Risk factors associated with attempted suicide : a case control study.

This study was conducted to identify the risk factors associated with attempted suicide among people living in and around Pondicherry. Using a case control study design, 137 consecutive cases of attempted suicide admitted to Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, a teaching hospital in Pondicherry and an equal number of controls, matched individually with cases for age and sex, from the relatives and friends of the other patients, were studied. Variables related to socio demographic characteristics, family background, recent stressful life events, physical and psychiatric morbidity were analysed. The strength of association with the risk of attempt was calculated using odds ratio with 95% confidence interval. Odds ratios for the factors identified to be significantly associated with increased risk of suicide attempt were 15.82(95% CI 6.55-40) for unemployment, 3.02 (95%CI 1.78-5.14) for lack of formal education, 3.95 (95% CI 2.02-7.79) for the presence of stressful life events in the last six months, 3.12 (95%CI 1.37-7.24) for suffering from physical disorders and 6.78 (95% CI 2.39-2070) for suffering from idiopathic pain. Significant association was not revealed in respect to marital status, type of family, early parental losses, family history of suicide and presence of psychiatric morbidity.

Poliomyelitis trends in Pondicherry, south India, 1989-91.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To assess the poliomyelitis trend, including study of the epidemiological features, and to correlate this with the immunisation coverage of infants. DESIGN: Three annual lameness surveys in children aged 0-60 months employing cluster sampling methods and a series of five cross sectional surveys of immunisation coverage in children aged 12-23 months of age were undertaken. SETTING: Pondicherry, India, 1988-92. SUBJECTS: More than 10,000 children in the age group of 0-60 months took part in the three annual lameness surveys and samples of 210 children aged 12-23 months were covered each year in immunisation coverage surveys. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Altogether 50 of 11,461, 24 of 10,093, and 17 of 11,218 children surveyed during 1989, 1990, and 1991 respectively had become lame as a result of poliomyelitis, giving prevalences of 4.4, 2.4, and 1.5 per 1000 children for the three surveys. The corrected prevalences of poliomyelitis were 5.9, 3.2, and 2.0 per 1000 children during 1989, 1990, and 1991 respectively. The proportion of cases aged up to 36 months fell from 48% in 1989 to 12.5% in 1990 and 6% in 1991. The age at onset was less than 1 year in most. The median age at onset was 10.7 months. About 54% of the affected children had received three doses of oral poliomyelitis vaccine (OPV) before the onset of paralysis. In 1988 immunisation coverage for the third dose of OPV was 91% and in 1992 it was 97.6%. The drop out rate for the first versus the third dose of OPV fell from 6.3 in 1988 to 1.9% in 1992. CONCLUSION: Three successive annual lameness surveys showed that poliomyelitis was declining between 1989 and 1991. Five immunisation coverage surveys conducted from 1988 to 1992 showed high initial coverage followed by an improvement in the form of almost universal coverage for OPV.

Community experience for medical students.

This article outlines the features of community postings for medical students in their second clinical year at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, in Pondicherry, India. Their exposure to the realities of preventive and social medicine in the field clearly helps them to cope with what would otherwise be only theoretical knowledge.

Prevalence of psychiatry morbidity in an urban community of pondicherry.

A cross-sectional study on psychiatric morbidity was conducted in an urban area of Pondicherry between October 1988 and July 1989. A sample of 225 families covering 1115 people of all ages was selected by simple random technique. The prevalence rate was 99.4 per 1000, the prevalence among children being 58.6 per 1000. It was found that age, education, occupation and marital status had significant correlation with mental morbidity. Out of 90 cases detected among adults, psychosis formed 20%, neuroses 47% and alcohol dependence syndrome constituted 30%. Among children two conditions commonly identified were mental retardation and nocturnal enuresis.