Effects of sexual education mobile applications on men’s sexual awareness and satisfaction: A randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Sexual education programs can improve sexual awareness and satisfaction. Yet, sex education is ignored in developing countries. Under such circumstances, we have used IT tools to improve sexual education. OBJECTIVE: In this article, we used a mobile application (mHealth) to impart sex education. Methods: A randomized controlled trial was held, in which participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: The control group, with 25 participants, which received only counseling from sex therapists, and the intervention group, with 25 participants, which received the mobile application system in addition to counseling from sex therapists. Participants were persons referred to sex therapists at a clinic. In each group, sexual satisfaction and awareness were evaluated. We measured sexual satisfaction with the help of the Larson questionnaire and sexual awareness by the Ann Hooper questionnaire. Results: Our data demonstrated that sexual satisfaction was not statistically significant (P=0.44), but awareness showed statistically significant differences (P=0.007) in the intervention vs. the control group. Also, the mean in both groups had statistically significant differences before and after the intervention (P=0.001). Conclusion: Our results showed that mobile applications can improve sexual awareness but cannot affect sexual satisfaction in the short term. Trial Registration: The clinical trial was registered with the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT) under registration ID:  IRCT2016110130640N

Drug-drug interactions in inpatient and outpatient settings in Iran: a systematic review of the literature

Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are an important type of adverse drug events. Yet overall incidence and pattern of DDIs in Iran has not been well documented and little information is available about the strategies that have been used for their prevention. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the literature on the incidence and pattern of DDIs in Iran as well as the used strategies for their prevention. PubMed, Scopus, electronic Persian databases, and Google Scholar were searched to identify published studies on DDIs in Iran. Additionally, the reference lists of all retrieved articles were reviewed to identify additional relevant articles. Eligible studies were those that analyzed original data on the incidence of DDIs in inpatient or outpatient settings in Iran. Articles about one specific DDI and drug interactions with herbs, diseases, and nutrients were excluded. The quality of included studies was assessed using quality assessment criteria. Database searches yielded 1053 potentially eligible citations. After removing duplicates, screening titles and abstracts, and reading full texts, 34 articles were found to be relevant. The quality assessment of the included studies showed a relatively poor quality. In terms of study setting, 18 and 16 studies have been conducted in inpatient and outpatient settings, respectively. All studies focused on potential DDIs while no study assessed actual DDIs. The median incidence of potential DDIs in outpatient settings was 8.5% per prescription while it was 19.2% in inpatient settings. The most indicated factor influencing DDIs incidence was patient age. The most involved drug classes in DDIs were beta blockers, angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs), diuretic agents, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Thirty-one studies were observational and three were experimental in which the strategies to reduce DDIs were applied. Although almost all studies concluded that the incidence of potential DDIs in Iran in both inpatient and outpatient settings was relatively high, there is still no evidence of the incidence of actual DDIs. More extensive research is needed to identify and minimize factors associated with incidence of DDIs, and to evaluate the effects of preventive interventions especially those that utilize information technolog