Pregnant women’s knowledge and practice of preventive measures against COVID-19: a study from Mysore city, Karnataka, India

Background: The presently ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has not spared any segment of society including pregnant women. It is absolutely essential that pregnant mothers and their caregivers be fully aware of accurate facts about COVID-19. Objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and practice of preventive measures against COVID-19 infection among pregnant women of Mysore City.Methods: This was a cross sectional study, conducted among pregnant women attending prenatal care at a tertiary care centre. Data was collected using a validated questionnaire administered via google form to consenting pregnant women. The variables assessed were knowledge about aetiology, mode of spread and preventive measures to protect against COVID-19. Data was also collected on socio-demographic characteristics, which included age, parity, marital status, residence, occupation, participant’s education, husband’s education.Results: Out of the 93 responders, majority 71 (76.3%) were in the age group 20-30 years. 17 (18.3%) were in the 30-40 years age group. Regarding number of children 41 (44.1%) had one child 16 (17.2%) had 2 children and 32 (34.3%) were primigravida. With respect to educational status 70 (75.26%) were having graduate degree. 19 (20.4%) were non graduates, but had completed high school. Educational level of the husbands of the respondents was along similar lines with 62 (66.66%) having completed graduation, and 28 (30.1%) had completed high school. 91(97.8%) respondents were correct in identifying virus as the cause of COVID-19. 88 (94.6%) rightly chose mode of spread by sneezing or cough. 1 (0.1%) respondent wrongly indicated that injections were the mode of spread. Main symptoms cough and fever were correctly identified by 80 (86%) respondents. The practice of preventive medicine was low with respect to all aspects of COVID prevention. Only 27 (29.7%) were following frequent handwashing recommendation. Only 26 (28.6%) were following staying indoors advise. 28 (30.8%) of the respondents were wearing masks. However, 82 (90.1%) were following at least one of the preventive measures.Conclusions: The knowledge levels of pregnant women were satisfactory However this was not translated into practice by majority of the respondents

Size at birth and cognitive function among rural adolescents:a life course epidemiology study protocol of the Kisalaya cohort in Mysuru, South India

Introduction: It is proven that adverse intrauterine environment results in 'early life programming,' alterations in metabolism and physiological development of the fetus, often termed as 'Developmental Origins of Health and Disease' (DOHaD) resulting in a smaller size at birth, greater non-communicable diseases (NCD) risk factors during childhood and adolescence, and cardiometabolic disorders in adulthood. Nevertheless, very few studies have examined the relationship between DOHaD programming and cognition. This study aims to examine if impaired prenatal growth indicated by birth weight is associated with cognition among adolescents in the Kisalaya cohort, a rural birth cohort in South India, thus providing newer insights into DOHaD programming for adolescent mental health in a low-income and middle-income country setting.Methods and analysis: Kisalaya cohort was established in 2008, to provide integrated antenatal care and HIV testing using mobile clinics to improve maternal and child health outcomes. This cohort included pregnant women residing in 144 villages of Mysuru Taluk (rural) who received antenatal care through mobile clinics and delivered their children between 2008 and 2011. Data related to mother-infant dyads for all pregnant women who received care in the Kisalaya programme are available for this study. Presently, children born to women who received care through Kisalaya are adolescents between 10 and 12 years. At this point, information would be collected on sociodemographic data and assessments of mental health, stressful life events, cognition, vision, speech, language, hearing and anthropometric measures would be done and relevant maternal data and child data, available from the cohort would be retracted for analysis. We plan to retrace as many adolescents as possible out of 1544 adolescents who are currently available for study excluding twins, abortions, stillbirths and postdelivery deaths. Analyses will be extended to construct a life course pathway for cognition using structural equation modelling.</p

Student's perception of storytorial - An innovative approach to self-learning

Background: In the traditional undergraduate curriculum, majority of the hours is dedicated to passive lectures where students are mere listener. Emphasis on self-learning is restricted to reading some of the topics from the book and Internet. With reference to this, storytorial was introduced as an innovative learning method mainly concentrating on self-learning, communication skills, and retrieval of concept. A story was illustrated and enacted to a topic in physiology during tutorial hour, hence the name storytorial. Methods: This method of learning was introduced to the I MBBS 2018–2019 batch, comprising 200 students. They were divided into small groups; topics and list of students to perform storytorial were displayed in the notice board 15 days before the session. On the day of session, the selected 10 students performed a story that illustrated the physiology topic assigned to them. Time allotted for the presentation was 20–30 min. The students enacted the story, and one of them narrated how the story is linked to the topic. Later, a case study related to the topic was given, and the students solved the case in the presence of an in-charge teacher for that batch. The session lasted for 1 h. Likewise, all the students were involved in the performance with a different topic in separate sessions according to the time table. At the end of all the sessions, subjective feedback of storytorial from the students was taken using 5-point Likert scale and computed. Results: The analysis of feedback on 5-point Likert scale with point 5 as strongly agree and 1 as strongly disagree was as follows: increased confidence and learning – 4.468, better understanding of concept – 4.058, better memory retention and retrieval – 4.28, and enjoyed and liked the sessions – 4.37. 90% of the students recommended storytorial for the next batch. Conclusion: This innovative method is an extended role-play where the concepts are illustrated in the form of story which helps the students to understand and remember the medical concepts by self-learning approach