RESUMEN
Background: Severe Cognitive Impairment (CI) is a major cause of disability and dependency among the elderly worldwide, and it has a significant impact not only on individuals but also on families, communities, and societies. Early identification and management of CI are critical in geriatric medicine. Prevalence data is often scarce, and this hinders the ground-level implementation of preventive health programs. Objectives: The objective was to find the prevalence of CI and its covariates among the urban geriatric population of Haryana. Materials and Methods: This was a community-based cross-sectional study conducted among 300 geriatric participants residing in an urban area of Rohtak district, Haryana. Hindi Mental State Examination (HMSE) tool was used to assess CI. Data were analyzed using IBM Corp, released 2020, IBM SPSS statistics for windows Ver 20, Armonk, NY. Results: The prevalence of geriatric CI was found to be 27.3% and was found to be significantly associated with age, female gender, scheduled and backward caste (BC), widowhood, and low educational status and is not engaged in any occupation, low socioeconomic status, teetotalism, economic dependency, physical dependency on others, and chronic morbidity. Conclusion: Age, female gender, scheduled and backward caste, widowhood, low educational status, nil employment status, low socioeconomic status, teetotalism, economic dependency, physical dependency on others, and chronic morbidity were found to be important correlates of CI. Further analytical studies can focus on these aspects for an early targeted preventive approach.
RESUMEN
Background: The United Nations defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life".[1] Violence can take many forms, including physical, sexual or emotional and varies in its severity. Gender discrimination, norms and practices mean that adolescent girls are likely to experience certain forms of violence, such as sexual violence, at much higher rates than boys. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a rural block of North India. A total of 500 adolescent girls in the age group of 13-19 years studying in class VIII to class XII in 10 government and private senior secondary schools of the Lakhanmajra block were included in the study. A pre-designed pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule was used. Results: In this study, we found the prevalence of physical, sexual and emotional violence among adolescent girls as 6.6, 5.4 and 5.2%, respectively. The most frequent perpetrator of physical violence was the parent and of sexual violence was the neighbour followed by friends or relatives. Higher emotional violence was experienced by adolescent girls from middle-class families (P < 0.05). The prevalence of physical violence among adolescent girls was maximum in the younger age group 13-14 years (10.2%), followed by 15-17 years (4.0%). This association was found statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusions: There are several restrictions on free communication about violence-related topics in our highly conservative society. Blaming the victim is the rule rather than the exception and sexual abuse is usually linked to a loss of virginity and family honour in our patriarchal society. Hence, girls may be more reluctant to disclose their experience of violence.