Prevalence of Pain in Patients with HIV/AIDS: A Cross-sectional Survey in a South Indian State

Objectives:

Primary - To measure the prevalence of pain in HIV/AIDS with patients.Secondary - To assess the type, site, severity, management of pain and impact of pain on quality of life in these patients.

Design:

Multicentre cross-sectional survey (This paper is a pilot study).

Settings:

ART centre at St. John''s Medical College Hospital, Bangalore and Snehadan, A supportive and care centre for HIV/ AIDS patients at Bangalore.

Materials and Methods:

Data sheet, Brief pain inventory and Short – Form McGill pain questionnaire.

Subjects:

This is an ongoing study and the pilot study includes 140 HIV/AIDS patients in different stages of the disease.

Results:

About 66.7% (28/42) in-patients and 24.5% (24/98) out-patients complained of pain. Of the 52 patients who reported pain, 32% (14/52) reported neuropathic pain and 68% (38/52) reported noci-ceptive pain. Headache was most common followed by pain in the soles of feet and low back. Only 26.9% (17/52) received any form of analgesic. Pain severity significantly affects the quality of life.

Conclusions:

Pain is a common and debilitating symptom of HIV/AIDS. It is however, under-estimated and under treated.     

What kind of exposure reduces children''s food neophobia?: Looking vs. tasting

To determine the relative effectiveness of two different types of exposure on young children's preference for initially novel foods, 51 two- to five-year-old children received either "look" or "taste" exposures to seven novel fruits. Foods were exposed five, 10 or 15 times, and one food remained novel. Following the exposures, children made two judgments of each of the 21 pairs: one based on looking, the other on tasting the foods. Thurstone Case V scaling solutions were correlated with exposure frequency, and these were significant for the visual judgments of the looked at foods (r = 0.91), the visual judgments of the tasted (and looked at) foods (r = 0.97) and the taste judgments of the tasted foods (r = 0.94). The only non-significant relationship was for the taste judgments of the looked at (but never tasted) foods (r = 0.24). The results indicate that to obtain significant positive changes in preference, experience with the food must include experience in the modality that is relevant for the judgments. While visual experience produced enhanced visual preference judgments, visual experience was not sufficient to produce significantly enhanced taste preferences. This finding is consistent with a "learned safety" interpretation of the exposure effects noted in the taste judgments: experiences with novel tastes that are not followed by negative gastrointestinal consequences can produce enhanced taste preference.     

Health and the information nonseeker: a profile

Despite increased information-seeking by the public, a significant percentage of those diagnosed with a serious disease such as cancer report that they do not seek or receive health information beyond that given by health care providers. This study attempts to profile these nonseekers and study possible determinants of nonseeking behaviors. Data come from the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey, a national survey of American adults conducted by the National Cancer Institute ( N = 6,133; Nelson et al., 2004). Individuals were categorized as nonseekers or seekers and then further classified based on cancer history to yield 4 groups: nonseeker patients, the nonseeker public, seeker patients, and the seeker public. Compared to other groups, nonseeker patients came from the lowest income and education groups, and scored lower on attention to health in the media and trust in mass media health information. Nonseekers also scored lower on preventative health behaviors.     

Performance of a rapid immunochromatographic screening test for detection of antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV-2: experience at a tertiary care hospital in South India

The performance characteristics of a rapid immunochromatographic-screening test, SD Bioline HIV-1/2 3.0 (Standard Diagnostics Inc., Kyonggi-do, South Korea) on 23,754 sera and 30 plasma samples are reported. The sensitivity and specificity for the assay on serum samples are 100% and 99.4%, respectively. The assay detected antibodies in individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) genotypes A and C and HIV-2. This straightforward assay is a reliable diagnostic tool for screening HIV in resource-poor settings.     

Iodine deficiency in district Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh

The state of Himachal Pradesh is a known iodine deficiency endemic region since the last 40 years. The state government is supplying iodised salt to the district since 1970 No recent survey has been conducted on the prevalence of iodine deficiency from the district Kinnaur which is located at an average altitude of 10,000 feet above sea level. A total of 1094 children in the age group of 6–10 years were included in the study and clinically examined. The total goitre prevalence of 6.1% was found in the subjects studied. Urine samples were collected from 226 children and were analysed using standard laboratory procedures. It was found that the percentage of children with <2 mcg/dl, 2–4.9 mcg/dl, 5–9.9 mcg/dl and 10 and above mcg/dl of urinary iodine excretion (UIE) level was 1.3, 5.8, 10.6 and 82.3 respectively. A total of 242 salt samples were collected and analysed using the standard iodometric titration method. Results showed that almost 90% of the families were consuming salt with an iodine content of 15 ppm and more which is the stipulated level of iodisation of salt. The findings of the study indicate that iodine nutrition is in the transition phase from iodine deficient to iodine sufficient. Findings revealed a need for further strengthening the monitoring of the quality of salt being distributed in Kinnaur to achieve elimination of iodine deficiency.