Search

Background: Care-seeking after injury episodes is generally associated with major uncertainties concerning its incidence, care, and cure/disappearance, and the price of care. Though the utilization pattern of the population is shaped by social, economic, cultural and political factors, it varies widely for the rich and the poor. With this background, a community-based epidemiological study was conducted to determine the care-seeking behavior of victims of unintentional injuries. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from May 2023–September 2023 in the Bhatar block of Purba Bardhaman district, West Bengal. Cluster random sampling was applied to select a required sample of 555 individuals from 24 villages. Study tools used were predesigned and pretested schedules developed by the researchers with the help of guidelines for conducting community surveys on injuries provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). The study had approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Descriptive statistics were performed using SPSS V16. Results: Out of 49 injury episodes, 51.0% had received first aid. Out of 39 injury episodes seeking medical attention, a traditional practitioner, healer or bone setter was the type of first medical contact in the case of the majority of injury episodes (38.5%), followed by a hospital (35.9%). Conclusion: Low utilization of government healthcare facilities is a cause for concern. Reliance on unqualified informal healthcare providers is also a cause for concern. Our findings will help design community interventions to increase the provision of appropriate first aid in unintentional injuries.

Background: COVID-19 has impacted health system worldwide including family planning, acting as a major hindrance in the way of population control. This study is conducted to assess the unmet need of family planning among married tribal women, various reasons behind it, and its relation with sociodemographic variables during COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Burda village of Purulia district of West Bengal in Eastern India. A sample size of 80 was calculated. Study subjects, who fulfilled our inclusion criteria, were selected using simple random sampling from the list of eligible couples which was obtained from ASHA. After obtaining ethical clearance from the Institutional Ethics Committee, permission from panchayat of Burda village, and consent from the study subjects, they were interviewed using a pretested, predesigned, and semi-structured schedule. Data were entered into MS Excel and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0 version (Armonk, NY, USA: IBM Corp.). Results: 81.2% were willing to use family planning methods; among them, 80% stated media as their prime source of information. 68.6% had used male condoms as a method of family planning. 82.4% stated government health-care facility as their source of availability of family planning methods. Unmet need of family planning among the study subjects was 17.5%. Major reason for nonuse of family planning methods was that they did not take anything from health-care providers due to fear of getting COVID-19 infection. Bivariate analysis showed a significant association of unmet need of family planning with educational status of husband (P = 0.023, odds ratio [OR] = 4.211) and type of family (Fisher's exact significance = 0.047, OR = 7.719). Conclusion: Unmet need of family planning among tribal population is still high during this pandemic, and the causes are needed to be acted upon.

Background: Fertility pattern has some influence on health of mother and child as well as it can resist population growth. Methods: A cross sectional study on fertility perception among married women of reproductive age group, was carried out in 3 blocks and 2 municipality areas of Howrah District of West Bengal, India, covering 12 villages and 4 wards, selected by stratified multistage random sampling, for a period of 6 months from April to September 2009. Two thousand married women were the respondents. Results: Respondents were mainly belonged to poor and below poverty line groups (86.7%), one third (33.4%) were illiterate and just literate group, 66.8% of the respondents belonged to Hindu by religion and 63.4% had history of teen age pregnancy and more than 50% of the respondents were married early (below 18 years). The study revealed that perception about age of marriage, interval between marriage and 1 st pregnancy and spacing were incorrect in case of 45.8%, 37.6% and 23% of the respondents, respectively. 22.3% and 13.1% of the respondents had no proper idea regarding desired no of children and Family Planning methods, respectively and their knowledge varied with literacy status, age and religion. Majority (67.5%) of the study population received information about family planning methods from health personnel. Conclusions: Correct Knowledge regarding different components of fertility among Eligible Couples to be enhanced by intervention through Information, Education and Communication (Interpersonal Communication and Mass Media).