Assessment and comparison of the awareness and attitude of male and female general practitioners of Shiraz about andropause in 2016

Background and Aim: Male menopause is a natural age-dependent decline in testosterone levels in men. Despite the importance of this issue for the health of the elderly, there is a lack of related information. So this study aimed to assess and compare the awareness and attitude of male and female general practitionersabout andropause.Materials and methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 204 general physicians in Shiraz-2016. Cluster method was used for sampling. A researcher-made questionnaire was developed for assessing the demographic characteristics and levels of awareness and attitude of general physicians aboutandropause. All stages of research were conducted ethically. SPSS 18 was used to analyze the data, and descriptive statistics, independent t-tests and Pearson’s correlation were applied for data analysis. P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.Results: Results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the male and female general physicians, awareness about andropause (p = 0.185). Also there was a statistically significant difference between the attitude of males and females towards andropause (p < 0.001). The correlation between the mean score of awareness and attitude towards andropause was statistically significant (p= 0.018, r = 0.166).Conclusion: The implementation of training courses for spreading information and knowledge as well as positive attitudes towards andropause for general practitioners are highly advocated.Keywords: Andropause, Awareness, Optimism, General practitione

Enhanced Motor Imagery-Based Eeg Classification Using A Discriminative Graph Fourier Subspace

Dealing with irregular domains, graph signal processing (GSP) has attracted much attention especially in brain imaging analysis. Motor imagery tasks are extensively utilized in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems that perform classification using features extracted from Electroencephalogram signals. In this paper, a GSP-based approach is presented for two-class motor imagery tasks classification. The proposed method exploits simultaneous diagonalization of two matrices that quantify the covariance structure of graph spectral representation of data from each class, providing a discriminative subspace where distinctive features are extracted from the data. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated on Dataset IVa from BCI Competition III. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms two state-of-the-art alternative methods

Effect of the BASNEF Model on Maternal-Fetal Attachment in the Pregnant Women Referring to the Prenatal Clinics Affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Background: Prenatal attachment and positive adaptation with the concept of motherhood play a pivotal role in maternal and fetal health. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of the beliefs, attitudes, subjective norms, and enabling factors (BASNEF) model on maternal fetal attachment in the pregnant women referring to prenatal clinics. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 100 nulliparous women in their third pregnancy trimester (36-41 weeks), who referred to the selected prenatal clinics in Shiraz, Iran during 2011-2012. Intervention was performed based on the BASNEF model in six training sessions for 90 minutes. Data collection tools were the Cranley’s maternal-fetal attachment scale and BASNEF model. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 18 using Pearson’s correlation-coefficient, independent t-test, and Chi-square at the significance level of 0.05.Results: After the intervention, a significant difference was observed in the mean score of maternal-fetal attachment in the intervention group compared to the control group (

Prediction of academic burnout and academic performance based on the need for cognition and general self-efficacy: A cross-sectional analytical study

One of the main challenges of nursingeducation is students’ academic burnoutdue to the stressors associatedwith nursing practice. Therefore, identifying and predictingcognitive and motivational factors behind academicburnout and academic performance are of great importance.This study aimed to predict nursing students’ academicburnout and academic performance based on theneed for cognition and general self-efficacy and also toassess the mediation effects of the need for cognition andgeneral self-efficacy. This was a cross-sectional analyticalstudy. Two Faculties of Nursing and Midwifery in Shirazand Rafsanjan, Iran. A sample of 337 bachelor’s nursingstudents. Data were collected using a demographic andacademic characteristics questionnaire, Cacioppo and Petty’sNeed for Cognition Scale, Sherer’s General Self-EfficacyScale, and Maslach’s Burnout Inventory-Student Survey.Academic performance was also measured based on students’grade point average. Data analysis was performedvia Pearson correlation analysis, simple and multiple regressionanalyses, and Sobel test equation for mediation effects.Analyses revealed the significant positive correlationof general self-efficacy with the need for cognition andacademic performance as well as the significant inversecorrelation of academic burnout with the need for cognition,general self-efficacy, and academic performance.However, the need for cognition was not significantly correlatedwith academic performance. Moreover, the needfor cognition and general self-efficacy simultaneously predicted16.8% of the variance of academic burnout, whileonly general self-efficacy was the significant predictor ofacademic performance, accounting for 3.5% of its totalvariance. General self-efficacy mediated the relationshipof the need for cognition and academic burnout. Also,the need for cognition mediated the relationship of generalself-efficacy and academic burnout (P < 0.001). Interventionsfor improving students’ self-efficacy and needfor cognition can help reduce their academic burnout andimprove their academic performance

