Assessment of eating habits, lifestyle and physical activity among medical and dental students of Faisalabad Medical University.

Objective: To assess the eating habits, lifestyle and physical activity and their impact on health of students of Faisalabad Medical University (FMU) Faisalabad Pakistan. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was prepared on 328 medical and dental students at Faisalabad Medical University from June, 2022 to October, 2022. Three Factor Eating Questionnaire Revised 21 (TFEQ-R21) was used to assess the eating habits among medical students and physical activity was assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) short version. A self-constructed questionnaire was used to assess lifestyle patterns. Results: According to the study, 191(58.2%) students out of 328 practiced unrestricted eating. While 229(69.8%) students demonstrated cognitive restraint and 128(39%) students indulged in emotional eating. Less than half of the students, 52(15.9%) lead unhealthy lifestyles compared to 276(84.1%) who had healthy habits. Out of 328 students, 104 (31.7%) engaged in low, 137(41.8%) in moderate, and 87(26.5%) in high levels of physical activity. Whereas a higher proportion of female students engaged in low to moderate physical activity (61.5% and 52.6%, respectively), while a higher proportion of male students (63.2%) were involved in intense physical activity. Conclusions: A large proportion of medical students exhibited poor dietary habits with low physical activity. Obesity and other metabolic diseases are more likely to strike medical students who engage in these unhealthy eating habits. As future health providers, health interventions must be implemented to avert future harm.

Managing Kartagener's Syndrome With Type II Respiratory Failure and Left-Sided Pneumothorax During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Report.

Kartagener's syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder with symptoms varying from chronic sinusitis to bronchiectasis and situs inversus (a congenital condition in which the visceral organs are located in an opposite location). We describe a rare and complicated case of a 40-year-old female patient who presented to the emergency room with significant chest congestion and Kartagener's syndrome. This case demonstrates the value of individualized and proactive care as well as the challenge of managing this illness, particularly when it coexists with type II respiratory failure related to pneumothorax.

A rare case of arthrogryposis multiplex congenita in a 2-year-old boy case report.

Arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC) is an uncommon condition present from birth that is marked by a combination of weakened muscles and multiple joint contractures. We present a case of a 2-year-old boy with AMC, who was born to consanguineous parents in Saudi Arabia. He presented with musculoskeletal abnormalities of all four limbs, including symmetric contractures in multiple joints of the body, bilateral developmental dysplasia of the hip, and vertical talus. Dysmorphic features included low-set ears, chin recession, triangular face, and nevus flammeus on the face. The child also had lactose intolerance, gastritis, inguinal hernia, and right-sided undescended testis. Surgical interventions were planned after a multidisciplinary team discussion. This case report highlights the good prognosis of AMC with all four-limb involvement and the importance of a thorough physical examination and a multidisciplinary approach to the diagnosis and management of AMC.

The prevalence, angiographic profile and clinical features, management, and outcomes of coronary artery perforation secondary to percutaneous coronary interventions in Pakistan: a retrospective cohort study.

Coronary artery perforation (CAP) is a rare entity that is often fatal. The mortality rates reported as high as up to 21% hence prompt diagnosis, intervention, and treatment are paramount to survival for such patients. Several factors may predispose a patient to coronary artery intervention including chronic total occlusion, severe calcification and tortuosity, aggressive use of oversized balloons and stents, and use of athero-ablative devices. Therefore, it is significant to have an insight related to it as despite being rare, it is one of the most feared complications of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Method: We conducted a retrospective study of the patients who have undergone PCI at our institution from January 2015 to December 2021. During this duration, all the patients who had developed CAP based on angiographic review during the PCI were selected. The demographic, clinical, angiographic, procedure-related features, management of the CAP, and in-hospital and follow-up outcomes were gathered. Result: Thirty-five thousand fifty-nine patients underwent PCI among which, only 93 (0.26%) patients were complicated with (CAP. Fifty-eight (62.4%) patients were in the 50-70 years age range. The most common vessel involved was the left anterior descending (36.5%) followed by the right coronary artery (32.3%). The angiographic calcification was present in 51.6% of patients, significant tortuosity greater than 90° was seen in 48.4% of patients, chronic total occlusion was observed in 42% of patients and In-stent restenosis was found in 8.6% patients. The highest mortality of four patients was seen in the CAP involving the right coronary artery. Conclusion: Mostly the CAP involves large vessel perforations however both, the distal and large vessel perforations are related to the increased incidence of adverse clinical results which indicates the significance of the prevention and early identification and treatment of the perforation.

