Indian Journal of Preventive Medicine

Arthritis is a common disorder affects the elderly person. Siddha medicine is a traditional way of treating various diseases using herbs, inorganic substances and animal products. Most of the Siddha medicinal plants possess the anti-arthritic property and it is widely used in southern India..Siddha medicine in India has demonstrated path with record of 10000 years and forms part of the Health Service, existing alongside conventional medicine.

Keywords: Siddha medicine; Arthritis; Antiarthritic Herbs.

Background: Anaemia is a serious global public health problem with 42% of children less than 5 years of age and 40% of pregnant women worldwide being anaemic.1 In India 58.6% children in age group 6-59 months, 53.2% non-pregnant women between 15-49 years suffer from anaemia.2 Adolescents girls are at a greater vulnerability in developing countries exposed to dangers of greater reproductive morbidity and mortality during adulthood if not taken care at appropriate time.7 This study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of anaemia and levels of awareness regarding anaemiaamong rural and urban adolescent school girls and to find any significant differences therein. Methodology: Aschool based cross sectional study was conducted involving two schools selected by purposive sampling. 300 adolescent school going girls in 12 – 19 years age group participated in the study, 150 participants were from urban area and 150 from rural area. A pre designed, semi-structured questionnaire was used to know the awareness on anaemia among girls. Haemo-check kit was used to detect cases of anaemia and thereafter for grading into mild/moderate/severe. Data collected was processed through MS Excel and SPSS20 . Results: Prevalence of anaemia was higher amongst rural adolescent school girls 54.7% compared to urban adolescent school girls 39.4% and this difference was significant (p<0.05). Prevalence of moderate & severe anaemia was found more in rural adolescent school girls as compared to urban school girls and this difference was found significant (p<0.05). Awareness regarding anaemia, was higher among urban adolescent girls compared to the rural school girls and this difference was significant (p<0.05).

Keywords: Anaemia, Adolescent girls, Prevalence.

Background: According to 2011 census 69%of the Indian population and 66% of people in Karnataka reside in rural areas. Knowledge about the nutritional status and morbidity pattern among rural people is essential for prevention, treatment, management of disease along with promotion of health among rural women .The health of the women is known to be influenced by her nutritional status. Over the years several changes have occurred in diet and physical activity, which have led to malnutrition and have contributed to several morbidity factors. Efforts are needed to improve diet quality and education for rural women so that they rise in economic status and are better nourished. Methods: Present study was a community based cross sectional study. Convenient Sampling method was used. A total of 200 women were randomly selected as sample from the selected villages. The period of study was three month from 31st january2019 to 31st March 2019. The women in the reproductive age from 15-45 years, who were willing to participate, were included in the study. Results: Out of 200 women in our study 7% of women were illiterate, 86% were house wives, 36% of them belonged to socio economic status class I, 76 % had no history of any regular physical activity while pallor was present in 22% of study subjects. Further, 95% of the women under study gave history of having received antenatal care, 54% of them gave history Dysmenorrhea while 14% of the women had irregular cycles of menstruation. The study also brought out that 18% of the women were found to be obese, 2% were known diabetic, 7% of them suffered from UTI while 6% of them were known hypertensive. Conclusion: Literacy rate was found to be very high in our study population area while most of the women belonged to higher socioeconomic status. Number of obese people was more which indicates unhealthy food intake and lack of physical activity. Antenatal care was found to be taken by greater number of study population. Prevalence of hypertension and diabetes as found to be on lower side.

Keywords: Nutritional status; Morbidity; Physical Activity; Obesity; Antenatal care.