Psychological Attitude of Medical Students towards Course-book Modification: A Case of Text Simplification in ESP Courses

Introduction: The current study sought to investigate the impact of linguistic modification of medical textbooks on reading comprehension ability of medical students and their attitude towards text simplification.Materials and Methods:  150 male and female medical students coming from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences participated in this study. The homogeneity of the participants was attained through passing a placement test, followed by completing the pre-requisite and general English courses.  For the purpose of modifying the texts, the framework proposed by Van Den Branden (2000) was adopted. Moreover, the questionnaire developed by Saito, Horwitz, and Garza (1999) called Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) was used.Results: Data analysis was conducted, using one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA). Concerning the major research question, analysis of the data indicated that there were significant differences between the participants’ performance on the four reading tests. Thus, the major null-hypothesis as “lexical modification, grammatical modification, and lexical and grammatical modification in comparison with no modification of input do not significantly affect the reading comprehension ability of Iranian medical students differently” was rejected. The last research question deals with medical students’ perceptions towards different types of input modifications Conclusion: The overwhelming majority of the interviewees chose lexically and grammatically modified texts. However, “not modified text” was regarded as the most boring one. Also, the participants believed that grammatically modified texts were best for improving students’ work knowledge. Moreover, the interviewees mentioned that grammatically modified texts with fewer complicated structures were more straightforward for them.

Anxiety Effect: A Case of Text Modification and the Effect of High and Low Anxiety Levels on Medical Students’ Comprehension Performance

Introduction: The current study sought to investigate the impact of text modifications (lexically and grammatically modified) on reading comprehension ability of medical students with high and low levels of anxiety.Materials and Methods: To pursue the purpose of this study, 150 male and female medical students from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences participated in the study. The participants did not take a language proficiency test to ensure homogeneity, as pretesting might affect the internal and external validity of the study due to the interaction effect of pretesting [1]. The framework proposed by [2]. Moreover, a questionnaire developed by [3] entitled “Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS)” on a five-point Likert scale with 20 items served as an instrument. MANOVA was run to analyze the data. Results: The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the reading comprehension ability of medical students with high and low levels of anxiety exposed to lexically modified (p<0.01), grammatically modified (p<0.01), lexically and grammatically modified (p<0.01), and unmodified passages (p<0.01).Conclusion: It is hoped that the findings from this study will guide researchers into new directions so that they may go on to discover profound insights about text simplification for medical students in Iran and all over the world.

Comparing Perceived Social Support and Perceived Stress in Healthy Pregnant Women and Pregnant Women with Preeclampsia

BACKGROUND: Preeclampsia is a prevalent side effect of pregnancy. Different studies have reported different results about the relationship between mental stress and blood pressure disorders. In addition, social support is highly important to help women who experience risky pregnancy in adapting to the stressors they experience. This study aimed to compare perceived social support and perceived stress in women with and without preeclampsia.METHODS AND MATERIALS: Fifty pregnant women definitely diagnosed with preeclampsia and 50 healthy pregnant women visiting public hospitals including Hazrat Masoumeh, Motazedi,and Imam Reza in Kermanshah-Iran took part in a descriptiveanalytical study from June 2017 to January 2018. Data gathering tools included demographics questionnaire, social support appraisals scale and perceived stress scale. The collected data was analyzed with SPSS (v.20) using independent t-test.RESULTS: The mean score of perceived social support in the preeclampsia and non-preeclampsia groups were 69.88±7.3 and 76.80±7.6 respectively (P<0.01). The mean score of perceived stress in the preeclampsia and non-preeclampsia groups were 35.6±8.7 and 26.01±5.56 respectively (P<0.01). This means that compared with healthy women, women with preeclampsia perceived more stress and less social support.CONCLUSION: In comparison with healthy pregnant women, women with preeclampsia perceived more stress and less social support. Healthcare providers should recommended to pay more attention to improving social support and attenuating stress inpregnant women

A study on the application rate of CSF test (cerebro spinal fluid) in diagnosing accute bacterial meningitis in infants and children under 5 years old in Tajrish shohada and Tehran mofid hospitals during 2005

Studying CSF (cerebro spinal fluid) is a simple and fast measure for diagnosing meningitis in children. For this reason, LP [umbar puncture] is used to treat csf.  Regarding the side effects of LP, we decided to determine the positive points observed in the patients’ files than total patients confined to bed in our selected population. In this study conducted by descriptive retrospective method, the records of 1705 infants and children suspected to meningitis, confined in Tajrish Shohada and Tehran Mofid Hospitals for LP test, were investigated. Data collected from these cases were statistically analyzed. Studies indicated that in 93.7% of infants and children tested by LP as well as csf tested, the results were negative, therefore due to the fact that LP is considered as a risky method for children, performing a test doesn’t seem necessary in most cases. Results of this study also indicated that maximum rate of infection was among males and occurred in autumn