Nidhi Dwivedi

Relationship between dominant hand and ear preference for listening among medical students

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine dominant hand for routine activities and ear preference for listening among medical students. Mobile phone usage was also studied. Methodology: Medical students of three batches (2nd, 3rd, and 4th year) studying in a government medical college of Delhi (India) were considered. Out of 150 permitted (50 per batch) seats, only 139 were filled. Thus, after seeking an informed consent, a total of 117 (84.1%) available students could be contacted in person who completed the survey capturing details such as Section-I: Sociodemographic background; Section-II: Dominant hand (right/left) for undertaking routine activities, ear (right/left) preference for listening say mobile phones; and Section-III: Selected details of their mobile phones. Results: There were 71 (60.7%) males and 46 (39.3%) female students; It was found out that out of 117 students, 110 (94.0%) were right handed while 7 (5.9%) were left handed. Out of all the right-handed persons (n = 110), 94 (85.4%) preferred right ear, 14 (12.7%) left ear, and 2 (1.8%) either of the ears for listening phone. Similarly, out of all the left-handed persons (n = 07), 6 (85.7%) preferred left ear and only 1 (14.2%) right ear for listening mobile phone. Right-sided (right hand-right ear) laterality was observed in 85.4% and left-sided (left hand-left ear) laterality in 85.7% with overall (same hand-same ear) laterality of 85.4% among study participants (P < 0.01). Most common color of mobile phone was black (59, 50.4%), white (30, 25.6%), golden (13, 11.1%), silver (6, 5.1%), etc. Average time spent per day by medical students on mobile phones (either communication, Internet/WhatsApp/Facebook, listening songs, playing games, or reading E-books) was 3.83 (±2.1) h and average monthly expenditure on mobile phone was 10% of personal expenditure, i.e., Rs. 532 (±374.4). Conclusion: Our descriptive study reiterates that most participants were right handed (dominant limb) and majority of them preferred right ear for listening phones.

Medical Students’ Opinion and Perception of the Education Environment in a Medical College of Delhi, India

Objective: To assess students’ opinion and perception regarding education environment in a government medical college of Delhi, India. Materials and Methods: Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM), a universal, culturally nonspecific, generic 50-item inventory tool was used. Each item is rated on a five-point Likert scale with score ranging from 0 to 4 where 0 = strongly disagree, 1 = disagree, 2 = unsure, 3 = agree, and 4 = strongly agree. MBBS students of three batches (2nd, 3rd, and 4th year) were considered in the present cross-sectional study. Results: A total of 117 (84.1%) available students could be contacted in person, out of whom 71 (60.7%) were males; 94 (80.3%) passed their 12th class from private/convent school; nearly 88 (75.2%) students opined that administration is student-supportive; and 111 (94.8%) were in self-assessment state of “happiness.” The overall mean DREEM inventory score (range, 0–200) among all the respondents was 130.34 (±15.76), which is suggestive of “more positive than negative.” Statistically (P < 0.05) higher DREEM score was found among senior medical students [score, 136.5 (4th year) vs. 131.9 (3rd year) vs. 123.6 (2nd year)]; those medical students who were globally satisfied (score, 131.2 vs. 119.3); satisfied getting admitted in current medical college (score, 133.0 vs. 115.7); and who opined that administration is student-supportive (score, 133.4 vs. 120.9). Gender, type of school, marks in 12th class, native place, current residence, supplementary (extra attempt) in university exam, current mental state (sad/happy), and professional satisfaction had no statistical bearing on overall DREEM score. Overall, none of the inventory item (score range, 0–4) had an avg. score more than 3.5, but the score of the majority (42/50, 84.0%) of question items in the present study was in the range of 2–3 points indicating the aspects of the environment that could be improved or enhanced. Conclusion: Within limitations, the study gauges the experiential learning environment from the students’ perspective indicating overall positive results and moving in right direction. Some challenges inherent with medical education and critical areas requiring strengthening were listed including social and leisure time student involvement.

Knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding organ donation among adult visitors in a public hospital in Delhi, India

Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding organ/tissue donation. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among ambulatory, consenting adult (>18 years) visitors of a mid-level government hospital using a predesigned, pretested, semistructured interview schedule. Data were analyzed by calculating proportion, Chi-square test, and odds ratio (OR). Results: Of 450 respondents, 271 (60.2%) were aged more than 31 years, 264 (58.7%) were male, 345 (76.7%) were married, 374 (83.1%) were Hindu, 304 (67.6%) had studied up to 10th class, 278 (61.8%) were working, 217 (48.2%) had 0–2 previous visit to this hospital, and 142 (31.6%) reported history of hospitalization. Majority (337, 74.9%) of the respondents had heard the term organ donation (OD). On probing further, nearly 87.3% and 82.4% of respondents had ever heard of eye and kidney donation, respectively. Encouragingly, more than half of respondents, i.e., 261 (58.0%), showed willingness for OD. Statistically (P < 0.001) higher odds for OD willingness was found among participants who were aware of the term OD (unadjusted OR [UOR] = 2.8, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.82–4.39), eye donation (UOR = 3.2, 95% CI: 1.78–5.76), and kidney donation (UOR = 4.0, 9.5% CI: 2.40–6.84). Similarly, higher willingness was found among single/separated participant and with higher level of education (P < 0.05). About one-fourth (120, 26.7%) of respondents had donated blood in the past, but this practice had no statistical bearing on the willingness for OD (P = 0.61). Nearly half of the respondents, i.e., 239 (53.1%), were aware that organs could be removed from both living and dead person; 373 (82.9%) of respondents were aware that organs cannot be removed from the body without authorized permission (UOR = 2.7, 95% CI: 1.57–4.88 and adjusted OR [AOR] = 2.6, 95% CI: 1.27–5.66). However, only 119 (26.4%) respondents consented to sign a pledge card for OD. Higher odds (AOR = 12.8, 95% CI: 5.02–32.75) for OD willingness was found among those who consented to sign a pledge card. A high of 364 (80.9%) respondents had no misconception that a person will be born with missing organ following donation of organ/tissue in this life. Conclusion: A high awareness but low level of positive attitude and practices was noticed among sampled metropolitan respondents toward organ/tissue donation.

