Assessment of Farmers' Understanding of the Information Displayed on Pesticide Product labels in Ilorin Metropolis of Kwara State

This paper assesses farmers' understanding of the information displayed on pesticides product labels in Ilorin metropolis of Kwara State. Data were obtained using structured questionnaire. A random sampling was employed for selecting 86 respondents representing 20% of the total 430 registered members of farmers association of Nigeria in the metropolis. Descriptive statistics were used as analytical tools. The result shows that majority of the farmers were male and ranges between 31 to 50 years of age. The farmers were literate with majority having secondary education and also with 6 to 10 years experience in pesticides usage and farming. The study further revealed that despite high literacy level among farmers in Ilorin metropolis of Kwara state and widespread experiences in the use of pesticides, majority do not understand the information displayed on pesticide product label. The results showed the information displayed on pesticide product label was not effective in the sense that the farmers do not read the labels let alone understood it .They however preferred the information given by their colleagues. Majority of the farmers keep the pesticides inside their houses, prepare it on the field and discard the empty packages into forest. Most of the farmers know about Dichloro-diphenyl trichloro ethane as the only banned pesticide in circulation. The major problems facing the farmers with regards to understanding pesticide labels are that languages used are mostly technical and foreign. It was suggested that pictorial demonstration and bold images should be used since what is seen are easy understood.Keywords: information displayed, pesticides and product labels

Substance use among healthcare workers in a Nigerian tertiary hospital

Background: Research studies abound on substance use among healthcare workers (HCWs) in the western world, but a paucity of such information is the case in developing countries. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of substance use among HCWs in a Nigerian tertiary hospital and the variety of substances commonly used. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 380 HCWs selected across 4 professional cadres by stratified random sampling method. Results: About 85.5% of the respondents were past and/or current users of substances or substance-containing food items. Out of the 325 respondents who had ever used substances before, 208 (64%) were current users- these represented 54.7% of the whole. Coffee, alcohol and kolanuts were most frequently used. Diazepam was the least used. Gender was a statistically significant determinant of substance use (p<0.05). Conclusion: Substance use among HCWs carries grave implications for practitioners and patients alike. Further research towards unearthing and addressing the factors fueling this menace in developing countries will contribute immensely in resolving this challenge

The impact of advocacy and community mobilization on the utilization of health services at the Comprehensive Health Centre, Gindiri.

Primary Health Care facilities provide promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services to a community. They may be well built and equipped with adequate resources but grossly underutilized due to several factors. Health records at the Comprehensive Health Centre Gindiri for 2005 were compared with those of 2007 after a wellcoordinated advocacy and mobilization programme in that community. The results show that the total out patient attendance in 2007 increased by 220.6% when compared to that of 2005. 293 patients were admitted into the wards in 2005 compared to 813 in 2007(277%). There was no surgery carried out in the whole of 2005, whereas in 2007 there were 98 surgeries. Advocacy and community mobilization could be important factors in the utilization of primary health service

Effect of Light Intensities on Growth Performance of Tetrapleura tetraptera Seedlings Schum. (Thonn.)

The study assessed the effect of varying light intensities and optimum percentage of sunlight favourable for raising Tetrapleura tetraptera seedlings. The light intensity was measured through photometer. The experiment was subjected to a control without wire mesh(T1) and three other treatments (T2, T3 and T4) covered with different layers of black wire mesh with 99.5%, 75%, 49.8% and 25% light intensities respectively. Each of the treatments was replicated six times in a completely randomized design. The plant height, leaf production and stem diameter were all monitored for 12 weeks. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed and the means separated using Least Significant Difference (LSD). The results showed that the significance effect (P = \u3b10.05) was only observed in the seedlings height of Tetrapleuratetrapteraseedlings. However, the mean values obtained for all the parameters considered revealed the treatment 1(i.e. 99.8% wire mesh) was observed to be the best performing treatment. For the plant height, mean value ranged between 13.09 cm and 16.8 cm, a range from 0.22cm to 0.28mm was recorded for stem girth while the mean values between 22 and 27 were obtained for number of leaves among the treatments. It may be concluded from the study, that light intensity of 100% i.e without interference should be used for the growth and development as well as production of Tetrapleura tetraptera seedlings in the nursery

Determinants of low family planning use and high unmet need in Butajira District, South Central Ethiopia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The rapid population growth does not match with available resource in Ethiopia. Though household level family planning delivery has been put in place, the impact of such programs in densely populated rural areas was not studied. The study aims at measuring contraception and unmet need and identifying its determinants among married women.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 5746 married women are interviewed from October to December 2009 in the Butajira Demographic Surveillance Area. Contraceptive prevalence rate and unmet need with their 95% confidence interval is measured among married women in the Butajira district. The association of background characteristics and family planning use is ascertained using crude and adjusted Odds ratio in logistic regression model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Current contraceptive prevalence rate among married women is 25.4% (95% CI: 24.2, 26.5). Unmet need of contraception is 52.4% of which 74.8% was attributed to spacing and the rest for limiting. Reasons for the high unmet need include commodities' insecurity, religion, and complaints related to providers, methods, diet and work load. Contraception is 2.3 (95% CI: 1.7, 3.2) times higher in urbanites compared to rural highlanders. Married women who attained primary and secondary plus level of education have about 1.3 (95% CI: 1.1, 1.6) and 2 (95% CI: 1.4, 2.9) times more risk to contraception; those with no child death are 1.3 (95% CI: 1.1, 1.5) times more likely to use contraceptives compared to counterparts. Besides, the odds of contraception is 1.3 (95% CI: 1.1, 1.6) and 1.5 (1.1, 2.0) times more likely among women whose partners completed primary and secondary plus level of education. Women discussing about contraception with partners were 2.2 (95% CI: 1.8, 2.7) times more likely to use family planning. Nevertheless, contraception was about 2.6 (95% CI: 2.1, 3.2) more likely among married women whose partners supported the use of family planning.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The local government should focus on increasing educational level. It must also ensure family planning methods security, increase competence of providers, and create awareness on various methods and their side effects to empower women to make an appropriate choice. Emphasis should be given to rural communities.</p

Optimization of binder, disintegrant and compression pressure for paracetamol tablet formulations

The composition of pharmaceutical formulations at developmental stage is often subjected to trials and errors in order to find the best formula and composition of ingredients, and this can be time consuming and wasteful. Optimization by means of experimental design was used to study the effect of three factors on three tablet responses with a view to reducing the long time expended during developmental stage. This was done by studying the contributions of variable factors of binder concentration, disintegrant concentration and compression pressure to tablet friability, hardness and disintegration time under factor combinations given by 23 factorial experimental designs. The effect of every factor was determined by finding the average response of all the combinations in which the factor occurs at high level and subtracting the mean responses resulting from all the combinations in which the factor occurs at low level. The significance of each effect was then determined by a student t-test when degree of freedom, Ô = (n1 + n2 - 2) = 6 and P = 5 %. The results show that the factors had effect on the responses depending on their concentration ranges and the ratio in which they occurred in the factorial combination.KEYWORDS: Binder, disintegrant, compression pressure, factorial combination, significance,responses