Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM), a major threat to both developing and developed countries, which can be easily prevented by lifestyle modifications. Because of lack of awareness, the occurrence of diabetes and its complications is showing a steady increase. Empowering the patients with knowledge about diabetic self-care is expected to have better outcome of the disease. Thus this study was planned to assess the awareness and knowledge about diabetes among the patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending rural health care center. The objective of the study was to assess the awareness of diabetes among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending a rural health and training centre (RHTC).Methods: A Cross sectional study was conducted to assess the awareness about diabetes among patients with type 2 diabetes, attending RHTC in Tamil Nadu. The study was conducted in outpatient clinic in RHTC, during the month of November and December 2017 and 258 patients with diabetes who gave written consent were included in the study. Data was collected using a pre-tested structured questionnaire through one-to-one interviews. Data entry and analysis was done using SPSS version 16.Results: It was found that, 63.1% of the participants had adequate knowledge regarding T2DM and family history of T2DM was one of the important determinant of having adequate knowledge regarding T2DM.Conclusions: Knowledge about diabetes is fair but still their practice on control of glycemic levels needs to be improved. This shows that there is a necessary to health educate the patients in order to prevent or postpone the complications of diabetes mellitus.

Background: Anaemia, a major public health threat and real challenge for the health care professionals, for the past several decades. The burden of anaemia is high especially among females of reproductive age group, who are a vulnerable population undergoing pregnancy and child birth at this stage of their life. Thus this study was aimed to find the prevalence of anaemia among the reproductive age group females attending an urban health center in Tamil Nadu.Methods: A hospital based, cross sectional study was conducted among reproductive age group females, attending Urban Health Training Center. 292 patients, who gave written consent were included and interviewed using a questionnaire followed by haemoglobin assessment with venous blood sample.Results: The mean age of the study participants were 34.6±12.4 years with 9.6% uneducated and 7.2% graduate females. 26% gave history of symptoms of anaemia and prevalence of anaemia was reported to be 42.12% with 24.31%, 12.32% and 5.5% of mild anaemia, moderate anaemia and severe anaemia, respectively.Conclusions: With immense efforts, prevalence of anaemia is still high, in this study. Prevention and treatment of anaemia in women is much essential at this point and therefore programmes and policies should be implemented based on the needs of the community and health education should be imparted with respect to measures that can prevent and helps in early diagnosis of anaemia.