Cigarette smoking and its relationship with perceived familial support and religiosity of university students in Tabriz

Objective: The goal of the present study was to assess the prevalence of cigarette smoking and its relationship to other risk taking behaviors, perceived familial support and religiosity among college students in Tabriz, Iran . Method: In this study, 1837 randomly selected students participated and completed a self-administered questionnaire inquiring demographic characteristics, risk taking behaviors, Aneshensel and Sucoff's 13-items one-dimensional perceived Parental support scale and 28 - items Kendler's general religiosity scale. Results: In general, 15.8 of the students were cigarette smokers. The results indicated that being male (OR = 3.21), living alone or with friends (OR = 2.00), having a part-time job (OR = 1.98), alcohol consumption during the past 30 days (OR = 3.67), hookah use (OR = 5.23), substance abuse (OR = 1.69), familial support (OR = 0.97) and religiosity (OR = 0.98) have statistically significant relationships with cigarette smoking . Conclusion: Our study represents the co-occurrence of risky behaviors. Cultural context in the traditional communities seems to show the crucial role of familial support and religiosity traits with the female gender as predictive factors to not smoke cigarette and perform other risky behaviors

The (co-)occurrence of problematic video gaming, substance use, and psychosocial problems in adolescents

Aims. The current study explored the nature of problematic (addictive) video gaming and the association with game type, psychosocial health, and substance use. Methods. Data were collected using a paper and pencil survey in the classroom setting. Three samples were aggregated to achieve a total sample of 8478 unique adolescents. Scales included measures of game use, game type, the Video game Addiction Test (VAT), depressive mood, negative self-esteem, loneliness, social anxiety, education performance, and use of cannabis, alcohol and nicotine (smoking). Results. Findings confirmed problematic gaming is most common amongst adolescent gamers who play multiplayer online games. Boys (60%) were more likely to play online games than girls (14%) and problematic gamers were more likely to be boys (5%) than girls (1%). High problematic gamers showed higher scores on depressive mood, loneliness, social anxiety, negative self-esteem, and self-reported lower school performance. Nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis using boys were almost twice more likely to report high PVG than non-users. Conclusions. It appears that online gaming in general is not necessarily associated with problems. However, problematic gamers do seem to play online games more often, and a small subgroup of gamers – specifically boys – showed lower psychosocial functioning and lower grades. Moreover, associations with alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis use are found. It would appear that problematic gaming is an undesirable problem for a small subgroup of gamers. The findings encourage further exploration of the role of psychoactive substance use in problematic gaming

Successful recruitment and retention strategies for women health volunteers: viewpoints of the volunteers' supervisors and relevant researchers

Hamed Rezakhani Moghaddam, Hamid Allahverdipour, Hossein Matlabi Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran Background: Women health volunteers (WHVs) are a link between people and healthcare workers. Despite their key role in promoting community health, strategies are rarely designed to keep them volunteering. The aim of this research was to find successful strategies to overcome barriers to recruitment and retention of the volunteers in assigned activities.Subjects and methods: A three-round online national Delphi technique was used to ask the opinions of Iranian health volunteers’ supervisors and the relevant researchers. At the first round, the participants were asked ten open-ended questions across four barriers: inadequate capability of the volunteers and trainers, inadequate acceptance of the volunteers, restrictive social norms, and organizational problems. At the second round, with the questionnaire consisting of closed-ended questions, the experts were asked to rank the feasibility of each strategy using a seven-point Likert scale. Items along with the feedback received from the second round were included in the third-round questionnaire. Strategies with a median of 6 or higher and with an interquartile range ≤1 were regarded to be feasible.Results: Consensus was obtained on 100 of the 133 strategies. A mixture of improving group work, implementing motivation tactics, assessing the needs of people/WHVs, reforming policy, monitoring and evaluation of WHVs/trainers, mobilizing the community, empowering WHVs/trainers, rationalizing WHVs/trainers/ people, improving intersectional collaboration, implementing problem-based approaches, allocating proper resources, appropriate recruitment of WHVs, using social networks, and information dissemination were found to be the effective strategies to overcome the barriers to active participation.Conclusion: The highest consensuses among experts were on implementing motivation tactics and mobilizing the community. It seems that community mobilization, incentives, and logistical supplies such as providing prizes and transportation facilities for volunteers are mechanisms that can help retain WHVs and also overcome barriers to their active participation. Keywords: health volunteers, Delphi technique, consensus, community health, retention strategie

Analysis of the third-grade curriculum for health subjects: Application of Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool

