No abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> A child sexual abuse (CSA) incident never comes into limelight unless it is a rape, probably because it could be an asymptomatic event causing only an emotional trauma or due to fear of revealing. It has been observed that sexually transmitted infections (STI) are in increasing trend among adolescents due to early sexual maturity, increased promiscuity and sexual offenses.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> An observational cross-sectional study was carried out for a group of 774 school children between the age group of 14-17 years using a structured questionnaire to estimate the level of unreported child sexual abuse and sexual awareness. Descriptive statistical analysis was carried out in this study (SPSS 21.0).<strong></strong></p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> It was observed that 5.5% of children had been abused among which 37.3 % and 62.7% were males and females respectively. 11.1% and 6.25% were abused in penetrative, 59.25% and 43.75% in non-penetrative forms among female and male victims respectively. Abusers were mainly family and friends (25.5%) followed by strangers (23.2%). 25.3% of unaffected and 27.9% of affected was aware of POSCO law. 88.3% of affected and 62.3% of unaffected rated good and above for the questionnaire.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Unreported and silent victims have to be identified and addressed to prevent crimes and provide a safer environment for children. Implementation of POCSO law at the root level with sex education must be strengthened. Our study concluded that CSA is an extensive problem and even the lowest prevalence includes a huge number of victims who still need to be considered.</p>

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Psoriasis is a chronic immune mediated inflammatory condition of the skin. Palmoplantar psoriasis (PPP) is a clinical variant of plaque psoriasis affecting palms and soles extending to the wrist and the margins of the soles and heels. This study was done to find out the prevalence of palmoplantar psoriasis in our setting. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence, demographic features and other co-morbidities of the palmoplantar plaque psoriasis in a tertiary care centre.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> We conducted retrospective study for a period of one year (January 2017 to December 2017) on palmoplantar plaque psoriasis patients attending the dermatology OPD.<strong></strong></p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Among 552 enrolled psoriasis patients, 85 were clinically diagnosed to have palmoplantar psoriasis. The mean age of the patient was 45 years. Most of them belong to 4^th, 5^thand 6^th decade of life. The male to female ratio was 1:2.26. The duration of the disease was more than one year in 73% of patients at the study time. Occupation of the patients included house-wives (50%), manual labourers (36%) and office goers, (13%). Hyperkeratotic plaque type psoriasis with scaling and fissures was the predominant morphological pattern recorded. Dyslipidemia (22%), overweight and obesity (56%), hypothyroidism (6%) and diabetes mellitus (12%) were the observed co-morbidities in this study.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The prevalence of palmoplantar psoriasis (0.09%) was low in our study. Palmoplantar psoriasis affected middle aged adults and had a female predominance in this study. Overweight, obesity, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus and hypothyroidism were the co-morbid conditions observed in this study. Being a relapsing and chronic condition the disease poses a poor quality of life than plaque type psoriasis.</p>