Health Education Services in the Selected District Hospitals: Service Providers and Service Receivers Perspective

This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out for one year in two district hospitals under Dhaka division among 71 service providers and 135 service receivers with the aim of assessing the status of health education services in district hospitals from both service receivers and service providers' perspective. Data was collected from the respondents through face-to-face interviews using a pretested semi-structured questionnaire. The study revealed that health education was provided in the district hospitals mainly by nurses (78.9%), followed by physicians (14.1%) and health education officers (7.0%). Among them, 54.9% were trained in health education. They were providing health education on environmental and personal hygiene, food and nutrition, immunization, diarrhoea, breast feeding, antenatal care, postnatal care, tuberculosis and pneumonia through different methods. In spite of having limitations on health education support services, most of the service receivers were satisfied with the cooperation as well as the media or methods of health education used by the service providers during health education sessions. The findings of this study may be useful for the improvement of the health education service status in the district level hospitals. Update Dent. Coll. j: 2022; 12(2): 3-

Emergency Service Management for Road Traffic Accident Patients in a Specialized Public Hospital in Dhaka

Introduction: Road traffic accident (RTA) imposes an enormous public health burden and are a major threat to society nowadays. Emergency service has gained tremendous importance because of increasing RTA. Emergency medical service (EMS) can reduce the extent of death and disability. Method: This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the management of emergency service for RTA patients which covers both service receivers and service RTA patients as service receivers 50 doctors, nurses, and supporting staff as service providers were interviewed with a semi-structured questionnaire based on different variables related to emergency service management. Data were analyzed by SPSS software. Through an observational checklist, almost all the facilities in the emergency department were found available and functional according to Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in spite of having a high doctor-patient and nurse-patient ratio. Result: The study revealed that out of 250 RTA patients majority 84.0% were male, the mean age was 34.8 (± 10.6 ) years, and the majority (84.0%) suffered from multiple injuries. It was also observed more than half (58.8%) of RTA patients waited to get emergency treatment for 2-5 minutes; where 38.4% waited for more than 5-10 minutes to get emergency treatment, almost three fourth (78.4%) got emergency medicines and the majority (83.6%) got the urgent investigation facilities from the hospital, almost all the emergency patients (89.2%) attended by a doctor within 5 minutes according to ­receivers found highly satisfied on overall emergency service management. Conclusion: Some important suggestions made by the service providers to improve the emergency service for RTA patients need to consider with proper attention by the authority

Respiratory, Neurological and Other Health Outcomes among Plastic Factory Workers in Gazipur, Bangladesh

Background: Approximately three thousand plastic goods manufacturing factories (PGMF) are currently operating in Bangladesh involving numerous workers. Associated health problems of these workers are largely unknown. The key objectives of the current study were identifying plastic chemical exposures related health outcomes in these workers and comparing these outcomes before and after their joining in PGMFs. In addition, we aimed to investigate the relationships between work duration and the prevalence of health ailments among workers. Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out among factory workers (n=405) at six PGMFs in Gazipur district in Bangladesh. A simple random sampling method had been applied to select participants and data on their self-reported exposures to chemicals and associated respiratory, neurological, and other multiple health outcomes were collected through a validated questionnaire survey. Data were analyzed using different descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The categorical variables and continuous variables were interpreted using frequency distribution and standard deviation (SD) respectively. A Pearson chi-square (χ2) test was applied to evaluate the correlation between work duration and health outcomes. A p-value Results: The average age and work duration of the workers were 25.63±6.85 and 3.49±3.53 years, respectively, implying that most workers were young, and spent over 10% of their lifetime in PGMFs work. Most common health outcomes reported by the workers were nasal discharges: 60 (14.9%), headaches: 76 (18.9%), fatigues: 112 (27.8%), losses of appetites: 108 (26.8%), urination problems: 61 (13.1%), losses of body weights: 102 (25.3%), and nervousness: 70 (17.4%). Among the common health outcomes only headache (p=0.005); fatigue (p=0.04); urination problem (p=p=0.004) were significantly associated with the work duration. Furthermore, except for hypertension and tarry stool, all health outcomes among workers differ significantly before and after joining in PGMFs. Conclusion: This study first time identified important health outcomes of the PGMFs workers and generated baseline information on common health outcomes of the PGMFs workers in developing countries like Bangladesh. However, it might be important to identify potential causes of such health outcomes in PGMFs workers considering both biomarkers of exposures and real-time environmental samples to understand the disease pathology and to recommend mitigation measures to be taken by occupational health policymakers and practitioners in developing countries