Assessment of Spending Leisure Time in Students of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, 2005

Introduction: Leisure time is an opportunity for individuals to have an intellectual or entertaining activity according to their interests, when they are free from work, gatherings or family responsibilities. This study was performed with the aim to identify students' interests and tendencies as well as their information about facilities of the University for helping the university authorities to plan in regard to students' interests. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 356 students as 10 percent of total number of students in all disciplines who were selected randomly through stratified sampling method. Data was gathered using a questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS software. Results: The mean of the leisure time was 2.47±1.36 hours, which was spent as follows: 88±92 minutes for taking a walk in the park, 77±81 minutes for watching television, and 24±49 minutes for using sport facilities in the university. Students' main priorities for spending their leisure time were respectively resting in 70.9% (n=249), recreational activity in 59.7% (n=209), studying the university lessons in 48.4% (n=170), studying other texts in 47.9% (n=168), doing sport activities in 28.2% (n=99), and entertainment in 22.9% (n=80) of students. There was a significant difference between activities done by male and female students. Conclusion: The amount of leisure time of students in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences is at the same level with students' leisure time in Tehran and Lebanon. Due to the differences in tastes and interests of male and female students and also according to their educational level, university administrators should make appropriate planning in order to increase useful activities for students in their leisure time

Evaluation of Prescriptions and Types of Medication Prescribed by General Dental Practitioners in Qom, Iran, 2018-2019

Background and Objectives: The rational prescription of the drug and consideration of its principles affect the treatment outcome. Regarding this, the purpose of this study was to evaluate prescriptions to check if they follow the given principles and investigate the prescribed medications by dentists.   Methods: This descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional, and retrospective study was conducted on 238 prescriptions administered by general dentists in Qom, Iran, during the second semester of 2018-2019 academic year in the form of social security and medical services insurance in the RUD Committee of Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom. The data evaluated in this study included patient age and gender, prescribed medications and their forms, medication category, route of administration, and prescription errors.   Results: Oral, injectable, and topical drugs were prescribed at the frequencies of 97.5%, 34.5%, and 5%, respectively. Furthermore, antibiotics, painkillers, corticosteroids, mouthwash, and other medications were prescribed in 97.6%, 85.7%, 8.4%, 3.8%, and 2% of the prescriptions, respectively. With regard to the prescription problems, 40.3%, 4.2%, 39.5%, 14.3%, 16.4%, and 57.1% of the prescriptions had no drug dose, wrong drug dose, no drug consumption order, wrong drug consumption order, wrong form of medication, and incomplete drug name, respectively. Furthermore, 3.4% of the prescriptions had misspellings, 5.5% of them were eligible. However, none of the prescriptions had problems related to drug interaction or the lack of seal, signature, and date.   Conclusion: In the present study, the error rate of writing prescriptions and administration of antibiotics and analgesics was higher than the figure recommended by the World Health Organization

Effect of Educational Intervention on Prescription of Antibiotics by General Dentists in Qom, Iran

Background and Objectives:  Irrational use of antibiotics is one of the concerns in dentistry due to causing antimicrobial resistance and imposing cost burden on the patients. This study aims to evaluate the effect of educational intervention on prescription of antibiotics by general dentists in Qom, Iran. Methods: This study was conducted for three months on 134 general dentists in Qom province  in two groups of intervention (n=67) and control (n=67). The intervention group participated in a seminar as a retraining course. Descriptive statistics including mean, standard deviation, percentage, and frequency were used to describe the data, and chi-square test was used to compare the two groups. Results: The data of 22418 prescriptions containing antibiotics were evaluated. The mean number of prescriptions in the intervention group before and after retraining was 62.73 and 72.92, respectively (P= 0.043), indicating a significant increase after retraining. The mean number of prescriptions in the control group before and after retraining was 96.88 and 100.06, respectively but there was no significant difference (P= 0.57). There was no significant difference in the number of prescriptions between the two groups after retraining (P=0.09). Conclusion: The educational intervention is relatively unsuccessful may be due to lack of motivation, lack of useful and effective teaching methods, and lack of participation in group discussions

National distribution of stomach cancer incidence in Iran: A population-based study

Backgrounds and Aims: Stomach cancer (SC) is the fourth most common cancer and the second leading cause of death due to cancer in the world. The aim of this study was to investigate the provincial distribution as well as age-specific incidence of SC in both genders across Iran. Materials and Methods: This ecological study was conducted according to re-analysis of medical records aggregated to provinces from National Registry of Cancer and Disease Control and Prevention report of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education for SC in 2008. For each province, the average annual age-standardised rate (ASR) for the incidence of SC was calculated. Results: Our findings showed that in Iran, adenocarcinoma, not otherwise specified, was the most common histological type of SC in both genders (59% in males and 56% in females), while intestinal type of adenocarcinoma had the lowest prevalence (14% in males and 12% in females). In age groups above 45 years, there was a steady upward trend, and the highest ASR in both genders was related to 80–84 years of age with 292.14 and 112/100,000 in males and females, respectively. Conclusion: The assessment of geographical distribution showed that there is a wide geographical variation in the incidence of SC across the 31 provinces of Iran, and the ASR of SC in South-East and North-West parts of Iran was higher than any other areas. Thus, development access to screening services and carryout of prevention programs should be considered for high-risk groups in these areas