Concurrent Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia: A Retrospective Study From a Tertiary Care Centre in Sindh, Pakistan.

INTRODUCTION: The present study aimed to evaluate the proportion of concurrent symptoms of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCSs) among patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: A retrospective study was undertaken at the Department of Psychiatry, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, Sindh, Pakistan between 1st March 2019 and 1st April 2020. All cases with diagnosed schizophrenia irrespective of gender, age, or ethnicity were eligible for the study. We excluded patients with acute psychosis due to isolated substance use disorder or any organic brain disease. The medical records for each patient were retrieved from the departmental database. Sociodemographic factors including age, gender, ethnicity, and presence of OCSs and other psychiatric comorbidities were recorded in a predefined pro forma. The presence of OCSs was noted by the attending psychiatrist during history taking as positive or negative. RESULTS: A total of 139 patients were included. A predominance of the male gender was noted. There were 63 (45.3%) patients with concurrent OCSs. Out of the total patients, 42 (66.67%) males and 21 (33.33%) females had OCSs. A total of 28 (44.44%) patients between 31 and 45 years of age had OCSs. Out of the 63 patients with OCSs, 36 (57.14%) had a history of substance abuse (p = 0.471). In the study, 17 (26.98%) Balochi and 19 (30.16%) Pashtuns had OCSs. However, the difference was statistically insignificant. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, OCSs were frequent in patients with schizophrenia, according to the current study. We discovered that males, individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 years, Balochis, Pashtuns, and those with a history of substance abuse were more likely to have OCSs. However, the difference was not statistically significant.

Molecular Characterization, Purification, and Mode of Action of Enterocin KAE01 from Lactic Acid Bacteria and Its In Silico Analysis against MDR/ESBL Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Bacteriocins are gaining immense importance in therapeutics since they show significant antibacterial potential. This study reports the bacteriocin KAE01 from Enterococcus faecium, along with its characterization, molecular modeling, and antibacterial potency, by targeting the matrix protein of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The bacteriocin was purified by using ammonium sulfate precipitation and fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC), and its molecular weight was estimated as 55 kDa by means of SDS-PAGE. The bacteriocin was found to show stability in a wide range of pH values (2.0-10.0) and temperatures (100 °C for 1 h and 121 °C for 15 min). Antimicrobial screening of the purified peptide against different strains of P. aeruginosa showed its significant antibacterial potential. Scanning electron microscopy of bacteriocin-induced bacterial cultures revealed significant changes in the cellular morphology of the pathogens. In silico molecular modeling of KAE01, followed by molecular docking of the matrix protein (qSA) of P. aeruginosa and KAE01, supported the antibacterial potency and SEM findings of this study.

An Urdu speech corpus for emotion recognition.

Emotion recognition from acoustic signals plays a vital role in the field of audio and speech processing. Speech interfaces offer humans an informal and comfortable means to communicate with machines. Emotion recognition from speech signals has a variety of applications in the area of human computer interaction (HCI) and human behavior analysis. In this work, we develop the first emotional speech database of the Urdu language. We also develop the system to classify five different emotions: sadness, happiness, neutral, disgust, and anger using different machine learning algorithms. The Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC), Linear Prediction Coefficient (LPC), energy, spectral flux, spectral centroid, spectral roll-off, and zero-crossing were used as speech descriptors. The classification tests were performed on the emotional speech corpus collected from 20 different subjects. To evaluate the quality of speech emotions, subjective listing tests were conducted. The recognition of correctly classified emotions in the complete Urdu emotional speech corpus was 66.5% with K-nearest neighbors. It was found that the disgust emotion has a lower recognition rate as compared to the other emotions. Removing the disgust emotion significantly improves the performance of the classifier to 76.5%.

