Background: Patient satisfaction is deemed to be one of the important factors which determine the success of health care facility. The real challenge is not getting ready with mere requirements, but also delivers services ensuring good quality. Thus, there is a need to assess the health care systems regarding patient satisfaction as often as possible. Aims & Objective: To measure the patients' satisfaction towards health care services. Material and Methods: A randomly selected 100 patients were interviewed by using pre-structured questionnaires at the end of their O.P.D. visits for 5 days from 16th-20th January, 2012 at Civil Hospital, Surendranagar. While analysing, they were grouped into categories like availability of services, clinical care, waiting time and cost. Results: The overall opinion about the efficiency of hospital was satisfactory in 92% of patients. 68% respondents said that the time of coming to hospital and consulted by doctor was too long. Although in 75% of patients the time devoted by doctor was only between 0-5 min., the communication and explanation of disease by doctors were found satisfactory in 80% and 91% respectively. The need of investigations was necessary as per 90% of patients. Time required to locate and get medicines from pharmacy was satisfactory in nearby all patients. Conclusion: According to patient's opinion, the study revealed that the degree of satisfaction was mild to moderate with respect to waiting time and availability of specialist in the hospital, which need to be further explored and corrected.

Background: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), substance abuse is “persistent or sporadic drug use inconsistent with or unrelated to acceptable medical practice.” Recently, substance abuse has been increasing among children and adolescents. Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death and disability globally and in India. Tobacco consumption is a major preventable cause of death, accounting for 13,000 deaths per day globally. This study was conducted to identify the prevalence of substance abuse and its pattern among adolescents in rural and urban community of Surendranagar district.Methods: It was a cross-sectional study carried out among 300 rural (150 from school and 150 from community) and 300 urban (150 from school and 150 from community) adolescents selected by simple random sampling. Data was collected and analysed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences and Microsoft excel have been used to generate graphs, tables, etc.Results: Prevalence of substance abuse in our study was 30.17%. Adolescents from rural community had higher prevalence (37.67%). Prevalence was significantly higher in males (55.33%) than compared to females (5%). Tobacco was most common substance abused by the adolescents.Conclusions: Prevalence of substance abuse was higher in rural compared to urban community and in males compared to females. Chewing form being the most common form of abusing the tobacco followed by smoking and drinking form in our study.

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Background: Domestic violence is a global issue, reaching across national boundaries as well as socio-economic, cultural, racial and class distributions. Domestic violence is among the most underreported crimes worldwide for both men and women. Globally, the victims of domestic violence are overwhelmingly women, and women tend to experience more severe forms of violence.Methods: It was a Community based Cross-sectional study. The study was carried out in the rural and urban area of Surendranagar district. Total 600 married women of 15-49 years of age were selected randomly. The information gathered was based on self-administered questionnaire. Strict confidentiality was maintained.Results: Out of total 600 women, 38.5% were victims of domestic violence in one form or the other. Out of these 231 victims, 134 respondents were from rural area and 97 respondents were from urban area. The study results revealed that age at marriage, literacy status of women and their husband, their occupational status, type of family and socio-economic class has significant impact on prevalence of domestic violence.Conclusions: Domestic violence is more prevalent among uneducated, backward and economically disadvantaged women.

Background: Infectious diseases are a major cause of morbidity & mortality in children. One of the most cost effective & easy methods for child survival is immunization. In May 1974, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially launched a global immunization programme known as Expanded Programme of immunization (EPI) to protect all the children of the world against 6 Vaccine Preventable Diseases by the year 2000. It was later redesignated as Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) since 1985. The objectives of this study were to assess the dropout rate and primary immunization coverage of children aged 12-23 months in Surendranagar city and to know the various reasons for partially or not immunizing the child. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study. Thirty clusters were selected out of a total of 282 blocks of Surendranagar using the cluster sampling method. Cluster sampling method was used for sample selection and the proforma designed by UNICEF was used as a study tool. Sample size was 210 children (7 Children from each cluster) of aged 12-23 months. The obtained data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests like Z test and X2 test. Results: Out Of the 210 surveyed children, 121(57.62%) were males and 89(42.38%) were females. Immunization card was available for 69.52% of children and fully immunized were 70.47%. Coverage was highest for BCG (95.71%) followed by OPV3 (82.85%), DPT3 (79.52%) and lowest for measles (75.23%). As far as the dropout rate is concerned, it was 21.39%, 10.21%, and 9.37% for BCG to measles, DPT1 to DPT3, and OPV1 to OPV3, respectively. Amongst the various reasons main reasons for dropout or unimmunization of children were ignorance in about 64% and lack of information regarding time, place and schedule (21%). Conclusions: Improvement should focus on reducing the dropout rate from DPT2/OPV2 to DPT3/OPV3 and improving coverage of measles and also Vitamin A. [Int J Basic Clin Pharmacol 2013; 2(3.000): 286-289