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Background: Cervical cytology which is a standard screening tool in developed countries fails as a screening method in low-resource countries due to financial and technical constraints. Objective: To determine the prevalence of pre-malignant lesions of the cervix by VIA and Pap smear test among rural married women and to find out association of socio demographic factors with positive screening test results. Material & Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was carried out among rural married women in the field practice area. A pre-designed questionnaire was administered to collect information from 550 women. Results: The VIA and Pap smear tests were positive among 5.5% and 3.6% study subjects respectively. Pap smear test result presented with pre-cancerous lesions such as atypical squamous cell of undifferentiated significance (ASCUS)16 (2.90%), low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) 2 (0.36%) and high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) 2 (0.36%). The VIA & Pap smear positivity rate was found to be more in the age group of ≥40 years, Hindu, education above intermediate class, joint family and, upper & lower socio-economic status respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of pre-malignant lesions of the cervix by VIA test was 5.5% while 3.6% pre-malignant lesion was detected by Pap smear method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Perceived health is a subjective assessment of the health and includes so many aspects that are difficult to capture clinically such as incipient disease, disease severity, physiological, psychological reserves and social functions. Aims & Objective: To assess the impact of Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, comorbidity and other associated factors on the physical functioning of the patients attending the Outpatient department (OPD), Inpatient department (IPD), Rural Health Training Centre (RHTC) and Urban Health Training Centre (UHTC) of Shri Ram Murti Smarak Institute of Medical Sciences (SRMS,IMS), Bareilly. Methods: Perceived health status of the patients was assessed by the Physical Functioning (PF) dimension of the Physical Component Summary using the 36-item short form health survey (SF-36). Results: The presence of both Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension was associated with lower Physical Functioning scores compared to those with diabetes and hypertension alone (p > 0.05). Age was inversely related with Physical Functioning scores (p<0.05) but male gender (p<0.000) and higher income (p<0.05) were all associated with higher Physical Functioning scores. There was not so much influence of geographical area on the Physical Functioning scores and the association was found to be insignificant (p>0.05). Conclusions: The presence of Comorbidity was found to have greater impact on Physical Functioning compared to individual disease. The impact of various socio-demographic characteristics on the perceived health status was also evident in the study. However, the results were interpreted in terms of the study's limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]