Patient education process in teaching hospitals of Tehran University of medical sciences

Background: Patient education is widely recognized as a core component of nursing. Patient education can lead to quality outcomes including adherence, quality of life, patients' knowledge of their illness and self-management. This study aimed to clarify patient education process in teaching hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013. In this descriptive quantitative study, the sample covered 187 head nurses selected from ten teaching hospitals through convenience sampling. Data were collected with a questionnaire developed specifically for this study. The questionnaire measured patient education process in four dimensions: need assessment, planning, implementing and evaluating. Results: The overall mean score of patient education was 3.326±0.0524. Among the four dimensions of the patient education process, planning was in the highest level (3.570±0.0591) and the lowest score belonged to the evaluation of patient education (2.840 ±0.0628). Conclusion: Clarifying patient education steps, developing standardized framework and providing easily understandable tool-kit of the patient education program will improve the ability of nurses in delivering effective patient education in general and specialized hospitals

Relapse coping strategies in young adults addicts: A quantitative study in Iran

Background: Cognitive-behavioral coping approach is known as an effective strategy to preventing relapse. Its goal is to forget incompatible behaviors and replaces them with the compatible answers. Objectives: This study examines relapse coping strategies in young adults in selected substance abuse treatment centers in Iran. Patients and Methods: The present is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 70 self-referred young addicts (18-24 years). Adolescence Relapse Coping Questionnaire was used to assess relapse coping strategies. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Results: The findings revealed that 71.2 have experienced a relapse totally. It was hard to control the hypothetical high risk situation and they greatly wanted to use the substance (mean 7.39 of 10). Addicts have used of all three coping skills in »definitely would do» level. Conclusion: Enhancing self-efficacy through training coping skills, especially abstinence - focused coping skills to react properly in high risk situation can be useful. © 2016 Indian Psychiatric Society | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow

CAUSALITY BETWEEN EXCHANGE RATE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN BANGLADESH

This paper attempts to examine the relationship between Exchange Rate (ER) and Economic Growth (EG) proxied by Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) in Bangladesh for a period of 41 years ranges from 1973 to 2013 by using time series econometric technique. The empirical results show that there is a significant positive correlation between ER and EG. The results also advocate the presence of long-run equilibrium relationship between ER and EG. This is evidenced from Granger’s Causality Test that there is a bi-directional causality runs through ER to EG and EG to ER

IoT-Based Remote Health Monitoring System Employing Smart Sensors for Asthma Patients during COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID19 and asthma are respiratory diseases that can be life threatening in uncontrolled circumstances and require continuous monitoring. A poverty stricken South Asian country like Bangladesh has been bearing the brunt of the COVID19 pandemic since its beginning. The majority of the country's population resides in rural areas, where proper healthcare is difficult to access. This emphasizes the necessity of telemedicine, implementing the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), which is still under development in Bangladesh. This paper demonstrates how the current challenges in the healthcare system are resolvable through the design of a remote health and environment monitoring system, specifically for asthma patients who are at an increased risk of COVID19. Since on-time treatment is essential, this system will allow doctors and medical staff to receive patient information in real time and deliver their services immediately to the patient regardless of their location. The proposed system consists of various sensors collecting heart rate, body temperature, ambient temperature, humidity, and air quality data and processing them through the Arduino Microcontroller. It is integrated with a mobile application. All this data is sent to the mobile application via a Bluetooth module and updated every few seconds so that the medical staff can instantly track patients' conditions and emergencies. The developed prototype is portable and easily usable by anyone. The system has been applied to five people of different ages and medical histories over a particular period. Upon analyzing all their data, it became clear which participants were particularly vulnerable to health deterioration and needed constant observation. Through this research, awareness about asthmatic symptoms will improve and help prevent their severity through effective treatment anytime, anywhere.Comment: Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (2022

