Unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are some of the major reproductive health issues commonly encountered globally. As a developing country in South Asia, Sri Lanka has a prevalence rate of 23-46% of unplanned pregnancies. Two percent (2%) of government clinic attendees are detected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and it is continually increasing among the young population. Poor knowledge, awareness and undesirable attitude towards contraception usage are some of the major factors associated with unintended pregnancies and transmission of STDs. Undergraduates are a vulnerable population to unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Therefore, this study was conducted with the objective of assessing the knowledge and attitudes towards the use of contraceptive methods among undergraduates of KIU. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted enrolling 304 undergraduates of 18 to 30 years of age using the simple random sampling method. Data were collected using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic details and questions to assess participants’ knowledge and attitudes. The knowledge section of the questionnaire was marked out of 34 points, ones who obtained 0-12 marks were considered to have poor knowledge 13-24 as average knowledge and above 25 as good knowledge. The likert scale was used to assess the attitude section of the questionnaire. The results of the study revealed that the majority were females 62.5% (n=190) and 76.32% (n=232) of the study participants were from the age category of 23-27 years. Eighty-four percent (84%, n=255) of the study sample possessed a satisfactory level of knowledge in contraceptive methods and females showed a higher level of knowledge than males (p=0.002). Health science students had a higher level of knowledge than non-health science students (p=0.001). In conclusion, though the study population displays an overall positive attitude towards family planning methods, knowledge in this regard is average.

Incidence of thyroid tumors has been triplicated in United States and other countries during the last three decades. There is a 2.1-fold increase of thyroid carcinoma from 2001 to 2010 in Sri Lanka. Though there is a higher incidence of thyroid tumors, their malignancy rate is low. Ultra Sound Scanning (USS) and fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) are used as the main pre-operative diagnostic methods. However, histopathological examination of surgical sections is used as the gold standard in determining the malignancy of the thyroid nodules. In order to prevent unnecessary surgeries and the re-operations, effective pre-operative diagnosis is important. As most of other tumours, thyroid tumours too originated as a result of single or multiple genetic alterations or mutations of molecular markers like BRAF, RAS, RET/ PTC and TERT. These markers can be effectively used to determine the disease prognosis. The presence of any of these markers in the thyroid nodule represent a 100% positive predictive value and therefore it can be used for the clinical management of the patients. The use of molecular markers can significantly increase the diagnostic accuracy of thyroid malignancies. The combined use of molecular markers with the clinical findings and other pre surgical procedures including USS and FNAC can increase the diagnostic capability of the thyroid tumors. This can also be used for the individualized surgical approaches and post-surgical management of the patients.

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