Community Awareness Level Regarding Brain Tumours and Reasons of Delay in Total Diagnostic Interval

Authors

  • BABAR BUTT Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS), Lahore General Hospital, Lahore
  • ADNAN AKBAR Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS), Lahore General Hospital, Lahore
  • AMAN UR REHMAN Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS), Lahore General Hospital, Lahore
  • RIZWAN MASOOD BUTT Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS), Lahore General Hospital, Lahore

Keywords:

Brain tumors, community awareness, Total Diagnostic Interval

Abstract

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the awareness in the Pakistani community regarding Brain tumors and exploring the reasons for the delay in Total Diagnostic Interval (TDI).
Material and Methods: The methodology used to determine community level of awareness by anonyms, questionnaire based descriptive study. The duration of the study was 4 months and data was taken from the patients operated in Neurosurgery Unit I of Punjab Institute of Neuroscience (PINS).
Results: A total of 102 patients were recorded, of which sixty five (63.7%) were male patients and thirty seven (36.2%) female patients. Immense delay was noted in getting the first basic radiological investigation, i.e., more than one year in 33 cases (32.35%) after the appearance of their first symptom. The study revealed that 46 cases (45.00%) got treatment from Quack, 38 cases (37.00%) from spiritual healer/Hakeems and 8 cases (07.00%) had homeopathic treatment. It was noted that 35 (34.30%) of the patients were unaware of their disease, and 67patients (65.00%) were aware of their disease. The awareness group revealed that 28 cases (27.45%) know about their disease, but reluctant to get surgery, while 30 cases (29.00%) were considered quacks treatment. Seventy five cases (73.52%) presented after 12 weeks of their initial symptom in our series.
Conclusion: Awareness regarding brain tumors is insufficient that is resulting in delay of Total Diagnostic Interval, moreover the scenario was further complicated by adopting alternative methods of treatment like Hakeems/quacks/homeopathic and spiritual healers.

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Published

2019-06-04

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2019): April-June

Section

Original Articles

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The work published by PJNS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Copyrights on any open access article published by Pakistan Journal of Neurological Surgery are retained by the author(s).