Patient safety culture in care homes for older people: a scoping review

Background: In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the role of safety culture in preventing incidents such as medication errors and falls. However, research and developments in safety culture has predominantly taken place in hospital settings, with relatively less attention given to establishing a safety culture in care homes. Despite safety culture being accepted as an important quality indicator across all health and social care settings, the understanding of culture within social care settings remains far less developed than within hospitals. It is therefore important that the existing evidence base is gathered and reviewed in order to understand safety culture in care homes. Methods: A scoping review was undertaken to describe the availability of evidence related to care homes’ patient safety culture, what these studies focused on, and identify any knowledge gaps within the existing literature. Included papers were each reviewed by two authors for eligibility and to draw out information relevant to the scoping review. Results: Twenty-four empirical papers and one literature review were included within the scoping review. The collective evidence demonstrated that safety culture research is largely based in the USA, within Nursing Homes rather than Residential Home settings. Moreover, the scoping review revealed that empirical evidence has predominantly used quantitative measures, and therefore the deeper levels of culture have not been captured in the evidence base. Conclusions: Safety culture in care homes is a topic that has not been extensively researched. The review highlights a number of key gaps in the evidence base, which future research into safety culture in care home should attempt to address

Can I Get a Job If I Wear Hijab: Studi Eksperimental Tentang Penggunaan Atribut Agama (Jilbab) Pada Penilaian Wawancara Kerja

Penelitian eksperimen ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui perbedaan hasil penilaian kompetensi antara kandidat yang menggunakan atribut agama (hijab) dan kandidat yang tidak menggunakan atribut agama. Desain penelitian yang digunakan adalah between-subject experiment dengan melibatkan 46 orang mahasiswa non muslim yang terdapat di Universitas Brawijaya. Partisipan akan mendapatkan video dengan kandidat yang menggunakan atribut agama atau kandidat yang tidak mengenakan atribut agama. Partisipan diminta untuk memberikan penilaian dengan cara memberi rating berdasarkan delapan kompetensi yang ada pada kandidat tersebut. Hasil analisis menggunakan Independent Sample t-Test menunjukkan tidak adanya perbedaan yang signifikan antara kandidat yang menggunakan atribut agama dengan kandidat yang tidak menggunakan atribut agama

Continuous measurement of Oxygen Saturation Level using photoplethysmography signal

Measuring Oxygen Saturation Level is an important part in monitoring patient's health condition. This is commonly monitored by a pulse oximeter, which has been widely adopted around the world as a standard measure during anesthesia, neonatal care and post-operative recovery. However, measuring Oxygen level continuously is very important for aged people, pregnant women and in many other critical situations. This paper considers the problem of measuring Oxygen saturation level continuously, a method to measure Oxygen Level using Photoplethysmography (PPG) signal has been presented. A prototype transducer has been built to measure the PPG. The transducer needs to be in contact to the subject's finger. Developed algorithm is presented that achieved accurate oxygen level and an experiment was also carried out on subjects' finger © 2006 Research Publishing Services

Surfactant assisted removal of engine oil from synthetic soil

Effectiveness of surfactants SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate), AOT (sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate) and Brij 35 (polyoxyethylene lauryl ether) in removing residual oil from soils have been determined. Experimental results indicated that oil desorption efficiencies with surfactants are 7 to 18 times higher than using water alone. 0.6% Brij 35 at was the most effective surfactant to remove oil from soil, and it did not display any significant change in oil desorption with pH changes. A comparison study also showed that pore volume was a more significant parameter than soil washing flow rate to improve oil desorption

The evaluation of level of knowledge, attitude and practice of evidence-based practice and its barriers among nurses working in selected Iranian hospitals

It is necessary to achieve clinical effectiveness through evidence-based practice in modern healthcare organization all over the world. Evidence-based practice is critical to improve the quality of health care. The purpose of this study was to identify the knowledge, attitude and evidence-based performance and barriers of its usage among nurses. This is an applied, descriptive and cross-sectional survey that was carried out in selected hospitals under supervision of Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2015. Statistical society consisted of 250 nurses working in different departments of hospitals who were selected randomly. Data was collected through the following standard questionnaires: Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire (EBPQ) and assessing the barriers of research usage. Finally, data analysis was done using SPSS and Pearson Test. In this study, the levels of knowledge, attitude and evidence-based practice of nurses were measured as 60.42, 85.66 and 57.66 respectively. In addition, there was significant relation between knowledge, attitude and practice. The main barriers to use of research in performance were non-participation of physicians, lack of permission by manager, time deficiency and inadequacy of the new publication rate. Earning research and IT skills improves knowledge of nurses. Through increasing awareness of nurses about positive effects of evidence-based practice in patients care, nurses will pay more attention to evidences. Enhancing the knowledge has improved attitude and this improvement has led to increase level of performance. © 2016 Zahra Naderkhah et al