MORBIDITY PROFILE OF RECRUITS DURING BASIC MILITARY TRAINING

Abstract

Objective: Objective of this study is to find the leading causes of morbidity among recruits during their basic military training so that effective preventive measures can be adopted.
Study Design: Cross sectional descriptive study.
Duration of study: Jan 2010 to Dec 2010.
Subjects and Methods: All recruits belonging to one training centre who were admitted in the hospital for any disease were included in the study. The record of these admitted recruits was obtained from admission books containing information about diagnosis, date of admission / discharge and disposal on discharge. During this one year all recruits who underwent training in the centre were used as denominator for calculating the rates.
Results: Out of total nine thousand four hundred and ninety one recruits, 696 (7.3%) were admitted in hospital. Out of 696 hospital admissions, 391 (56.2%) and 305 (43.8%) recruits were admitted with medical and surgical diseases respectively. Training related injuries (207), chicken pox (110) and fever of fever unspecified (FUO) (102) were the main reasons for morbidity and temporary disability in recruits. On average 17.12 training days were lost by each hospitalized recruit because of hospital stay and sick leave. The frequency of invalidment was 0.6321 per 1000 recruits.
Conclusion: The study revealed that the major causes of morbidity were training related injuries, infectious/parasitic diseases and fever FUO. There is a need to adopt preventive measures to reduce the incidence of training related injuries and construction of more accommodation to avoid overcrowding to reduce the incidence of infectious diseases.