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How to cite this document

Lamsal S, Walia I, Kumar R, Kaur B. Health Profile of the Street Children. Rev Paraninfo Digital, 2007; 2. In: <http://www.index-f.com/para/n2/144.php> Consulted 31 de Mayo del 2023

ABSTRACT

Among the 100 conveniently chosen street children, 74 were Indians and 26 were Nepalese.
Ninety-one children were Hindu, 80 were above 12 years of age with the mean age and SD 14.74±2.77, 72 had some education, 54 children at present worked as hawkers and servants at shops and 69 had a daily income between Rs. 30-90.
Reason For leaving home included physical abuse by parents and relatives (48), lack of food at home (16), desire to earn (26) and others (10).
More than the half subjects were thin built. A majority i.e.88 had problems in their hair like, dandruff (57), dirty hair (53), head lice/nits (32) and 42 had problems on the face like, pimples (34), cholasma (11) etc.
The problems in lips were predominated by dryness (56) and blackish discoloration (22) whereas most common problems of gums, teeth and tongue were bluish black pigmentation (29), dental caries (43) and ulcers (17) respectively.
A total of 27 subjects had problems in their eyes and among the 53 subjects with problems in ears, 43 had wax impaction, while among the 26 subjects with problems in nose, 22 had running nose.
Lymph nodes enlargement was present in 9 children whereas one subject was present with movable thyroid gland on swallowing.
Fifty-six children had problems in skin at various sites of their body and 76 had problems in nails.
Rickettsial changes in the chest were seen in two children whereas 9 had structural deformities in either extremity.
Eighty-three subjects were uncertain about their immunization status and only 32 of them had a BCG scar. The Tuberculin test was positive among 12 subjects.
Only 33 subjects had normal BMI and rest were below the normal.
Sixty-four subjects were anaemic, one was present with positive urine albumin and 70 had intestinal parasite infection.
History of illnesses was predominated by injury, pain and generalized itching i.e. 71,56 and 41respectively.
Data regarding present illnesses of the subjects revealed that 31 subjects had cough, 22 complained of anal itching, 22 had febrile feeling, 16 had urinary problems and 15 suffered from headache. Vision problem (11), earache (11), hearing loss (4), excessive sleep (10) and insomnia (14) were other common complaints of the subjects.
Forty-two subjects had sexual exposure at various age with either girlfriend or prostitute in which two subjects were homosexual. Seventy subjects were substance/s abusers, which included 49 alcohol abusers, 48 smokers, 42 tobacco chewers, 3 injectable drug abusers and 51 various other types of substance/s abusers.
Only 24 subjects took a bath daily while the rest took a bath either in 2-3 days or once in a week whereas five subjects took bath even after one week.
It is recommended to deworm these children, provide nutritional education, establish �condom corners and �street children help line� in the city and urban slum areas and undertake action research on their health.

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