Survival analysis: A brief note

This manuscript briefly describes the concept and terminologies related to survival analysis, characteristics, need, data mechanism, functions, and application in health sciences along with different estimation procedure.

Bathtub concept in health sciences: A comment

Bathtub shape has important connotations in public health and the concept could be reflected in two novel ways: (1) engineering (2) epidemiological model. Typical bath-tub curve is a combination of three failure rates, that is, decreasing, constant, and increasing failure rate, and different techniques are utilized to reduce these failures. This brief study highlights the concept of bath-tub, related theory, application, and how data modeling could be undertaken considering bath-tub failure rate.

Forecasting Visitor Accession Trend of Two Prominent Indian Health Journal Websites for the Period 2015–2020 Using Time Series Analysis

Objective: To determine the pattern and forecast visitor accession trend of two national academic journal website: Indian Journal of Community Medicine (IJCM) and Indian Journal of Public Health (IJPH) for the period 2015-2020. Materials and Methods: The visitor accession details (number of times journal issue accessed online) for the period 2000-2014 (15 years) were collected and recorded on Microsoft Excel sheet. Time series analysis was then applied on the dataset using different forecasting models to predict the future trend of accession and value of a real dataset using R software (version 3.1). Results: Both the Indian journals are managed by independent professional bodies, but IJCM journal website was made online in 2007, 3 years ahead of IJPH (2010), leading to a very high accession (a proxy indicator for volume of readership) of IJCM during this period ranging between 100,000 and 120,000 counts, and thereafter accession was noticed to be slightly higher for IJPH than IJCM. The time series sequence showed that both had similar pattern, i.e., first stage: they have initial slow rise; second stage: sudden increasing trend from 2007 to 2010 (IJCM); and 2010 to 2012 (IJPH), respectively; and third stage: Both have then a decreasing trend with superimposed seasonal fluctuations. Future predicted accession details of IJCM and IJPH for 2015-2020 by Holt-Winter fitting model suggest stagnation with online accession of journal issue ranging from 30,360 to 31,860 counts for IJPH and 20,997 to 25,581 counts for IJCM though the range of accession for IJCM (4584) was higher than IJPH (1500), thereby reflecting that IJPH will attain stagnation earlier then IJCM. Autoregressive integrated moving average model also reflected similar results. Ljung-Box test indicated that the model was found statistically correct (P = 0.825 for IJCM and P = 0.50 (IJPH), and there was no statistically significant difference between actual values and predicted values by model. For IJCM dataset, value of R2 = 0.678 means that the model could explain 67.8% of the observed variation in the series, while it was able to explain 63.3% variations in IJPH series. Conclusion: To conclude within limitations, this study provides information on pattern and trend of visitor accession of public health journal website. The information unraveled from this study may further aids in planning, strengthening publication standards along with experimentation of innovative ideas to enhance visibility, global participation with a focus on retaining and enhancing journal user base.

Risk of Internet Addiction Among Undergraduate Medical, Nursing, and Lab Technology Students of a Health Institution from Delhi, India

Objective: To assess prevalence, usage pattern, and risk of internet addiction (IA) among undergraduate students of a health institution from Delhi. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out during March-April 2015 using 20-item Young′s IA test, a Likert scale-based interview schedule with scores ranging from 0 to 100 points with a higher score indicating greater internet dependency. Background variables included sociodemographic details, general health practices, self-assessment of mental health status, inter-personal relation (family/friends), personality type, and global satisfaction in life. The scoring pattern was analyzed in the form of low risk (score ≤49 points) and high risk (score ≥50 points) for IA. The proportion, Chi-square test, adjusted, and un-adjusted odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval) were computed using regression analysis. Results: Out of 202, 40.6% were MBBS students, followed by 35.6% from nursing, and 23.8% from medical lab technology stream; 68.3% were females; the mean age was 20.3 ± 1.4 years; and 61.9% were residing in hostels. It was observed that 44 (21.8%) and 22 (10.9%) students had ever consumed alcohol and smoked, respectively, while only 42 (20.8%) were engaged in physical activity (≥30 min) during most (≥5) of the days of the week. Based on self-assessment, 33 (16.3%) were globally dissatisfied and 88 (43.6%) reported themselves to be introverts. The majority of students were using internet for educational purpose (98%), entertainment (95.0%), accessing social sites (92.5%), checking E-mails (76.2%), and pornographic websites (45%). With regard to IA, 171 (84.7%) were at low risk (score ≤49) and 31 (15.4%) were at high risk (score ≥50). Male students (P = 0.001), ever consumed alcohol (P = 0.003), ever smoker (P = 0.02), and regular physical activity (P = 0.04) were found to be significantly associated with a high risk of IA based on Chi-square test, but none were found significant at higher levels of analyses (adjusted OR). No significant association of IA was found with mental status, global satisfaction, inter-personal relationship, or personality type. Conclusion: A large majority (84.7%) of students in our study are found to be at low risk of internet addiction.