Microbial Patterns and Antibiotic Susceptibility in Blood Culture Isolates of Septicemia Suspected Children in the Pediatrics Ward of a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Objectives This study aims to determine microbial patterns and antibiotic susceptibility to alert clinicians to the emerging pathogens that may pose a threat to the community, especially children. Materials and Methods This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Pathology, Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, from July 2019 to December 2019. Two samples were taken from two different sites of each patient at the time of fever (> 100° F) to avoid chances of contamination. A blood sample of 5 to 10 mL was drawn from each site. In a 50 mL brain heart infusion broth (BHIB), 5 to 10% blood was injected in two different bottles and incubated for 48 hours at 37°C. After 48 hours, subculture was done by streaking the drops of blood samples taken from BHIB on blood and MacConkey agar. Cultures were incubated in aerobic conditions at 37°C for 24 to 48 hours. For testing antibiotic susceptibility, criteria defined by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) were followed. Microbes were identified under a microscope by observing their morphological characteristics after gram staining and applying biochemical tests. Antibiotic sensitivity test was performed using standard aseptic methods. Statistical Analysis Bacterial isolates and their susceptibility patterns were represented using frequencies and percentage charts. Results Out of 423 blood cultures, growth was recorded in 92 (21.75%) of the cultures with female to male ratio 2.1:1. The gram-positive bacteria accounted for 43.48% ( n = 40), whereas gram-negative bacteria covered the majority 54.36% ( n = 50). Among isolates, Staphylococcus aureus (42.39%) was the most common, followed by Acinetobacter spp. (17.39%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (14.13%). Acinetobacter spp. showed 0% susceptibility to amikacin and cefotaxime. All the isolates were 100% resistant to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. S. aureus showed lower sensitivity for ceftazidime (0%), clindamycin (66.67%), ciprofloxacin (0%), clarithromycin (11.76%), and ceftriaxone (0%). Tigecycline showed 100% sensitivity for all isolates tested. Conclusion Gram-negative bacteria form the majority of isolates in our setup, with Acinetobacter as the most common species among them. The resistance against cephalosporins, penicillin, and fluoroquinolones shown by Acinetobacter , Pseudomonas , Salmonella, and Klebsiella is of grave concern. Among gram-positive bacteria, S. aureus has established resistance against multiple drugs. Limited and objective use of antibiotic therapy is a much-needed strategy under new guidelines.

A comparison of characteristics and outcomes of patients with community-acquired and hospital-acquired COVID-19 in the United Kingdom: An observational study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Reports comparing the characteristics of patients and their clinical outcomes between community-acquired (CA) and hospital-acquired (HA) COVID-19 have not yet been reported in the literature. We aimed to characterise and compare clinical, biochemical and haematological features, in addition to clinical outcomes, between these patients. METHODS: This multi-centre, retrospective, observational study enrolled 488 SARS-CoV-2 positive patients - 339 with CA infection and 149 with HA infection. All patients were admitted to a hospital within the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust between March 7th and May 18th, 2020. RESULTS: The CA cohort comprised of a significantly younger population, median age 75 years, versus 80 years in the HA cohort (P = 0·0002). Significantly less patients in the HA group experienced fever (P = 0·03) and breathlessness (P < 0·0001). Furthermore, significantly more patients had anaemia and hypoalbuminaemia in the HA group, compared to the CA group (P < 0·0001 for both). Hypertension and a lower median BMI were also significantly more pronounced in the HA cohort (P = 0·03 and P = 0·0001, respectively). The mortality rate was not significantly different between the two cohorts (34% in the CA group and 32% in the HA group, P = 0·64). However, the CA group required significantly greater ICU care (10% versus 3% in the HA group, P = 0·009). CONCLUSION: Hospital-acquired and community-acquired COVID-19 display similar rates of mortality despite significant differences in baseline characteristics of the respective patient populations. Delineation of community- and hospital-acquired COVID-19 in future studies on COVID-19 may allow for more accurate interpretation of results.

Incidence of Hyperuricemia in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction - A Case-Control Study.

