SELF-ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS BY MANAGEMENT STUDENTS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN INDIAN CONTEXT

Communication skills are most sought after by the business world and are considered to be vital for personal and professional growth. There have been many researches on the importance of communication skills and how they act as catalysts in getting a job or a dream job. Furthermore, employers, institutes and universities also emphasise that an individual apt at communication skills is more likely to get a job in comparison to one who is not. This study is meant to decipher the communication skills of management trainees at the time of joining the institute through a self-appraisal questionnaire. The research design employed was Descriptive Cross-Sectional. 125 students were chosen from five management institutes in Lucknow(India) by employing non-random Convenience Sampling. Findings indicated that there is an overall fear of public speaking,respondents fall short of words while writing in English and need to be encouraged to read more English magazines and novels.Conclusively, a curriculum may be designed wherein the faculty, along with inputs of the students can build a framework with a view to maximising public speaking activities, and other activities may focus upon reading and writing. Moreover, peer-feedback is recommended to enhance reflective learning

An End-to-End Machine Learning Solution for Anxiety and Depressive Disorder Symptom Occurrence During COVID-19: A New York Case Study

Anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic have heightened as evidenced by the rapidly growing corpus of research articles suggesting a link between the pandemic and mental health. This paper proposes a unique end-to-end user-centric machine learning (ML) architecture, capable of assessing the quality of ML predictions about the occurrence of anxiety and/or depression symptoms. A case study is presented using official New York State COVID-19 data, highlighting the plug-and-play capabilities of this architecture for both external features, and newer ML models. This is demonstrated through the formal design of a custom weighted clustering algorithm which outperforms conventional unsupervised techniques in grouping symptomatic cases. The ability to augment external sentiment data mined from social media platforms like Twitter, increases the predictive power of this architecture. This work serves as a blueprint to build a practical ML solution to better gauge the effect of future pandemic waves on mental health

Diabetes Awareness & Its Challenges- A Hammering Issue

Diabetes is one of the most common non communicable diseases affecting many people of our country. India being a diabetic capital of world is facing a major epidemic of same. After Covid -19 pandemic its become more evident that person who were having deranged blood sugar level were more at risk of getting infections. So its very important to create awareness of same. According to National Family Health Survey -5 (NFHS-5) men & women with high or very high blood sugar level (>140mg/dl) who are taking medicines were 15.6 % & 13.5% respectively. Females 15 years & above whose blood sugar levels were high or very high were 6.1 & 6.3 % and men with same were 7.3 & 7.2 %(1). These findings were added first time in NFHS survey as more and more population are getting this silent but killer disease. The main risk factors for this disease are very well known like modifiable risk factors are obesity specially central obesity, gestational diabetes, sedentary life style, a highly saturated fat diet, reduced intake of dietary fibers, malnutrition related diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption etc (2)

Practice and problems regarding oral hygiene: study among female medical undergraduate students of tertiary care hospital, Pune, India

Background:As a health provider to community, a doctor should himself be aware of his oral health and undergraduate medical students who are future health professionals should also be well aware of their dental hygiene. Hence with an aim to assess the practice and problems about dental hygiene amongst female medical undergraduate students, this study was planned. Objective of the study was to assess the practices and problems regarding oral hygiene among female undergraduate medical students and efforts taken by them to solve these problems.Method: A cross-sectional study was undertaken among female undergraduate medical students residing in a hostel of a medical college.Results: 56.7% girls were using soft tooth brush, 69.3% students change their tooth brush every 6 monthly and 63.3% of them were brushing only once in a day. 79.3% were rinsing teeth after snack or meal. The percentage of students who were using mouth wash and tongue cleaner was 27.3% and 52% respectively. Bad breath was faced by only 9.33% of students, 39.33% were having cavities and 49.33% were having problem of plaque. 25.3% had never visited dentist. Scaling was performed by only 24.7% students and among them only 1.33% did it 6 monthly. It was observed that students using mouth wash 22.2% had significantly less problem of bad breath as compared to students who were not using 6.7%. Significantly larger numbers of students, with problem of cavities were observed to use mouth wash 60% and floss 68% as compared to those who did had this complaint.Conclusion: The study highlights the fact that preventive behaviour among medical students increased after they experienced some or the other oral health problem for which they were advised to follow these preventive practices so that the severity and extent of the disease does not progress. Further research is required on a larger scale so that the ways to increase the promotive and preventive oral health practices can be identified (e.g. behaviour change communication) to prevent the occurrence of oral health problems.

