Background: In addition, Health promoting behaviours among the nursing students may affect the quality of patient education. Therefore, this study was undertaken to determine the health-promoting lifestyle behaviours of nursing students in a tertiary care institute, Maharashtra.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 124 nursing students. Health Promotion Lifestyle Profile Proforma (HPLP)was prepared which consists of two parts, Part I deals with the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants  and Part II of the proforma deals with Health-promoting lifestyle information which was a modified version of Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II). It consists of 46 items divided into 7 subscales (Health responsibility, Physical activity, Food practices, Spiritual growth, Self-concept, Inter personal relations and Stress management). Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of this tool was 0.8197. Permission of Institute Ethical Committee was taken. Descriptive statistics were used to describe HPLP. Data was analyzed by using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Mann Whitney test. Results: Majority 89(71.77%) were have good HPLP score and 29(23.39%) were excellent category. The mean overall (Total) HPLP score was 62.27±9.66 (range 33-87). The highest mean score in the subscale were for self-concept and spiritual growth. The lowest scores were for food practices and physical activity. Highly significant difference (p<0.0001) was found between overall mean HPLP scores among the different age groups.Conclusions: These nursing students had reasonably good orientations towards health behaviours. Attention need to be paid for healthier food choices. Health promotion planning to motivate students for regular physical activity with the purpose of promoting health and preventing diseases is necessary.

Background: The concept of “unmet need” for contraceptive points to the gap between women’s reproductive intention and their contraceptive behavior. About 12.8% of currently married women in India have an unmet need for contraception. The present descriptive cross-sectional survey was initiated to address the research questions regarding unmet need for contraception among married women of reproductive age group in rural Maharashtra.Methods: 400 married women of reproductive age living in rural area of Sangli district of Maharashtra state interviewed. The survey based on women’s response to survey questions regarding family information, fertility profile and attitude and practice of contraceptive use. Expanded formulation used for surveys to assess the size and characteristics of unmet need group, dividing it into distinct subgroups and to explore the reasons for unmet need using in-depth qualitative research. Data analyzed with absolute number and percentage of women having unmet need which is useful to set priorities in program for effective fertility control. The data was tabulated and analyzed using MS Excel.Results: Total unmet need for contraception was found 27.50% women, which comprises need for ‘spacing’ in 12.25% women, need for ‘limiting birth’ in 13.25% women and need for ‘appropriate contraception’ in 2.0% women among 400 married women of reproductive age. Most unmet need among younger women is for spacing birth (67.18%) while in older women above age 30 year; most unmet need (68.18%) is for limiting birth. The education of women does not affect significantly the unmet need for spacing and limiting birth. After first child the unmet need for spacing decreases with each additional child. On the contrary unmet need for limiting birth increases with each additional child after first child and it was maximum (96.55%) among women having 3 or more children.Conclusions: The study group expresses multiple reasons for the unmet need. Many of the reasons are not directly related to contraception. Most women with unmet need desire to use contraception in future favours spacing methods. People should have access to good quality information and services. Health education and motivation is needed to overcome these causes.

Background: Patients with tuberculosis often suffer from severe weight loss and is used as useful marker to predict TB treatment outcome. Hence a study was planned with an objective to determine the change of patient’s body weight over time throughout treatment and to determine whether there was any association with treatment outcome.Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study, planned to be conducted among all smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients registered in a Tuberculosis Unit of Pune corporation, during the period of January to December 2015. Body weights of patients were recorded from TB treatment cards at the time of diagnosis, after 2 months of intensive phase of treatment and at the end of treatment. Total 344 cases were enrolled. Chi-Square test and Fisher’s exact test and repeated measure ANOVA test was used for analysis.Results: A bad outcome was more likely among the category II cases as compared to category I, among non-adherent to treatment cases in continuation phase and higher sputum grading at the time of diagnosis i. e. in 3+ sputum smear grading. The weights of the patients at the time of diagnosis, at end of intensive phase and at end of treatment showed statistical significant difference (p<0.0001). The weight gain, more so at end of treatment was significantly associated with good outcome.Conclusions: Weight gain has prognostic significance in patients with tuberculosis and should be considered as a surrogate marker to monitor response to TB treatment especially in developing countries where extensive laboratory tests are not feasible.

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