Introduction Various researches have stated the correlation between serum uric acid (sUA) and cardiovascular disease (CVD); however, no local studies are available. In this study, we will determine the prevalence of hyperuricemia in patients with acute myocardial infarction and compare with the control group. Methods This case-control study was conducted from March to November 2019 in the tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. In all, 119 patients with acute myocardial infarction were enrolled in this study, and 119 controls were identified from the outpatient department. Their sUA levels were measured within 24 hours of acute myocardial infarction. Results The mean sUA levels were significantly higher in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in comparison to the control group (6.17 ± 2.12 vs. 5.51 ± 1.89, p-value; 0.01). Overall, there were more patients with hyperuricemia in the case group compared to the control group (47.89% vs. 33.6%, p-value = 0.04) Conclusion In this study, after adjustment of other known factors, hyperuricemia is associated with AMI. Efforts should be made to include screening for hyperuricemia in patients with a high risk of myocardial infarction.

The Influence of Tomographic Corneal Characteristics on Epithelial Thickness Profile.

Purpose To understand the influence of tomographic corneal characteristics on the epithelium of normal eyes. Methods We scanned a total of 98 eyes of 98 individuals using anterior segment tomography and a spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) epithelial mapping tool. Only eyes with no previous pathology were included, with a refractive range of +5 diopters (D) to -6 D, intraocular pressure of < 22 mmHg, and no evidence of dry eye (Schirmer's test 2 value > 5 mm). Corneal curvature metrics were statistically correlated with regional epithelial thickness parameters. Results The anterior and posterior corneal surface flat and steep axis, the maximum and minimum curvature, corneal topographic astigmatism, astigmatism polar values, and corneal volume had no statistically significant correlation (p>0.05) with the epithelial thickness. Similarly, anterior corneal surface asphericity had no significant correlation. Posterior surface asphericity had a statistically significant moderate correlation with the epithelium in all areas. Similar results were seen in the multivariate analysis. Conclusions None of the front or back surface parameters had any influence on the corneal epithelium except for the posterior surface asphericity. This statistically significant yet clinically insignificant correlation may be enhanced in diseased populations like keratoconus and could indicate epithelial remodeling with early posterior corneal changes.

Comparison of Lipid Profile in Patients With and Without Acute Myocardial Infarction.

Introduction There is ample data available to determine the impact of deranged lipid values of acute myocardial infarction (AMI); however, there is a paucity of data from low-income countries like Pakistan. In this study, we aim to determine the correlation of lipid values with AMI. Materials and methods This case-control study was conducted from 1 February 2019 to 30 October 2019 in a tertiary care hospital in Sukkur, Pakistan. There were a total of 421 participants divided into two groups; Case Group (patients with AMI, n=212) and Control Group (patients without AMI, n=209). Results Total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) were significantly higher in patients with AMI and HDL was lower. There was no significant difference between triglycerides in both groups. Conclusion Dyslipidemia is an important risk factor for AMI. There is a need for more large scale multi-center studies to further understand the role of lipid profile in AMI and the various factors that influence it.

Nuclear spatial and spectral features based evolutionary method for meningioma subtypes classification in histopathology.

Meningioma subtypes classification is a real-world multiclass problem from the realm of neuropathology. The major challenge in solving this problem is the inherent complexity due to high intra-class variability and low inter-class variation in tissue samples. The development of computational methods to assist pathologists in characterization of these tissue samples would have great diagnostic and prognostic value. In this article, we proposed an optimized evolutionary framework for the classification of benign meningioma into four subtypes. This framework investigates the imperative role of RGB color channels for discrimination of tumor subtypes and compute structural, statistical and spectral phenotypes. An evolutionary technique, Genetic Algorithm, in combination with Support Vector Machine is applied to tune classifier parameters and to select the best possible combination of extracted phenotypes that improved the classification accuracy (94.88%) on meningioma histology dataset, provided by the Institute of Neuropathology, Bielefeld. These statistics show that computational framework can robustly discriminate four subtypes of benign meningioma and may aid pathologists in the diagnosis and classification of these lesions.

A new texture and shape based technique for improving meningioma classification.

