LSCS notes audit in a tertiary referral centre of Uttar Pradesh, India

Background: Obstetrics is a very litigious branch as the nature of job is highly pressured and it deals with two lives a mother and baby/babies. There are situations where there are no mistakes but there is no ‘documentation’ of due to high turnover of labouring women which leads to difficulty in dealing with medico legal cases. It is due to this reasons we decided to do an audit of our Caesarean section operative notes.Methods: We planned to audit the quality of caesarean section documentation in a University teaching hospital of North India at Banaras Hindu University. The study involved 57 case notes from the first January 2015 to 24 February 2015. The proforma was filled by residents within 72 hours of the operative procedure.Results: Date of Lower Segment Caesarean Section (LSCS) was from 01.01.2015 to 24.02.2015 and total of 57 case notes were included in this study. Hospital number, date of LSCS and time of LSCS was written in the operative notes of all patients. Written consent was also taken from patient party in all cases of LSCS. There were 6 cases of General anaesthesia (GA) in which two GA were preceded by spinal which had failed. Hand writing was legible in all records and was written by second year residents and signed.Conclusions: The above audit done at University teaching hospital of North India at Banaras Hindu University which included 57 notes shows a very high quality of record maintenance. This audit was conducted while the Obstetric team was aware that audit of record keeping is taking place. It is difficult to ascertain whether such a high level of record maintenance is a true reflection or a Hawthorne effect.

Healthcare professionals’ attitudes and experiences of domestic violence

Background: Domestic violence (DV) or intimate partner violence has been declared as public health epidemic by the WHO. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) have an important role in addressing the victims of DV or abuse and are the first to offer them care. Aim of study was to assess the attitude and professional experiences of HCPs concerning DV and their female patients. Methods: The study is conducted using pre-structured questionnaire and via google form sent to the study subjects through a WhatsApp link on their mobiles. The study population were comprises consultants, resident doctors and nurses. The study subjects’ response about receiving adequate training and their attitude whether enquiry about DV was considered an essential part of their job were the main outcomes. Results: A total of 392 responses were received. Overall, 50.3% of HCPs agreed that the incidence of DV has increased in the covid era and only 49.2% believe that enquiry about DV is an essential part of their job; 49.0% of HCPs agreed that they are comfortable while asking questions pertaining to DV. Only 17.4% of HCPs received adequate support during training period in regards to evaluating patients with DV. Conclusions: Training of all HCPs to identify and manage patients with DV is needed in order to deal efficiently with this public health problem. The attitude of HCPs towards DV needs to be addressed.

Consumer online purchase behaviour: perception versus expectation

Conceptualising online customer behaviour is very important, as more and more customers are interested in buying products through online. To capture online customer behaviour, this study has conducted empirical research in Bangladesh among general online customers who have experience in online buying or have an intention to buy from online boutique websites in Bangladesh. In this regard, the quality-purchase interaction model that was developed, based on both customer perception and the expectation of buying online from business-to-consumer electronic-commerce in Bangladesh, was used to capture actual customer behaviour or behavioural intention for online purchasing. We conducted path analysis through LISREL to reveal the causal relation between independent and dependent variables. There are some significant differences between online buying behaviour and the behavioural intention to buy online, that is between customers who have experience of online buying from a boutique website and those who have the intention to buy online but have not yet gotten an online buying experience

Service delivery through mobile-government (mGov): Driving factors and cultural impacts

The mobile-Government (mGov) service system is conducted through an open network, and it is virtual. This service mode and pattern change inevitably necessitates a behavioral change in citizen attitudes and intentions. Nevertheless, this new pattern of service delivery through mGov has hardly been systematically investigated by any researchers. The objective of this current research is twofold. First, we attempt to reveal the sources of beliefs for developing intention toward the mGov (ITM) system. Then, as the second objective, we investigate cultural influence as the reason for a difference in consumer attitudes and intentions toward mGov. In this regard, the empirical study was conducted in Bangladesh and the USA, which have potential differences in the cultural traits listed by Hofstede. From our statistical analysis, we have identified the sources of beliefs for both Bangladeshi and USA consumers.We observed clear differences in sources of beliefs and their influence on attitudes leading to intention, which demonstrates support for our second objective which was designed to verify the cultural impacts on belief-attitude relations.We understand that these different sources of beliefs influence cognitive, affective, and connative attitudes toward mGov in different ways