Mounting dengue awareness: A cost effective Strategy for prevention

Background: Dengue is a serious illness which takes toll on human health every year. The best way to prevent it is by increasing awareness among common people. This study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding dengue fever in people urban heath training centre in Pune, Maharashtra. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among patients attending OPD of Urban heath training centre of department of community medicine, Pune situated in Ajmera, Pimpri, Pune. Through convenience sampling, a questionnaire was administered to patients after taking their informed consent. Results: A total of 100 patients were interviewed. Among knowledge 83% had heard about dengue and the most common source of information was TV & radio (72.3%) Most of them were aware regarding mosquito bite being the mode of dengue transmission (80.7%). 22% were unaware regarding biting time of mosquito while 22% said night is the biting time of dengue mosquito. 62.7% were using coils for mosquito bite prevention followed by mosquito net (43.4%) and spray (31.3%.). Conclusion: This study revealed that most of the study population is aware of dengue illness and increasing education level is having positive attitude on dengue illness

Substance use among females –Study from Rural Western India

Background: Substance abuse is a common health problem which affects individual and takes a toll on not only person consuming it rather all members of society related to that person. Aim & Objective: The purpose of study was to determine the prevalence of substance use among females & to know the reasons for same and association of socio-demographic profile and substance use. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional study was conducted among females attending OPD at rural health training centre of a medical college for 6months duration. Total 500 females were interviewed for same by convenience sampling. Methods and Material: After taking informed consent from participants all the information was collected on predesigned and pretested oral questionnaire. Statistical analysis used: Qualitative Data was presented in the form of numbers and percentages. Test of significance such as chi-square was applied. Statistical analysis was done using MedCalc version 19.1 and Epi-info7. Results: Prevalence of substance use was found very high as 74%. Most common form of substance use was tobacco chewing at 77.03%. Abuse was maximum among females educated up to primary level (82.3%). Near about 72.7% were using substance out of curiosity. 84.32% were interested in quitting abuse. Conclusions: Substance use prevalence was very high affecting health of females adversely

Are menstrual knowledge outcome scores similar among rural and urban girls?

Background: Adolescent girls constitute a vulnerable group particularly in India where menstruation is still regarded as something dirty and messy. The cultural and social influences appear to be hurdle for advancement of knowledge of the subject. This results in adverse health outcomes in these adolescent girls. Awareness about menstruation and hygienic practices followed during menstruation are of immense importance as it has a health impact in terms of increased vulnerability to reproductive tract infection.Aim: a) To assess and compare the knowledge regarding menstruation in rural and urban adolescent girls. b) To associate the findings with the selected socio-demographic variables.Subjects and methods: A community based, cross sectional study was undertaken among 715 adolescent schools going girls in the field practice area of the RHTC and UHTC of Department of Community Medicine, District Bareilly. A pre-designed, pretested structured questionnaire was used in the study regarding knowledge and perception of the school going girls regarding menstruation.Results: Majority of the girls had first heard of menstruation and acquired knowledge related to it before attaining menarche (72.45%). The major source of information was from their mothers and sisters (60.6%). Maximum number of girls was not aware of the source of bleeding (53.7%). Statistically significant difference with knowledge scores was seen in girls of higher standards, maternal literacy and father’s occupation.Conclusion: Several factors are known to influence menstrual behaviour, the most significant being maternal literacy and father’s occupation. Imparting knowledge about menstruation and safe practices during menstruation is necessary to mitigate the suffering of adolescent girls. Therefore promoting positive attitudes towards management of menstruation and related problems among the adolescent girls is the need of the hour.Keywords: Menstruation, Knowledge, Perceptio

Advances in pulmonary drug delivery targeting microbial biofilms in respiratory diseases

The increasing burden of respiratory diseases caused by microbial infections poses an immense threat to global health. This review focuses on the various types of biofilms that affect the respiratory system and cause pulmonary infections, specifically bacterial biofilms. The article also sheds light on the current strategies employed for the treatment of such pulmonary infection-causing biofilms. The potential of nanocarriers as an effective treatment modality for pulmonary infections is discussed, along with the challenges faced during treatment and the measures that may be implemented to overcome these. Understanding the primary approaches of treatment against biofilm infection and applications of drug-delivery systems that employ nanoparticle-based approaches in the disruption of biofilms are of utmost interest which may guide scientists to explore the vistas of biofilm research while determining suitable treatment modalities for pulmonary respiratory infections. </jats:p

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P &lt; 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

The death of a relationship

Silent teardrops fell on her glistening cheeks, Each tear, tearing her apart. The vows of togetherness, blurred in darkness, Each darkness darker than a blackened grief-stricken heart, What began as a passion, ended on anything else but a passionate note, Where was her lover, for whom she forever dote? A bond that was strong with fires of fervors now lay still, Still and lifeless like a patient in comatose with no will