The complications of long-term corticosteroid therapy were reviewed in 100 elderly patients who were treated for chronic obstructive airways disease (n = 76), rheumatoid arthritis (n = 19) and ulcerative colitis (n = 5). The incidence of side effects was high (40%) and appeared to be dose-related. Osteoporosis (16%) and hypertension (12%) were the most common. Hypokalaemia occurred infrequently despite the fact that 69 patients were also prescribed diuretics. A further group of 36 patients receiving corticosteroids for polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis also seemed to demonstrate a dose-related effect on the incidence of complications although this could not be confirmed statistically.

Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine disorder commonly affecting the adolescent girls. Globally, the prevalence rate is around 4 to 12% and it affects 5 to 10% women in their reproductive age group. The study was conducted to assess the knowledge on PCOS among the student nurses. This was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study among 350 adolescent girls of a selected nursing college recruited using stratified random sampling. A predesigned, pretested, semistructured 16-item questionnaire containing two components—basic knowledge on PCOS (8) and treatment and prevention of PCOS (8), was used for data collection and the results were analyzed. Results revealed that all the adolescent girls (350; 100%) belonged to the age group of 18 to 20 years. It was noted that 306 (87.4%) of students had inadequate knowledge, whereas 44 (12.6%) students had adequate knowledge on PCOS. Significant association was found between primary source of information (p = 0.012) and knowledge on PCOS at 0.05 level of significance. The study concluded that conduction of planned teaching programs is necessary to increase comprehensive knowledge with regard to detection of presenting symptoms and foster early diagnosis and treatment of the syndrome thereby promoting overall health.