RAPID DETECTION OF MULTI DRUG RESISTANCE AMONG MULTI DRUG RESISTANT TUBERCULOSIS SUSPECTS USING LINE PROBE ASSAY

Objective: GenoType MTBDRplus line probe assay (LPA) is developed for performing drug susceptibility testing (DST) for Rifampicin (RIF) and isoniazid in sputum specimens from smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients and revised national TB control Programme (RNTCP) has endorsed LPA for the diagnosis of multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). This study was conducted to assess the potential utility of LPA for MDR-TB patient management.Methods: MDR-TB suspects under RNTCP PMDT criteria C referred from different districts in Delhi state were included in the study January 2013 toDecember 2014. Sputum specimens found acid-fast bacilli positive by fluorescent microscopy were processed for LPA.Results: Out of 3062 specimens, 2055 (67.1%) MDR-TB suspects were read as positive and specimens from 1007 (32.9%) suspects were read as negative in sputum smear microscopy. Out of 2019 specimens valid LPA results, 1427 were found to be pan-sensitive, 280 were MDR-TB, 40 were RIF monoresistant, 183 were Isoniazid (INH) monoresistant, and 89 specimens were found negative for Mycobacterium tuberculosis.Conclusion: Routine use of LPA can substantially reduce the time to diagnosis of RIF and/or INH-resistant TB and can hence potentially enable earlier commencement of appropriate drug therapy and thereby facilitate prevention of further transmission of drug resistant strains.Keywords: Multi drug resistant tuberculosis, Line probe assay, Rifampicin, Isoniazid

Content design of advertisement for consumer exposure: Mobile marketing through short messaging service

The success of mobile phone-based short messaging service (SMS) commercials as a tool of promotional marketing depends upon the wording, statement, language, presentation − in other words, the overall content of the message. If consumers are not exposed to the mobile phone SMS containing promotional offers, marketers would less likely to achieve any benefits by sending SMS to prospective consumers. This study is aimed to identify and empirically examine the critical variables that can attract consumers to open and read the advertisement on the SMS. To address consumer exposure, the study was designed on the conceptual paradigms of the UTAUT2 with the inclusion of three external constructs: personalization, self-concept, and trust. Through a consumer survey, this study found significant variations from the UTAUT2 to provide new constructs to capture consumer intentions for exposure to the product. By doing so, this study has developed and tested an extended version of UTAUT2, which is named as UTAUT-CEMM (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology of Consumer Exposure for Mobile Message). It revealed that consumer segmentation and target marketing is the most effective way to communicate with consumers through promotional marketing conducted by the mobile phone SMS. It also suggested that this promotional marketing is valuable only for highly reputable vendors/retailers

Reformation of public service to meet citizens’ needs as customers: Evaluating SMS as an alternative service delivery channel

Citizens of different countries are now experiencing a newly invented service delivery channel to receive service from government portals. This study addresses whether a service delivery channel, based on mobile phones and provided through a short messaging service can be included in public administration to meet citizen requirements. The study further examines what factors are important to develop citizen perceptions of high value and effectiveness of this new service delivery channel. It also attempts to identify if culture has any effect on developing a positive attitude toward this service delivery channel. This study, through an empirical investigation among citizens in three countries - the USA, India, and Bangladesh, has identified that citizens are quite satisfied with this new service delivery channel use by the public service domain. The success of this delivery channel depends on the issue of segmentation. If public service providers can effectively segment the market based on time, location, and requirements, and can deliver the preferred message to concerned users with relevant and information that is easy to access and process, citizens will regard this service delivery channel as effective and satisfactory, and as competent as its private counterparts