Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Regarding Environmental Tobacco Smoke among Pregnant Women of Sunsari.

Background Second hand tobacco smoke or Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), contains toxic substances and carcinogens that cause serious health effects in humans. Studies show that ETS exposure during pregnancy is injurious to the mother-infant pair with long term consequences. Limited studies are found in context of ETS in pregnancy in Nepal. Objective To explore the knowledge about harmful effect of ETS exposure in pregnant women and to know the behavior of avoidance from exposure to ETS during pregnancy. Method A cross sectional study was conducted among 303 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics at the District Hospital Inaruwa and BPKIHS Dharan. A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data regarding socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude and practice regarding Environmental tobacco smoke. Data was entered in Excel and analyzed in SPSS 11.5. Result The mean age of the respondents was 23.86±4.68 years. The proportion of primigravida was 53.5% and multi-gravida was 46.5%. Among the respondents, 14% were illiterate and 91% were unemployed. A similar proportion of the husbands (12%) were illiterate. Three-fourth (75%) of the respondents lived in joint family. It was found that 86% of their husbands were smokers. There were 61% of pregnant women who had heard about ETS, mainly through television (35%) and radio (30%). There was 86% of the households who had initiated some measures to prevent smoking inside the house. Conclusion The pregnant women in this study are aware about ETS. However a significant number of them believe that ETS is not harmful compared to active smoking. There is a need for further studies to identify interventions to avoid ETS exposure among the pregnant women.

Opportunistic infections and clinical profile of HIV/AIDS patients: A study from eastern region of Nepal.

There is a wide spread availability of highly active antiretroviral treatment but opportunistic illnesses still occur and result in an increased risk of mortality among persons with HIV/AIDS. The spectrum of illness that one observes, changes as the CD4+ cell count declines. The close relationship between clinical manifestation and CD4+ cell count has made measurement of the latter a routine part of evaluation of the progress of HIV infection in individuals: The objective of this study was to reveal the clinical spectrum and explore the different types of opportunistic infections in HIV/AIDS patients. A total of 234 patients with HIV/AIDS from three ART centers of Eastern Nepal were purposively selected for this cross sectional study conducted from May 2009 to April 2010. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 11.5. Chi-squared test and Student's t test were applied to find the association between the variables. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered to be significant. Out of the 234 patient, 85% were found to be symptomatic. Most common presenting symptoms were weight loss (74.4%) followed by fever (59.4%). Around 64% of HIV/AIDS patients had a CD4+ cell count below 200 cells/mm3. Most common opportunistic infections were tuberculosis (51.1%) followed by oral candidiasis (21.7%). A significant relationship (p < 0.001) between decrease in CD4+ cell count and occurrence of opportunistic infections in HIV/AIDS patients was seen.