Prediction of academic burnout and academic performance based on the need for cognition and general self-efficacy: A cross-sectional analytical study

One of the main challenges of nursingeducation is students’ academic burnoutdue to the stressors associatedwith nursing practice. Therefore, identifying and predictingcognitive and motivational factors behind academicburnout and academic performance are of great importance.This study aimed to predict nursing students’ academicburnout and academic performance based on theneed for cognition and general self-efficacy and also toassess the mediation effects of the need for cognition andgeneral self-efficacy. This was a cross-sectional analyticalstudy. Two Faculties of Nursing and Midwifery in Shirazand Rafsanjan, Iran. A sample of 337 bachelor’s nursingstudents. Data were collected using a demographic andacademic characteristics questionnaire, Cacioppo and Petty’sNeed for Cognition Scale, Sherer’s General Self-EfficacyScale, and Maslach’s Burnout Inventory-Student Survey.Academic performance was also measured based on students’grade point average. Data analysis was performedvia Pearson correlation analysis, simple and multiple regressionanalyses, and Sobel test equation for mediation effects.Analyses revealed the significant positive correlationof general self-efficacy with the need for cognition andacademic performance as well as the significant inversecorrelation of academic burnout with the need for cognition,general self-efficacy, and academic performance.However, the need for cognition was not significantly correlatedwith academic performance. Moreover, the needfor cognition and general self-efficacy simultaneously predicted16.8% of the variance of academic burnout, whileonly general self-efficacy was the significant predictor ofacademic performance, accounting for 3.5% of its totalvariance. General self-efficacy mediated the relationshipof the need for cognition and academic burnout. Also,the need for cognition mediated the relationship of generalself-efficacy and academic burnout (P < 0.001). Interventionsfor improving students’ self-efficacy and needfor cognition can help reduce their academic burnout andimprove their academic performance

Knowledge and Attitude about AndropauseAmong General Physicians in Shiraz, Iran 2014

Background:Andropause in men refers to the clinical and biochemical syndrome associated with advanced age and characterized by a deficiency in serum testosterone levels. With the increase in aging male population and life span in Iran and focus on quality of life, andropause will become a major health issue that needs to be addressed in order to prevent disability. The results of some research have shown that there is still low level of knowledge and attitude toward andropause among health professionals. This study aimed at assessing the level of knowledge and attitude of general physicians regarding andropause in 2014. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 402 general physicians in Shiraz. A researcher-made questionnaire was developed for assessing the level of knowledge and attitude of general physicians about andropause. SPSS 18 was used to analyze the data, and descriptive statistics, ANOVA and Pearson correlation were applied for data analysis. Results: The mean score of knowledge and attitude about andropause was 29.4 out of 76 and 35.1 out of 45, respectively. The findings showed a poor level of knowledge and positive attitude toward andropause among general physicians. There was a significant relationship between occupational status and knowledge about andropause (P<0.001). There was a statistically significant relationship between attitude and demographic characteristics (P<0.05).The correlation between knowledge and attitude toward andropause was not statistically significant (P=0.548). Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicate the need for designing educational interventions to improve the knowledge and attitude of andropause among general physicians