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Background: Farmers are extensively using pesticides for pest control in agriculture. Their precarious handling practices may lead to higher exposure resulting in adverse health effects., Aim: Current study was aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding pesticide usage and its toxic effects by farmers., Settings and Design: Cross sectional., Study Setting: Rural village in south Karnataka., Materials and Methods: Sample size: 171 farmers, Data collection: face to face standardized validated questionnaire., Statistical Analysis: Chi-square test., Results: A total of 118 males and 53 females participated in this study with median age of 40 years. About 61% of the farmers knew the harmful effects of pesticides. However, 22% of them were mixing the pesticides using their bare hands and 26% were not wearing any protective clothing during spraying pesticides. Around 67% were carelessly disposing the leftover pesticides in the open fields. Skin problems and neurological system disturbances were the most common pesticide related health symptoms. Equipment washing practices ( P < 0.05) and protective clothing ( P < 0.03) were significant predictors of health related problems. Significant associations were found between the occurrence of headache and equipment washing practices ( P < 0.03), storage of pesticide remains ( P < 0.02) and protective clothing ( P < 0.01)., Conclusion: These findings showed that knowledge level is adequate among farmers but this did not reflect in their practice. There is a need for continuous pesticide safety education along with training to the farmers regarding use of personal protective devices, personal hygiene and sanitation practices during and after application of pesticides., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.

Background: The signal is defined as "reported information on a possible causal relationship between an adverse event and a drug, of which the relationship is unknown or incompletely documented previously"., Objective: To detect novel adverse events of iloperidone by disproportionality analysis in FDA database of Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) using Data Mining Algorithms (DMAs)., Methodology: The US FAERS database consists of 1028 iloperidone associated Drug Event Combinations (DECs) which were reported from 2010 Q1 to 2016 Q3. We consider DECs for disproportionality analysis only if a minimum of ten reports are present in database for the given adverse event and which were not detected earlier (in clinical trials). Two data mining algorithms, namely, Reporting Odds Ratio (ROR) and Information Component (IC) were applied retrospectively in the aforementioned time period. A value of ROR-1.96SE>1 and IC- 2SD>0 were considered as the threshold for positive signal., Results: The mean age of the patients of iloperidone associated events was found to be 44years [95% CI: 36-51], nevertheless age was not mentioned in twenty-one reports. The data mining algorithms exhibited positive signal for akathisia (ROR-1.96SE=43.15, IC-2SD=2.99), dyskinesia (21.24, 3.06), peripheral oedema (6.67,1.08), priapism (425.7,9.09) and sexual dysfunction (26.6-1.5) upon analysis as those were well above the pre-set threshold., Conclusion: Iloperidone associated five potential signals were generated by data mining in the FDA AERS database. The result requires an integration of further clinical surveillance for the quantification and validation of possible risks for the adverse events reported of iloperidone., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)