The Extent, Nature and Contributing Factors of Violence Against Iranian Emergency Medical Technicians

Background: Workplace Violence (WPV) is one of the most complex and dangerous occupational hazards faced by pre-hospital emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Objectives: This study aimed to assess the extent, nature and contributing factors of WPV against EMTs in Urmia, Iran. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 EMTs from April to October 2014. A questionnaire was used for collecting the data. Descriptive statistics were applied to the data. Results: Most of the participants (79%) experienced WPV during the past six months. Accident scene was the most important place of violence and the patients’ companions were the main perpetrators of violence. Overall, 76% of violence victims reported “lack of awareness of the EMTs’ duties” as the most important contributing factor for WPV. Conclusions: This study highlighted the high frequency of WPV against EMTs. Evidently, the health care systems’ officials would benefit from taking proper actions in this area, particularly by “staff and public education”

Prevalence of needlestick and sharps injuries in the healthcare workers of Iranian hospitals: An updated meta-analysis

Background: Needlestick and sharps injuries (NSIs) are critical occupational risk among health care workers (HCWs), which is extremely worrying due to the potential risk of transmitting bloodborn pathogens (BBPs). This study was carried out to evaluate the prevalence of NSIs among Iranian HCWs. Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the key terms percu*injur*, needle*stick injur*, needlestick*injur*, or sharp*injur*were searched in the Scientific Information Database (SID), MagIran, IranMedex, Google Scholar, Science Direct, PubMed, and Scopus. A prefabricated checklist, including variables: first author, publication year, study population, sample size, gender, total prevalence of needlestick in each gender, type of questionnaire, region, and type of hospitals, was used to extract data from the selected articles included which were published between 2003 and 2016. Results: The analysis showed that the prevalence of NSIs in the Iranian HCWs was 42.5 (95 CI 37-48). Moreover, the prevalence of NSIs was more in women (47; 95 CI 36-58) compared to men (42; 95 CI 26-58). Conclusion: Given the high prevalence of NSIs, it is necessary to supply safe needles and instruments, hold training programs focused on new methods of using sharp objects safely, observe safety principles and standards, reinforce the practical skills of personnel, and pay more attention to reporting and improving occupational behaviors like avoiding needle recapping in order to reduce the prevalence of NSIs and consequently reduce potential risk of transmission of BBPs. © 2018 The Author(s)

Psychometric features of the persian version of self-efficacy tool for patients with hypertension

Background: Hypertension is one of the causes of mortality that can be prevented. Self-efficacy with regard to patients� performance predicts their abilities to change high-risk behaviors. Positive self-efficacy in patients with hypertension predicts compliance, adherence to medications, diet and exercise regimens, and behavioral self-management. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the psychometric features of self-efficacy questionnaire in patients with hypertension. Patients and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 260 patients with hypertension were selected by multistage cluster sampling in Tehran�s public places to complete the Persian version of hypertension self-efficacy questionnaire. Then, face validity, content, and structure of the questionnaire were evaluated. To determine the reliability of the questionnaire, test-retest method with a two-week interval and Cronbach�s alpha coefficient were used. All data analyses were performed using the SPSS statistical software, version 18.0. Results: According to the results of Content Validity Ratio (CVR), three items were eliminated. The results of exploratory and confirmatory analyses identified three factors, including diet regimen, disease management, and adherence to treatment. The goodness of fit of the three-factor self-efficacy model in patients with hypertension was confirmed based on standard indices (RMSEA = 0.082, NNFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.91, IFI = 0.91, and X2/df = 328.35). Besides, internal consistency of diet regimen, disease management, and adherence to treatment based on Cronbach�s alpha was 0.849, 0.471, and 0.572, respectively. Conclusions: The three-factor structure of the self-efficacy questionnaire showed appropriate validity and reliability in patients with hypertension. Thus, this tool can help caregivers and health service providers assess self-efficacy of hypertensive patients and plan and implement educational and clinical interventions. © 2018, Iranian Cardiovascular Research Journal. All rights reserved