Leila Savari,1 Maryam Shafiei,2 Hamid AllahverdiPour,1 Hossein Matlabi1 1Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 2Department of Educational Planning and Administration, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran Purpose: Applying the Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT), the third-grade curriculum was assessed in accordance with health-related items.Methods: A multimethod research was used to investigate the student textbooks and three modules including healthy eating, physical activity, and safety. Based on purposive sampling, curriculum committees were made up of teachers, elementary school principals, members of the parents–teachers’ associations, and health care experts.Results: Data obtained from the group discussion were analyzed based on the conventional content analysis approach. All modules received coverage percentages of <34%. The highest mean coverage percentage belonged to the safety module (25.59%) and the lowest to healthy eating (12.78%).Conclusion: Suggested solutions were classified based on three general themes such as clarifying and determining healthy dietary behaviors and actions, educating life skills and adopting healthy diet behaviors, and finally utilizing social norms for adopting with healthy diet patterns. Keywords: module, safety, physical activity, Iran, health education, HECAT, primary schools, safety module, healthy eatin

Pattern and Inclination of Adolescents Towards Substance Abuse

Introduction: Narcotic drug abuse and illicit use of drugs is a major, complicated multifactorial phenomenon affecting most of the societies today. Incidence of drug abuse among adolescents is very high. Adolescents become addicted to substances more quickly than adults. The aim of this study was to assess the pattern of drug abuse among male adolescents in Hamadan. Methods: This study was a descriptive study and samples (n=400) were collected on the basis of snowball sampling method. Information was collected individually through completion of a researcher-designed questionnaire including demographic and epidemiological indices, perceived familial support, religiosity, and locus of control. Results: The results showed that smoking (93%), alcohol (92.5%), marijuana (64.3%), and opium (57.8%) use were very high, while LSD (4.8%) and Cocaine(2.3%) use was rare. 77.8 % of adolescents began drug abuse between 12 and 18 years of age. Moreover, sensation seeking (26.5%), individual interest (24.8%), and peer pressure (22%), were the main reasons for drug abuse. Conclusion: As initial smoking, alcohol and marijuana use play an important role in determining the future addiction of adolescents to narcotics, yearly surveillance programs in the country and evaluation of etiological factors of narcotic addiction need to be studied carefully. All of the preventive and school programs designed for the young should take into account environmental, demographic and policy factors in addition to personal factors so that the programs have a maximum effect

Lifetime Pattern of Substance Abuse, Parental Support, Religiosity, and Locus of Control in Adolescent and Young Male Users

"nBackground: In the current study, pattern of substance abuse among adolescence and early adulthood that have experienced one or more substances was assessed, and also parental support, religiosity, and locus of control were measured."nMethods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Hamadan City, Iran in 2006. All subjects were selected from Hama­dan City (urban area), Iran based on snowball sampling method. Participants were males who used alcohol and illicit drugs in their life (n=398), completed a self-administered questionnaire."nResults: Approximately half of the participants were used to smoke, drink, take marijuana and/or use opium regularly, and one in ten had taken ecstasy or heroine in the last weeks. Tobacco and alcohols were most common substance as a gateway and consequently marijuana and opium were the next substances. Initiation age result for using substance was ages 13 to 18 years. More than 90% classified as group who suffering familial support, 60.8% as low level of religiosity, and 51.5% of partici­pants was external locus of control."nConclusion: Our findings were similar to western countries pattern except that for opium. The high rate substances use by adoles­cents and changes in pattern of use suggests that all drug use need to be taken into account when addressing adoles­cents' substance use. Moreover, research is needed to identify possible mechanisms underlying the association between binge drug uses in the vulnerable groups

Perceived stress, self-efficacy and its relations to psychological well-being status in Iranian male high school students

Psychological stress has been found to be associated with a variety of ailments and health outcomes in adolescents. This study investigated the relationships between perceived stress, general self-efficacy and mental health status among Iranian male adolescents recruited from midtown high schools in Tehran who studied in 12th grade (N = 148). Pupils completed three questionnaires for assessing perceived stress (PSS-14; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), general self-efficacy (GSE; Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) and psychological well-being (GHQ-28; Goldberg & Hillier, 1979). Statistical analysis revealed that greater stress was associated with lower general self-efficacy and lower mental health status. A significant inverse relationship between self-efficacy and general health was found among these students. Results are discussed in relation to their implications for effective mental health education (e.g., stress management training) for adolescents. © Society for Personality Research (Inc.)