Journal/Magazine Articles
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This collection contains original research articles, review articles and case reports published in local and international peer reviewed journals by the staff members of the Faculty of Medicine
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Item Effectiveness of a community-based participatory health promotion intervention to address knowledge, attitudes and practices related to intimate partner violence: a quasi-experimental study(BioMed Central, 2024) Reyal, H.P.; Perera, M.N.; Guruge, G.N.D.BACKGROUND Intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence experienced by women. It has detrimental consequences. A range of determinants cause intimate partner violence and to reduce it, effective interventions are required to address the determinants. Health promotion interventions have been recommended as effective to enable people to control over the determinants and to improve health. Hence, a community based participatory health promotion intervention was developed and tested in a selected study setting. The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of a health promotion intervention in terms of addressing knowledge, attitudes and practices related to intimate partner violence.METHODS A quasi-experimental study was conducted by recruiting ninety women aged 15 to 49 years separately from two health administrative areas identified as the intervention area and the control area from the Kandy district of Sri Lanka. A pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire was used in both pre- and post-assessments. Selected groups of women from the intervention area were facilitated with a health promotion intervention to improve knowledge, attitudes and practices related to intimate partner violence. To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention descriptive summaries and bivariate analysis were used.RESULTS The response rate was 90.9% (N = 90) during the pre-assessment and 87.9% (n = 87) and 82.8% (n = 82) from the intervention and control areas, respectively, during the post-assessment. Statistically significant improvement was reported in the total mean score comprising knowledge, attitudes, practices and identification of determinants from 59.6 to 80.8 in the intervention area [Pre-assessment: Mean = 59.6 (standard deviation-SD) = 17.5; Post-assessment: Mean = 80.8, SD = 19.0; p < 0.001) compared to the improvement in the control area from 62.2 to 63.0 (Pre-assessment: Mean = 62.2, SD = 17.3; Post-assessment: Mean = 63.0, SD = 18.9; p = 0.654).CONCLUSIONS The intervention was effective to improve knowledge, attitudes and practices related to intimate partner violence. Hence, the present approach can be used in similar contexts to address the knowledge, attitudes and certain practices related to intimate partner violence.Item Prevalence and associated factors of risky sexual behaviors among undergraduate students in state universities of Western Province in Sri Lanka: a descriptive cross sectional study(BioMed Central, 2018) Perera, U.A.P.; Abeysena, C.BACKGROUND: Risky sexual behaviors (RSB) are becoming an important problem all over the world. RSB are defined as behaviors leading to sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated factors of RSB among undergraduate students in state universities of Western Province in Sri Lanka. METHODS: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted on1575 second and third year undergraduates using stratified cluster sampling of the selected universities. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was used to assess socio-demographic, knowledge attitudes and behavior on reproductive health. RSB was defined as reporting of one or more following behavior/s; having more than one sexual partner, use of alcohol or inability to use condom or other contraceptive methods in sexual activities. The results were expressed as prevalence and its 95% confidence interval (CI) of RSB. Multiple logistic regression was performed ascertain the association between RSB and possible associated factors. The results were expressed as adjusted odds ratios (AOR). RESULTS: Prevalence of RSB in last 1 year and 3 months periods were 12.4%, (95% CI: 11.8-13.1) and 12.1% (95% CI: 11.5-12.7) respectively. The significantly associated risk factors for RSB were, attended night clubs in last month (AOR = 3.58, 95% CI: 1.29-9.88), alcohol consumption within last 3 months (AOR = 2.67, 95% CI: 1.87-3.80) and good knowledge on condoms (AOR = 2.82, 95% CI: 1.94-4.10). Those who thought religion was very important to their lives (AOR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.48-0.95) was a protective factor. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol consumption and attending night clubs were associated with RSB. Necessary measures should be taken to reduce risk behaviors within university to reduce RSB.