Covariates of Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, and Burdens among the Caregivers of Hypertensive Patients.

Caregivers of hypertensive patients play a significant role in ensuring adequate patient care and lowering the risk of hypertension-relatedcomplications. Caregivers are ideal study subjects for identifying gaps in hypertension management. Our study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of hypertensive patients' caregivers, to identify their extent of involvement in patients' care, and to assess their care-related attributes. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from August 2020 to February 2021 in the eight largest tertiary care medical college hospitals and all eight divisions of Bangladesh, with 949 caregivers enrolled. Data were collected using a pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire through snowball sampling and analyzed using a one-way ANOVA, independent-sample T-test, and chi-square test. Among the 949 interviewed caregivers, 541 (57.0%) were female, and 479 (50.5%) were aged 18 to 25 years. The percentage scores regarding overall knowledge, attitude, and practice of the caregivers were 54.83 ± 17.95, 47.95 ± 24.05, and 61.26 ± 17.50, respectively. Caregivers' education, history of hypertension, residence, age, relationship with the patient, occupation, and caregiving duration were significantly associated with the KAP scores. In addition, factors such as relationship with the patient, age, educational status, occupation, residence, and caregiving duration/day had significant correlations with all types of burden. Findings of this study suggest the necessity for awareness programs for the caregivers of hypertensive patients to diminish the gap in their KAP and improve their mental and physical health.

Medical Undergraduates' Written Assessment Profile of Illustration-based Neuroanatomy.

Neuroanatomy is an integral part of Anatomy and it is one of the most visually dependent and visually-demanding one. Analysis of recent trends of emphasizing the importance of illustrations which are being reflected in the learning pattern or student-assessment can provide an insight into the situation and help teachers and curriculum planners. Thus, the present study was planned i) to analyze the Neuroanatomy portion of the recent undergraduate Anatomy written question papers of four public universities of Bangladesh for understanding how the ability to draw and label has been assessed in the questions and ii) to determine the ability of the undergraduate students to answer illustration-based questions as compared to their ability to answer non-illustration-based (text-based) questions in Neuroanatomy. For Part-A of the study, all the 'segment's of item (SAQ and MCQ) dealing with Neuroanatomy in all the available Anatomy written question papers of all the First Professional MBBS Exams of four public universities of Bangladesh of the last five years (2005 to 2009) were identified. The frequency of 'segment's those were assessing the ability to draw and label was determined. For Part-B of the study, 214 students were taken as participants. They were divided into two equal groups by randomization. The first group was given 100 illustration-based questions based on the illustrations representing different 'purpose's and 'form's in Snell1. The other group was given 100 non-illustration-based questions on the corresponding textual material. The scores of the two corresponding groups were compared using an unpaired 't' test. The frequency of segments was assessing the ability to draw and label was 3.86%. The performance of the undergraduates answering illustration-based questions was significantly poorer (p=0.0) than non-illustration-based questions (mean±SD being 23.36±14.02 and 44.75±9.50 respectively). Teaching and assessment of Neuroanatomy should be planned in a way to orient undergraduates towards more illustration-based understanding and performance. Necessary modifications in the curriculum are recommended.

Morphological Effect of Ethanol Extract of Tinospora cordifolia on Gentamicin-induced Nephrotoxicity in Rats.

Recent studies indicate that cellular lipid peroxidation by free radical is an underlying mechanism of acute renal failure induced by gentamicin (GM). Tinospora cordifolia (Tc) extract has been reported to have antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities that is why it is used in present study with the expectation to interrupt the toxic free radical chain reaction of lipid peroxidation in the course of gentamicin administration. For this purpose, sixty rats were divided into six equal groups. Gentamicin (80mg/kg/day, 7 days) was administered to produce nephrotoxicity and structural alterations were evidenced from histopathology of renal tissues which indicates the renal injury and dysfunction in rats. The ethanol extract of Tinospora (200mg/kg/day) was administered with gentamicin simultaneously and also sequentially to observe preventive and curative effects respectively. Both the groups recovered from the gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity, evidenced from improvement of histopathological features, though accurate mechanism and safety profile is not confirmed by this study.

Awareness Among Parents About Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Routine Immunization Program to Prevent Pneumococcal Pneumonia in Bangladesh.

Introduction This study was conducted in two purposively selected slums of Dhaka to assess parents' awareness of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in reducing the occurrence of death due to pneumococcal pneumonia. Methods Using a semi-structured questionnaire, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 150 parents. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 20 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY) and Chi-square (χ2) test performed to determine associations. Results About 35% of parents were found to be aware of PCV; of them, 92.5% were informed by health service providers, and 81.1% mentioned benefits of PCV. Most parents were unaware of the PCV vaccination status of children, and no significant association was found between vaccination status and parents' socioeconomic status. Aware parents vaccinated their children, and the association of awareness with vaccination status was statistically significant for PCV-1 (P = 0.04) and PCV-2 (P < 0.001). Although 7.4% of parents did not vaccinate their child with PCV-3 due to a child's sickness or other priorities in household work, the association was significant (P = 0.01). Conclusion Strengthened efforts by health service providers, prioritizing dissemination of key messages on PCV, its benefits, and side-effects, can motivate parents and reduce dropout rates.