation of chronic pain along a biopsychosocial model.

Keywords: Chronic pain; Pain-related disability; Primary prevention; Secondary prevention.

Background: Around the world 115,000 out of 510,000 maternal deaths and out of 2,464,000 perinatal deaths 591,000 are associated with anaemia. Even though National nutritional anaemia prophylaxis programme was implemented to reduce nutritional anaemia in the year 1970 still anaemia is more common in rural pregnant women.Hence the present cross-sectional study. Material & Methods: Objectives: To know the prevalence of anaemia among pregnant women residing in rural area & the factors associated with anaemia.Study was carried out from May-July 2011 in Primary Health Center, Handignur Belgaum, among 214 pregnant women residing in that area during the study period. With the help of pre designed questionnaire all pregnant women were interviewed & data was collected. Statistical Analysis: Chi-square test was used for testing association between anaemia and factors associated with it. Results: In the present study prevalence of anaemia was 57.1% and 60.3% of pregnant women were in age group of 18-24 years, 77.8% were illiterates & 88.2% belonged to class V of B.G.Prasad’s socio-economic classification. 78.6% women were gravida 4 & above were found to be anaemic. Conclusion: Our study showed that prevalence of anaemia was > 50% among pregnant women. Anaemia was positively associated with educational status of pregnant women and their husbands, age at menarche, parity, spacing between children. There was no statistical association between anaemia and the age of pregnant women.

Keywords: Anaemia prevalence; Pregnant women; Rural India.

Introduction: India leads the world with largest number of diabetic subjects earning the dubious distinction of being termed the “diabetes capital of the world”. According to the Diabetes Atlas 2006 published by the International Diabetes Federation, the number of people with diabetes in India is currently around 40.9 million and is expected to rise to 69.9 million by 2025 unless urgent preventive steps are taken. Very high levels of diabetes have been reported in urban areas of India, but few data are available for rural regions where >70% of the population lives. Methods: The present cross sectional study was conducted in Vantamuri Primary Health Centre (PHC), a field practice area of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belgaum, Karnataka during December 2011. The target population consisted of all people aged 40 years and above. Urine analysis for sugar was done by uristix method and individuals with positive urine test were subjected to blood sugar examination by glucometer. Results: Among the 2553 individuals surveyed, 851 were males and 1702 were females. 151 were diagnosed to have diabetes by blood glucose levels, out of which 62 (41.1%) were males and 89 (58.9%) were females. Hence the overall prevalence of diabetes was 5.91% (151), the prevalence in males being 7.28% and in females 5.22%. Age, BMI, hypertension and family history were found to be significantly associated with diabetes. Conclusion: Diabetes in rural areas needs special attention. Focus on health education related to diabetes and other NCD is the need of the hour in rural areas.

Keywords: Diabetes; Adults; Rural community.

Introduction: In a hugely populated country like India with over 1.2 billion people with diverse cultures, the screening and diagnosing methods for diabetes should be non-invasive, simple, cost-effective and less time-consuming. Indian Diabetic Risk Score (IDRS) developed by Dr V Mohan using four simple parameters, namely age, family history of diabetes, waist circumference and physical activity based on a multiple logistic regression model used to help identify undiagnosed diabetes in the community. Objective: To assess the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus in South Indian rural population using Indian Diabetes Risk Score. Methodology: This community based cross-sectional study conducted in rural population covered by 3 Primary Health Centers (PHCs) namely Vantamuri , Handignur & Kinaye which are field practice areas of Dept of Community Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical college, KLE University, Belgaum-Karnataka to assess the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus using IDRS. A total of 750 non-diabetic subjects aged 20 years and above were included in the study. The study Period was 1st August to15th November 2013. Data was collected using pre-tested questionnaire by house to house survey. Results: Out of 750 subjects recruited for the study, 53.33% of the participants belonged to PHC Vantamuri, 33.33% belonged to PHC Handignur and 13.34% belonged to PHC Kinaye. Nearly 50.5% were males and 49.5% were females. Among the study participants 21.8 % were doing regular exercise as well as strenuous work, 68.4 % were doing regular work / strenuous work and 9.8 % did not exercise and were sedentary workers. Out of 371 female participants, 46.9 % had waist circumference below 80 cm, 43.1 % had waist circumference between 80-89, and 10% had above 90 cm. Out of 379 male participants, 61.5 % had waist circumference below 90 cm, 32.5 % had between 90-99 and 6 % had above 100 cm. Out of 750 study participants majority (74.0%) had no family history of diabetes, 22.5 % had one parent as diabetic and 3.5 % of the people had both parents as diabetic. In this study 37 .1% of the study participants were at low risk, 37.7% were at moderate risk and 25.2 % were at high risk of developing diabetes. Conclusion: A diabetes risk score will help in devising effective screening strategies to unmask the hidden burden of the disease. The risk factor approach needs aggressive identification for planning prevention strategies and for an early diagnosis.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus; Risk score; Physical activity; Family history; Abdominal  obesity.

Context: Postnatal care is one of the most important maternal health-care services. Adequate utilization of postnatal care can help reduce maternal and infant mortality. Poverty, illiteracy, gender bias and availability of medical facilities influence health care utilization. Utilization of Postnatal health care services is under- researched in India. Objective: To study the utilization pattern of postnatal health care services among rural mothers and factors influencing the utilization.  Materials and Methods:  A community based cross-sectional study, involving 497 mothers of Handignur Primary Health Centre of Belgaum district, who had delivered from June 2007 to May 2008. Results: Only 2.4% of mothers had three postnatal visits, 53.3% had 1-2 postnatal visits and 46.7% mothers did not receive any postnatal care. Literacy level, socioeconomic status and parity of the mother were significantly associated with the utilization of services. Conclusion: Utilization of postnatal health care services was unacceptably low as majority of the mothers were unaware of the need of postnatal services. The findings reveal the need for strengthening of postnatal services to improve the maternal health.

Keywords: Health Services; Mothers; Postnatal; Rural; Utilisation.