Comparison of 1 versus 3 Days Post-operative Catheterization after Anterior Colporrhaphy

With attention to the fact that after anterior colporrhaphy surgery and stitches on vaginal mucus, inserting urinary catheter is requested, according to scientific references and in order to prevent from urinary retention, it has been said that the catheter should be inserted for 3 days. But inserting the catheter leads to infections of bladder and pain. So, in the present study, we compared the removal of the catheter 24 hours versus 72 hours after the surgery, considering urinary infections, urinary retention, patient’s ease and hospitalization. Within two groups of 70 patients, which has been assimilated based on basic factors (devided into two groups accidently with excel table) urinary catheter fixed for 1 and 3 days. After that, patients were compared considering urinary retention, urinary infections and the rate of patient satisfaction. Urinary retention was 28.6% in the test group and 22.9% in a controlling group which was not statistically meaningful (P=0.78). Urinary infections were 22.9% in the test group and 34.3% in the controlling group (P=0.42) and the rate of patient’ssatisfactions was 57.1% in the test group and 40% in controlling group (P=0.23). The hospitalization period in the test group and in the control group was 2.91±0.61 and 3.94± 0.59 days respectively with a significant difference (P=0.001). The results showed that short time catheterization is more satisfactory in comparison long catheterizations

Statistical models for the analysis of skewed healthcare cost data: A simulation study

Skewed data is the main issue in statistical models in healthcare costs. Data transformation is a conventional method to decrease skewness, but there are some disadvantages. Some recent studies have employed generalized linear models (GLMs) and Cox proportional hazard regression as alternative estimators. The aim of this study was to investigate how well these alternative estimators perform in terms of bias and precision when the data are skewed. The primary outcome was an estimation of population means of healthcare costs and the secondary outcome was the impact of a covariate on healthcare cost. Alternative estimators, such as ordinary least squares (OLS) for Ln(y) or Log(y), Gamma, Weibull and Cox proportional hazard regression models, were compared using Monte Carlo simulation under different situations, which were generated from skewed distributions. We found that there was not one best model across all generated conditions. However, GLMs, especially the Gamma regression model, behaved well in the estimation of population means of healthcare costs. The results showed that the Cox proportional hazard model exhibited a poor estimation of population means of healthcare costs and the ß1 even under proportional hazard data. Approximately results are consistent by increasing the sample size. However, increasing the sample size could improve the performance of the OLS-based model

Maternal Dietary Pattern with an Emphasis on Child Growth Pattern and Exclusive Breastfeeding Duration

Background: maternal nutrition and breast milk nutrient concentration are associated with infant's growth. Enhanced knowledge encourages mothers to breast feed for the sake of optimizing growth and development. Methods: the current study was performed longitudinally in some rural areas, south of Iran, from birth to six months. Out of 319 candidates with serial anthropometric measurements of an infant, including weight, height, and head circumference at four times (birth, two, four, and six months ), 195 were included in the multivariate regression model (total measurements, n=776) to construct the pattern of growth. Then, information regarding demographic background, lactation status and infant supplementation intake status, feeding practices, maternal anthropometric measurements, and food frequency questionnaire were collected from mothers and their children during six months in two rural health centers. Results: The most important association between dietary factors and infant anthropometrics (weight, height, and head circumference) involved Factor2 vegetables, including leafy vegetables, tomato, onion and garlic, (weight β=0.35 95%CI 0.27 - 0.44, length β=3.82 95%CI 3.42 - 4.22, head circumference β=2.55 95%CI 2.32 - 2.79) and Factor1 fruit, including orange, kiwi, cherries, watermelon, date, and grapes) (weight β=0.117 95%CI 0.04-0.189, length β=0.59 95%CI 0.257-0.929, head circumference β=0.307 95% CI 0.108-0.507), respectively. Generalized Estimation Equation model revealed that Factor2 dairy (including low fat milk, yogurt and dough) significantly contributed to weight growth velocity (β=-0.009 95% CI -0.016 - 0.001). Conclusion: a dietary habit of fruit and vegetables, which are rich in bioactive components by breast feed mother showed better growth for infants. As growth is multifactorial, maternal nutrition and breastfeeding duration is a simple modifiable factor which can affect the subsequent growth and development of the child during the first six months. Key words: exclusive breastfeeding, growth, anthropometric measures, maternal nutrition, and multivariate multiple regression

