Pattern mining analysis of pulmonary TB cases in Hamadan province: Using space-time cube

Background and aims: One of the most common approach to understanding spatial and temporal trends of event data is to break it up into a series of time snapshots. Therefore space-time cube method applied in order to portray the likely trend in occurrence of the pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) cases. Methods: In this study, information of all patients with pulmonary TB recorded in surveillance system of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences from 2005 to 2013 years were studied. After geocoding the residence location address of pulmonary TB cases and converted to point layer, the space-time cube was used to detect likely trends in occurrence of tuberculosis. Then, based on the space-time cube results the Emerging Hot Spot Analysis was run to clustering hot and cold spots. Results: There was significant increasing trend in occurrence of pulmonary TB cases. The statistic trend was 2.1871 and P-value was 0.0287, as well as 36 hot spots locations was detected that have been form approximately in central areas of province. Conclusion: Significantly increasing trend in occurrence of TB cases and existence of hot spot, especially intensifying hot spots in central areas of province can represent pay more attention to this disease in mentioned areas in order to detect the change in epidemiological face and to implement suitable prevention programs

Placenta previa after prior abortion: a meta-analysis

There is controversy regarding the role of prior abortion on placenta previa in subsequent pregnancies. We conducted an updated, comprehensive meta-analysis of placenta previa after prior abortion. The search was conducted from PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases from the database inception to January 31, 2017. The heterogeneity across studies was evaluated by Q-test and I2 statistical test. Publication bias was assessed by Begg's test and Egger's test. Results of odds ratio (OR) estimates with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were pooled using random-effects modeling. The literature search included 872 articles up until January 2017 with 2,134,529 participants. Based on OR estimates obtained from case-control and cohort studies, we found a significant association between prior spontaneous abortions and placenta previa (1.77; 95% CI: 1.60, 1.94) and between prior induced abortions and placenta previa (1.36; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.69). The meta-analysis study herein showed that prior abortion is a risk factor for placenta previa.</jats:p

An assessment of health research impact in Iran

Background: In recent years, Iran has made significant developments in the field of health sciences. However, the question is whether this considerable increase has affected public health. The research budget has always been negligible and unsustainable in developing countries. Hence, using the Payback Framework, we conducted this study to evaluate the impact of health research in Iran. Methods: By using a cross-sectional method and two-stage stratified cluster sampling, the projects were randomly selected from six medical universities. A questionnaire was designed according to the Payback Framework and completed by the principle investigators of the randomly selected projects. Results: The response rate was 70.4%. Ten point twenty-four percent (10.24%) of the studies had been ordered by a knowledge user organization. The average number of articles published in journals per project was 0.96, and half of the studies had no articles published in Scopus. The results of 12% of the studies had been used in systematic review articles and the same proportion had been utilized in clinical or public health guidelines. The results of 5.3% of the studies had been implemented in the Health Ministry’s policymaking. 62% of the studies were expected to affect health directly, 38% of them had been implemented, and among the latter 60% had achieved the expected results. Concerning the economic impacts, the most common expected impact was the reduction of ‘days of work missed because of illness or disability’ and impact on personal and health system costs. About 36% of these studies had been implemented, and 61% had achieved the expected impact. Conclusion: In most aspects, the status of research impact needs improvement. A comparison of Iran’s ranking of knowledge creation and knowledge impact in the Global Innovation Index confirms these findings. The most important problems identified were, not conducting research based on national needs, and the lack of implementation of research results. Keywords: Research impact assessment, Payback, Health research syste

Online Health Information Seeking Behavior among Iranian Pregnant Women: A Case Study

Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the health information seeking behavior, applicability and the evaluation of health information obtained from the Internet by Iranian pregnant women. Design and setting: The present study was descriptive-survey. The study population included 196 pregnant women in different gestational months referred to hospitals with Obstetrics and Gynecology ward in Hamadan, Iran on September and October in 2016 who were selected based on stratified random sampling method. The data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire. Findings: Most pregnant women, while facing with pregnancy problems, seek out health information from the Internet and they often trust the information and share with their doctor. The information increases their awareness about pregnancy. Websites and social networks are two important sources in finding health information and reference of content and educated authors are regarded as two important criteria in evaluating health information obtained from the Internet. In addition, fetal development and nutrition during pregnancy were regarded as two important issues having the most searches among pregnant women. Conclusion: Internet has become a popular source for health information finding. The high importance of the accuracy of information used by pregnant women and the vulnerability of this range of society highlight the need to equip hospital libraries with update resources of the information and amenities such as suitable seats, ventilation, and the like. Using medical librarians and informants and referral of pregnant women to these libraries by a doctor or midwife in order to obtain valid information, standardization of Persian-based digital libraries related to health, introducing valid portals for pregnant women are regarded as some important issues in this regard. Familiarizing pregnant women, especially in developing countries, with various types of content on the Internet and how to find valid information by medical librarians can facilitate the access to information for pregnant women and reduce many complications raised by the lack of reliable and valid information

Establishment of Brucellosis Relapse and Complications Registry: A Study Protocol

Brucellosis is an endemic bacterial zoonotic disease in developing countries; that is a serious public health problem in Iran. Brucellosis is a life-threatening multi-system disease in human with different clinical manifestations, complications and relapse. The incidence of brucellosis in Hamadan province, west of Iran is high. In addition, there is few reliable and population-based studies regarding relapse and complications of brucellosis in developing countries, therefore establishment of the registry system in areas with adequate occurrence of cases is needed to better understand the predictors of brucellosis relapse and complications and management of the disease. Detecting occurrence of relapse and complications over time and by geographical area provide information for further investigations and identification of health system deficiencies in the management of patients

Comparative effects of Er:YAG laser, and EDTA, MTAD, and QMix irrigants on adhesion of stem cells from the apical papilla to dentin : a scanning electron microscopic study

Dentin conditioning can affect the adhesion of stem cells in endodontic regenerative treatments. This study aimed to assess the effects of the most commonly used endodontic irrigants, namely, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), MTAD, and QMix in comp

Development of information diffusion models based on mathematical models of disease diffusion

Abstract Purpose: Analysis of information diffusion process based on models of spread of epidemics is one of the issues considered by the researchers. Limited studies have addressed investigation and analysis of scientific information diffusion. Current study was conducted aiming at identifying scientific information diffusion process among academic faculty members using mathematical models of spread of diseases during 2016. Methodology: Mathematical models of spread of epidemics including SIS, SI, and SIR models were used for analysis of scientific information diffusion. The study was conducted using semi-experimental method on 147 faculty members in three stages including evaluation of current status at time t0, after implementation of intervention of models including susceptible, infected (informed) and recovered (information saturation). Using statistical methods, chance of disease transmission from each compartment to the next one was measured. Findings: Research findings suggested feasibility of SIS, SI, and SIR models in describing information diffusion process. People who are susceptible to scientific information will not remain in a constant state after receiving information. So that 51.6% of the people remain in a state of informed and 39.1% return to susceptible conditions. Also, only 9.3% of people will switch to saturated and unnecessary conditions. Conclusion: Application of models of epidemics spread and its extension to scientific information diffusion is accurate. In addition, mostly individuals will remain at constant state after receiving scientific information