Over the past decade, computer-aided diagnosis is rapidly growing due to the availability of patient data, sophisticated image acquisition tools and advancement in image processing and machine learning algorithms. Meningiomas are the tumors of brain and spinal cord. They account for 20% of all the brain tumors. Meningioma subtype classification involves the classification of benign meningioma into four major subtypes: meningothelial, fibroblastic, transitional, and psammomatous. Under the microscope, the histology images of these four subtypes show a variety of textural and structural characteristics. High intraclass and low interclass variabilities in meningioma subtypes make it an extremely complex classification problem. A number of techniques have been proposed for meningioma subtype classification with varying performances on different subtypes. Most of these techniques employed wavelet packet transforms for textural features extraction and analysis of meningioma histology images. In this article, a hybrid classification technique based on texture and shape characteristics is proposed for the classification of meningioma subtypes. Meningothelial and fibroblastic subtypes are classified on the basis of nuclei shapes while grey-level co-occurrence matrix textural features are used to train a multilayer perceptron for the classification of transitional and psammomatous subtypes. On the whole, average classification accuracy of 92.50% is achieved through the proposed hybrid classifier; which to the best of our knowledge is the highest.

Dietary habits and life style among the students of a private medical university Karachi.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the dietary habits and life style of the students of a private medical university in Karachi. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Baqai Medical University, from August 2005 to September 2005. A total of 384 medical students from the batches of 2002 to 2005 participated in this study. A pre-tested semi structured questionnaire was self administered to the students after taking their consent. The data included sociodemographic characteristics, life style, exercise, dietary habits and family history of diabetes mellitus. The collected data was analyzed by statistical program SPSS version 11. RESULTS: Out of the total participants, 53.4% were male and 46.6% were female students. The mean age was 20 +/- 1.58 years. The average income of the household of students was 50,000 Pakistani rupees per month. Only 7% students were tobacco users. About 33% students had a history of diabetes mellitus among their parents. Nearly ninety-seven percent reported consumption of junk food while 60% reported use of whole grain food in their diet. Seventy percent students walked 30 minutes and 47% exercised daily. According to the body mass index, 58.3% students were of normal weight and 41.7% were overweight. No significant difference was found among male and female students when dietary habits and life style were compared by sex. Junk food and soft-drink consumption was associated with being overweight. Eating whole grain food and doing exercise showed a protective association against overweight. CONCLUSION: Unhealthy lifestyle and poor dietary habits were highly prevalent in the overweight study population. Type-2 diabetes mellitus was common among parents and grandparents of the students making them prone to this disorder. Our study concluded that dietary and exercise counselling is necessary as a preventive strategy.

Dietary habits and life style among the students of a private medical university Karachi.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the dietary habits and life style of the students of a private medical university in Karachi. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Baqai Medical University, from August 2005 to September 2005. A total of 384 medical students from the batches of 2002 to 2005 participated in this study. A pre-tested semi structured questionnaire was self administered to the students after taking their consent. The data included socio-demographic characteristics, life style, exercise, dietary habits and family history of diabetes mellitus. The collected data was analyzed by statistical program SPSS version 11. RESULTS: Out of the total participants, 53.4% were male and 46.6% were female students. The mean age was 20 +/- 1.58 years. The average income of the household of students was 50,000 Pakistani rupees per month. Only 7% students were tobacco users. About 33% students had a history of diabetes mellitus among their parents. Nearly 97% reported consumption of junk food while 60% reported use of whole grain food in their diet. Seventy percent students walked 30 minutes and 47% exercised daily. According to the body mass index, 58.3% students were of normal weight and 41.7% were overweight. No significant difference was found among male and female students when dietary habits and life style were compared by sex. Junk food and soft-drink consumption was associated with being overweight. Eating whole grain food and doing exercise showed a protective association against overweight. CONCLUSION: Unhealthy lifestyle and poor dietary habits were highly prevalent in the overweight study population. Type-2 diabetes mellitus was common among parents and grandparents of the students making them prone to this disorder. Our study concluded that dietary and exercise counselling is necessary as a preventive strategy.