A comparative study on the fatigue life of the vehicle body spot welds using different numerical techniques: Inertia relief and Modal dynamic analyses

Among different parts of a vehicle, the body is the main load-bearing component and as a result, its durability is critical. Fatigue analyses are typically divided into different categories, the quasi-static methods and the dynamic methods. The aim of this paper was to compare the inertia relief and modal dynamic approaches for their formulation, accuracy and computation time. The chosen case study is the fatigue life of the vehicle body. By utilizing multi-body dynamics model and driving the vehicle on different standardized roads and by different velocities, the force and moment time histories which act on the body were calculated and later used by the finite element model for the stress analysis. Then, by using the structural stress method, the fatigue life of the vehicle spot welds were calculated and the results were compared for both quasi-static and dynamic approaches. The findings reveal that the modal dynamic method is almost 37 times more time-consuming than the inertia relief approach, but if accuracy is desired, it can be up to 96% more accurate. Also as predicted, at low frequency loading (less than 10% of the first nonzero frequency of the structure), there is no difference between the results of both methods

Early feeding and growth pattern in infants:Using a three-variate longitudinal model derived from Gaussian copula function

Background: The Gaussian copula model was used to generate joint distributions for continuous longitudinal variables on infant types of feeding and longitudinal measures of height, weight and head circumference  Methods: The study was performed longitudinally in rural areas of southern part of Iran, on children from birth to 9 months of age. Out of 319 infants with serial anthropometric measurements from birth, and 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 months old, 120 were included. Infants were divided into three groups (breast fed, formula fed and both milk types). A three-variate longitudinal model including Copula function was used to estimate the effect of feeding on growth pattern. All the analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (Proc NLmix).  Results: Ninety infants (75%) were breastfed, sixteen (13.3%) were formula fed and fourteen (11.7%) had combined feeding. Copula model showed that, breast fed children had a better weight gain (β=0.627 95% CI 0.217-1.038 P = 0.003), height (β=2.603 95% CI 1.023-4.183 P = 0.001) and head circumference (β=0.8 95% CI 0.069- 1.531 P = 0.0) as compared to formula fed children. R2 for Copula model was (wt=0.52, ht=0.96, hc=0.84).  Conclusions: Implication of Copula model was easy to perform. Estimation of the parameters in copula model indicated that, breast milk consumption had a positive effect on the growth of infants

Early feeding and growth pattern in infants: Using a three-variate longitudinal model derived from Gaussian copula function

Background: The Gaussian copula model was used to generate joint distributions for continuous longitudinal variables on infant types of feeding and longitudinal measures of height, weight and head circumference  Methods: The study was performed longitudinally in rural areas of southern part of Iran, on children from birth to 9 months of age. Out of 319 infants with serial anthropometric measurements from birth, and 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 months old, 120 were included. Infants were divided into three groups (breast fed, formula fed and both milk types). A three-variate longitudinal model including Copula function was used to estimate the effect of feeding on growth pattern. All the analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (Proc NLmix).  Results: Ninety infants (75%) were breastfed, sixteen (13.3%) were formula fed and fourteen (11.7%) had combined feeding. Copula model showed that, breast fed children had a better weight gain (β=0.627 95% CI 0.217-1.038 P = 0.003), height (β=2.603 95% CI 1.023-4.183 P = 0.001) and head circumference (β=0.8 95% CI 0.069- 1.531 P = 0.0) as compared to formula fed children. R2 for Copula model was (wt=0.52, ht=0.96, hc=0.84).  Conclusions: Implication of Copula model was easy to perform. Estimation of the parameters in copula model indicated that, breast milk consumption had a positive effect on the growth of infants.&nbsp

The Frequency of Human Polyomavirus BK in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross-Sectional Case-Control Study

