European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

A STUDY ON EAR, NOSE AND THROAT (ENT) AND EYE HEALTH PROBLEMS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS OF ELURU.

Dr. K. Chandra Sekhar*, Dr. R. Indira, Dr. K. Madhavi Rani, Dr. Sr. Mercy P., N. Lakshmi Prasanna, G. Suneetha

ABSTRACT

Background: Prevalence of ENT problems such as cough, sore throat, sinus and earache are also frequent in children, adolescent age group and young people including college students. Upper respiratory tract infections predispose a child to complications such as otitis media, tonsillitis, and sinusitis. Tonsillitis most often occurs in children and also in college students due to their life style modifications adopted during that age, a condition rarely appreciated in those younger than 2 years. These ENT problems and eye problems exhibiting silent epidemic among those people and hampers their education concentration and also alters their physical and psychological dimensions. Objectives: 1. To identify the ear, nose and throat and eye health problems among college students and imparting health education to the same individuals. Materials & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from June 2015 to August 2015 among Undergraduate and Postgraduate College students of Ch.S.D.St. Theresa’s Autonomous College for Women between the age group of 19-23 years. A total of 278 students were participated and all the explained about the importance of the study and informed consent was taken from the participants. Data entered into MS Excel sheet and analyzed and simple proportions and chi square test were applied. Results: In the study population, 92.8% were degree studying individuals and only 7.2% were studying post graduation. Out of 278 students, about 30.2% students were having different nose problems including different sinus problems. There was statistically significant association was found between level of the study and sinus problems (P<0.05). About 29.4% students were having throat problems like throat pain and tonsillitis. About 36.6% (102/278) were having vision problems including all refractive errors. Conclusions: Based on the above study results, prevalence of eye problems is relatively high as it is comparatively individual ENT problems. On the whole ENT and Eye problems are exhibiting silent form and undiagnosed form as they are young ignore their problem due to ignorance and low economic status background of parents.

Keywords: Age, College students, ENT problems, Eye problem.