Awareness of Thalassemia in Medical Students in a Medical School of Delhi.

Awareness of thalassemia in medical students. Thalassemia affects 200 million people worldwide. In Southeast Asia, it is a major public health problem. In India, 10 000 cases are born per year. Thalassemia has until recently, received little attention and is not widely understood by health professionals. There is lack of proper awareness of Thalassemia. Thus. This study was done in 203 medical students at Delhi to assess their awareness about Thalassemia. A preformed proforma was used for this purpose. All the students present on a day in a particular batch were included. MS EXCEL and SPSS were used for analysis. P-value was calculated to assess the statistic significance.

Concepts like hematological, genetic & non-infective were well known as opposed to symptoms like fatigue, muscular weakness, abnormal bleeding, jaundice, protruding abdomen, fits, dark urine, bone pain, abnormal facial bones, and susceptibility to infections. Diagnostic and treatment modalities like electromyography, vitamins, antibiotics, cryoprecipitates, spleenectomy, bone marrow transplant and umbilical cord were also much less known. Awareness of preventive interventions like genetic counseling, consanguity, fetal blood sampling was less.

Thus, a continuous education model for medical staff is required. Although programs for increasing community awareness are underway in many countries; interventions to raise thalassemia awareness in medical professionals are also required.