Background and Aim: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease and human polyomavirus BK (BKV) can be reactivated in patients with SLE due to the changes in the immune system and use of immunosuppressive drugs. In this study, we evaluated the prevalence of BKV infection among patients with SLE referred to Golestan hospital in Ahvaz, Iran between April 2013 to June 2016. Methods: In this cross-sectional study we studied 75 individuals including 40 patients with SLE and 35 normal individuals. Urine and blood samples were taken and DNA was extracted from urine and plasma. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test was used to detect the BKV genome and positive samples were sequenced to confirm BKV. BioEdit software and MEGA 6.0 software were used for phylogenetic analysis to assemble the viral genome. A phylogenetic tree was constructed by neighbor-joining analysis with 1,000 replicates of the bootstrap resampling test using Mega 6.0. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS version 22. Results: Among the 40 patients, 2 (5%) were men and 38 (95%) were women.  The mean age of the patients was 39±10 years. 2.5% of plasma from patients with SLE were positive for BKV but none of the controls were positive in this regard.0% of control groups (p=0.346). Whereas in urine samples, 17.5% and 11.4% (p=0.458) of patients and the control group, were positive for BKV, respectively. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the patients and controls. Conclusion: BKV reactivation occurs in 17.5% of patients with SLE during immunosuppression therapy. Therefore, more studies on BKV DNA by highly sensitive molecular assays in Patients with SLE seem to be necessary. *Corresponding Author: Gholam Abbas Kaydani; Email: [email protected] Please cite this article as: Behzadi Sheikhrobat S, Kaydani GA, Makvandi M, Rajaee E, Ahmadi Angali K. The Frequency of Human Polyomavirus BK in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross-Sectional Case-Control Study. Arch Med Lab Sci. 2021;7:1-6 (e5). https://doi.org/10.22037/amls.v7.3399

Explaining Continuance Intention of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption among the Rural Elderly: An Application of the Expectancy Confirmation Model

Background and Aim. Healthy aging is the permanent right of all people. Thus, the purpose of this work was to investigate the expectation confirmation model constructs on intention of continuing to consume fruit and vegetables among the rural elderly. Materials and Methods. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 332 elderly. The expectation confirmation model served as a theoretical framework. A random sampling was recruited. Data were collected through face-to-face visit in the second 6 months of 2016. The data were then analyzed using LISREL 8.5 and SPSS 16 software. Results. This model could explain 79% of intention to continue fruit and vegetable consumption. The usefulness and satisfaction had the most effect on the intention to continue the consumption of fruit and vegetables. Conclusion. Expectation confirmation model depicted a proper application in explaining the intention to continue the consumption of fruit and vegetables in the elderly. Since perceived benefits were the most important factor in determining the intention to continue F&V consumption in this study, it is required that policymakers utilize suitable efficient strategies to promote the perception of benefits of F&V consumption in the elderly by means of campaigns in the society, organizations, and families

Milk and Protein Intake by Pregnant Women Affects Growth of Foetus

The study assessed the effects of the daily intake of milk and protein by pregnant women on foetal growth and determined the growth pattern and velocity of growth. A total of 504 ultrasound observations from 156 respondents were collected following a cross-sectional design in the last trimester of pregnancy; majority of them were in the last month of pregnancy. De facto and purposive sampling was done, and direct interviews of affluent pregnant women were conducted. Kruskal-Wallis test shows that majority of the respondents had tendency to consume 155.65 to 465.17 mL of milk per day, resulting in better and higher foetal growth. Most respondents consumed about 50-70 g of protein per day, and the foetal growth measurements, such as abdomen-circumference, femur length, biparietal diameter, and head-circumference, on an average, were higher in the same group. Quadratic regression model exhibited that all the traits of growth pattern in Model 1 (low milk and protein intake) appeared to have more mode of decline, in contrast to Model 2 (more milk and protein intake), which shows better growth. In addition, velocity of growth pattern was obtained through the first derivative of quadratic regression of growth pattern. Moreover, 95% confidence interval calculated for regression line slope of Model 1 and Model 2 showed that the estimation point (2 B2) of Model 1 does not lay into 95% CI of Model 2; so, statistical significance assorted and also the same trend conversely hold for Model 2. The rate of growth was highly influenced by maternal milk and protein intake. These findings suggest that contribution of common nutrients or other nutritional factors present in milk and protein promote the growth of foetus