Evaluation of individual quality of life among hemodialysis patients: nominated themes using SEIQoL-adapted

Hossein Matlabi, Sharareh Ahmadzadeh Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran Background: Quality of life (QoL) has become an important issue for patients with chronic renal failure diseases who are permanently undergoing hemodialysis. In this study, an adapted schedule for the evaluation of individual quality of life (SEIQoL-adapted) was used to evaluate QoL among hemodialysis patients, to explore their views about the most important aspects of life satisfaction. Methods and results: A multiple approach design and convenience sampling were applied to recruit 53 patients from a hemodialysis unit in Iran. Data were collected through structured interviews and then analyzed using conventional content analysis. A total score for QoL was calculated using scale guideline. The most important aspects of life were health, family, financial status, living conditions, leisure activities, relationships and socializing, religious and spiritual issues, medical knowledge, and therapies or treatments. The calculated mean QoL score was 66.2, indicating a relatively high life satisfaction. Males had higher QoL scores than females in both married and single groups. Moreover, the relationships between the QoL scores and education, job and marital status were not statistically significant. Conclusion: The SEIQoL-adapted revealed reasonable lay definitions of QoL in a group of patients following chronic renal failure. The patients’ views of the aspects of life could be used by health policy makers, clinicians, and caregivers as a reliable guide to the most important priorities for treatment and medical interventions. Keywords: quality of life, SEIQoL-adapted, renal dialysi

Assessing behavioral patterns of Internet addiction and drug abuse among high school students

Zeinab Nemati, Hossein Matlabi Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran Background: Internet addiction and drug abuse isolate adolescents from their family and friends and cause damage to their health, relations, emotions, and spirit. In the society, adolescents’ addiction extracts high cost on health care, educational failure and mental health services. Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the behavioral patterns of Internet and drug addiction among urban and rural students in Urmia, Iran. Methods: A sectional and descriptive–analytical approach with stratified sampling method was employed to recruit 385 high school students from urban and rural areas. The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and the Addiction Acknowledgement Scale (AAS) were used for data collection. Results: The total score of Internet addiction among the students was 41.72 ± 17.41. Approximately two-third of the students were not addicted to the Internet. The mean score of the AAS was 1.87 ± 1.23 among boys and 1.75 ± 1.31 among girls. Moreover, 8.31% of the students were prone to abusing substances. A statistically significant relationship was found between mother’s literacy level and Internet addiction behavior of students (p=0.009). Conclusion: Concentrating on adolescents’ behavioral patterns and their tendency toward misusing Internet and drugs is a notable procedure. Therefore, focusing on adolescents’ health and institutionalizing appropriate training programs for adolescents and their families are vital. Keywords: Internet, drug abuse, adolescence, addiction, behavio

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

Effect of Nutrition Education Program on the Recommended Weight Gain in during Pregnancy Application of Health Belief Model: A Randomaized Cilinical Trial

Background and Objectives: Nutrition in pregnancy has an important role in fetus and mother health, and also in the pregnancy outcome. One of the significant changes related to nutrition is weight gain of pregnant women as one of the influencing indicators which is measured by Body Mass Index (BMI). This study was conducted to determine nutritional education effect upon pregnancy weight gain in pregnant women on the basis of health belief model (HBM) in Gonabad, Iran.Methods: This is a quasi-experimental randomized and controlled study on 110 pregnant women referring to health centers in Gonabad, Iran. They were divided into experimental and control groups who participated in the study, in the year of 2009. The data of two groups were collected by reliable and valid questionnaires during the first part of pregnancy care in pre-test stage. Then, two educational sessions were held for the experimental group. Post test was done for both groups in the last stage of pregnancy care, and the data were analyzed by paired T, T independent, the correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney, and Chi-square. A p<0.05 was considered to be significant.Results: No significant differences were found between the education, parity, abortion, jobs and the mean age of the two groups. After the intervention, the mean score of knowledge, perceived susceptibility, severity, threat, benefits and barriers and nutritional behavior in the experimental group, significantly changed in the control group (p<0.01). Moreover, statistical analyses showed a significant difference between the two groups in gaining recommended weight in pregnancy.Conclusion: While 77.78% of the experimental group members achieved recommend MBI, just 32.29% of those in the control group had a gain in this criterion. This study proved that HBM application in nutritional education was successfully effective to gain recommended weight in pregnancy, so that increasing suitable weight gain reached maximum and un-standardized weight gain reached minimum in accordance with women BMI