Patients' satisfaction and opinions of their experiences during admission in a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan - a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: It is often felt that developing countries need to improve their quality of healthcare provision. This study hopes to generate data that can help managers and doctors to improve the standard of care they provide in line with the wishes of the patients. METHODS: It was a cross sectional study carried out at a major tertiary care hospital of Karachi. Patients between the ages of 18 and 80 years admitted to the hospital for at least one day were included. Patients in the maternity, psychiatry and chemotherapy wards and those in the ICU/CCU were excluded. A pretested, peer reviewed translation of a validated patient satisfaction scale developed by the Picker Institute of Europe was administered. RESULTS: A total of 173 patients (response rate: 78.6 %) filled the questionnaire. Patient satisfaction was at levels comparable to European surveys for most aspects of hospital care. However, nearly half the patients (48%) felt they had to wait too long to get a bed in the hospital after presenting to the ER. 68.6% of the patients said that they were never asked for views on the quality of care provided. 20% of the patients did not find anyone in the staff to talk to about their worries and fears while 27.6% felt that they were given emotional support to only some extent. Up to one third of the patients said they were not provided enough information regarding their operative procedures beforehand. CONCLUSION: Although several components of patient care equal the quality levels of the west, many sections require considerable improvement in order to improve health care provision. The healthcare team needs to get more involved with the patients, providing them greater support and keeping them informed and involved with their medical treatment. Efforts should be made to get regular feedback from the patients.

Relationship of HLA antigens and cryoglobulinaemia in hepatitis C virus infected patients.

OBJECTIVE: To find the relationship between human leukocyte antigens (HLA) and cryoglobulin positivity in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected individuals. METHODS: Eligible individuals selected from pre and post renal transplant settings were divided into three groups. Group A (n = 301) consisted of normal controls, while group B (n = 200) comprised of pathological controls that were HCV antibody (anti-HCV) positive but negative for cryoglobulins. Group C comprised of 56 anti-HCV positive, cryoglobulin positive patients. HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 loci were typed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and relationship between HLA antigens, anti-HCV status and cryoglobulinaemia was analyzed. RESULTS: HLA-A*02, -B*57 and -DRB1*03 were more frequently found among group C members as compared to groups A and B. Only HLA-B* 57 occurrence reached statistical significance (14.3% versus 6% and 4%, corrected P-value = 0.045 and 0.012 and OR = 2.6 and 4 respectively) No differences in the distribution of HLA antigens were seen among healthy and pathological controls. CONCLUSION: The presence of HLA-B*57 confers susceptibility to cryoglobulinaemia in HCV infected patients in our population. HCV positive renal transplant recipients with these alleles should be monitored for cryoglobulin formation).

A community based study about knowledge and practices regarding tobacco consumption and passive smoking in Gadap Town, Karachi.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the proportion of people consuming tobacco in various forms, level of knowledge and practices regarding various harmful effects of tobacco and passive smoking. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Ghulam Mohammad Jokhio Goth, a small semi urban community of Gadap Town Karachi, which comprises of a population approximate 2225. About 157 people were interviewed regarding their tobacco consumption practices through a semi structured pre-tested questionnaire from June to August 2005. There were 314 households in the community and every alternate household was selected with a random start. The study subject was selected among all the adult members of 18 years age and above present at the time of interview in the household by lottery method and the questionnaire was administerd to those who were resident of GM Goth after taking consent. RESULTS: In our study 110 (70%) people were tobacco consumers, 47% were knowledgeable about hazards of smoking, 22% were aware about passive smoking, and 90% started consuming tobacco below 20 years of age. The most popular form of tobacco was pan 40%, cigarette 39% and hookah 19%. Eighty four percent were regular smokers. Only 13.6% took counseling, 26.3% tried to quit smoking but none of them succeeded. About 23.5% smokers suffered from cough and headache due to smoking. When age, sex, marital status, income of the household, education and knowledge about hazards of smoking was compared, age and knowledge showed significant association while other variables did not show any significant association. CONCLUSION: Our study concluded that high proportion of people including men and women consume tobacco. Most of them were unaware about tobacco consumption hazards, and passive smoking.