Awareness about reproductive tract infection, its relation with menstrual hygiene management and health seeking behaviour: A cross-sectional study among adolescent girls of Lucknow.

Background: The reproductive tract infection (RTI) is one of the major health issues associated with menstrual hygiene management which often goes unnoticed and hence remains underdiagnosed and untreated, resulting in devastating health effects on women. It gives way to some common complications like pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), ectopic pregnancy, infertility, adverse outcomes of pregnancy, neonatal morbidity and death (in case of a coexisting grievous disease like Human immune deficiency virus (HIV)). Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the rural and urban government schools of Lucknow, using two-stage cluster sampling separately for both urban and rural areas. Two schools (one co-education and one all girls) were chosen from each area. A total of 629 participants were taken for the study, 389 from urban and 240 from rural schools. The study subjects were taken proportionately from each school for an interview-based session using a pre-designed and pretested questionnaire. Descriptive analysis and Chi-square tests were used to analyse the quantitative data. Result: A total of 629 participants were taken for the study, from rural (240) and urban schools (389) of Lucknow. From urban, 50.9% had fair knowledge about RTI. Whereas 71.3% from urban had fair knowledge about RTI. Lower abdominal pain (54.8%) and vaginal discharge (32.6%) were the most common complaint reported by the participants related to RTI. Only 58.1% from urban and 32.6% from rural used sanitary pads as menstrual absorbents. The presence of vaginal discharge showed a significant relation (P value < 0.001) with the type of menstrual absorbent used. Conclusion: The knowledge related to RTI and menstrual hygiene practices has not changed significantly with time. Which is amongst the primary prevention that could be employed to prevent RTI and the consequences arising from a physiological cause.

Health-related quality of life of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients: A hospital-based study.

BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic respiratory disease characterized by the presence of persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation due to airway and/or alveolar abnormalities owing to significant exposure to noxious particles or gases. Restricted activities of daily living as a result of reduced pulmonary function or dyspnea, impair quality of life in such patients. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital of Lucknow with 250 COPD patients to assess their health-related quality of life (HRQOL) using the St. Georges Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ). Study participants were selected using a systematic random sampling method. RESULTS: HRQOL of participants was significantly impaired. Employment status and airflow limitation severity of study participants had a statistically significant negative correlation whereas, duration since diagnosis of disease was seen to have a statistically significant positive correlation with SGRQ scores. CONCLUSION: COPD deteriorated the quality of life of patients. The activity score was the most affected. Urban residents had a comparatively poor HRQOL.