MEMOTE for standardized genome-scale metabolic model testing

Supplementary information is available for this paper at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-020-0446-yReconstructing metabolic reaction networks enables the development of testable hypotheses of an organisms metabolism under different conditions1. State-of-the-art genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) can include thousands of metabolites and reactions that are assigned to subcellular locations. Geneproteinreaction (GPR) rules and annotations using database information can add meta-information to GEMs. GEMs with metadata can be built using standard reconstruction protocols2, and guidelines have been put in place for tracking provenance and enabling interoperability, but a standardized means of quality control for GEMs is lacking3. Here we report a community effort to develop a test suite named MEMOTE (for metabolic model tests) to assess GEM quality.We acknowledge D. Dannaher and A. Lopez for their supporting work on the Angular parts of MEMOTE; resources and support from the DTU Computing Center; J. Cardoso, S. Gudmundsson, K. Jensen and D. Lappa for their feedback on conceptual details; and P. D. Karp and I. Thiele for critically reviewing the manuscript. We thank J. Daniel, T. Kristjánsdóttir, J. Saez-Saez, S. Sulheim, and P. Tubergen for being early adopters of MEMOTE and for providing written testimonials. J.O.V. received the Research Council of Norway grants 244164 (GenoSysFat), 248792 (DigiSal) and 248810 (Digital Life Norway); M.Z. received the Research Council of Norway grant 244164 (GenoSysFat); C.L. received funding from the Innovation Fund Denmark (project “Environmentally Friendly Protein Production (EFPro2)”); C.L., A.K., N. S., M.B., M.A., D.M., P.M, B.J.S., P.V., K.R.P. and M.H. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 686070 (DD-DeCaF); B.G.O., F.T.B. and A.D. acknowledge funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH, grant number 2R01GM070923-13); A.D. was supported by infrastructural funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), Cluster of Excellence EXC 2124 Controlling Microbes to Fight Infections; N.E.L. received funding from NIGMS R35 GM119850, Novo Nordisk Foundation NNF10CC1016517 and the Keck Foundation; A.R. received a Lilly Innovation Fellowship Award; B.G.-J. and J. Nogales received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 686585 for the project LIAR, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity through the RobDcode grant (BIO2014-59528-JIN); L.M.B. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 633962 for project P4SB; R.F. received funding from the US Department of Energy, Offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and the Biological and Environmental Research as part of the Scientific Discovery Through Advanced Computing program, grant DE-SC0010429; A.M., C.Z., S.L. and J. Nielsen received funding from The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Advanced Computing program, grant #DE-SC0010429; S.K.’s work was in part supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (de.NBI partner project “ModSim” (FKZ: 031L104B)); E.K. and J.A.H.W. were supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (project “SysToxChip”, FKZ 031A303A); M.K. is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) within the research network Systems Medicine of the Liver (LiSyM, grant number 031L0054); J.A.P. and G.L.M. acknowledge funding from US National Institutes of Health (T32-LM012416, R01-AT010253, R01-GM108501) and the Wagner Foundation; G.L.M. acknowledges funding from a Grand Challenges Exploration Phase I grant (OPP1211869) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; H.H. and R.S.M.S. received funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council MultiMod (BB/N019482/1); H.U.K. and S.Y.L. received funding from the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes on Systems Metabolic Engineering for Biorefineries (grants NRF-2012M1A2A2026556 and NRF-2012M1A2A2026557) from the Ministry of Science and ICT through the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea; H.U.K. received funding from the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the NRF, the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2018M3A9H3020459); P.B., B.J.S., Z.K., B.O.P., C.L., M.B., N.S., M.H. and A.F. received funding through Novo Nordisk Foundation through the Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark (NNF10CC1016517); D.-Y.L. received funding from the Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Program (SSAC, PJ01334605), Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea; G.F. was supported by the RobustYeast within ERA net project via SystemsX.ch; V.H. received funding from the ETH Domain and Swiss National Science Foundation; M.P. acknowledges Oxford Brookes University; J.C.X. received support via European Research Council (666053) to W.F. Martin; B.E.E. acknowledges funding through the CSIRO-UQ Synthetic Biology Alliance; C.D. is supported by a Washington Research Foundation Distinguished Investigator Award. I.N. received funding from National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) (grant P20GM125503).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Publisher Correction: MEMOTE for standardized genome-scale metabolic model testing

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The Relationship Between Depression and Metabolic Syndrome: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

Context: Several studies have been conducted on the relationship between depression and metabolic syndrome, which have had conflicting results. The purpose of this study was a meta-analysis of studies that have examined the relationship between these two variables. Evidence Acquisition: This meta-analysis systematically reviewed the relationship between depression and metabolic syndrome. Scientific databases including IranMedex, SID, Magiran, Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct were searched and 17 articles were extracted from 2000 to 2014. Selected studies data were analyzed using meta-analysis and random effects model. Heterogeneity between the studies was examined using I2. Data were analyzed using STATA software version 12.1. Results: Seventeen studies were analyzed with a sample size of 31880 people. Analysis by the type of studies showed that the relationship between the two variables in cross-sectional studies (OR = 1.51, CI 95 = 1.36-1.68) and cohort studies (OR = 1.6, CI 95 = 1.23 -2.08) was significant. In general, the heterogeneity test results among the studies was not significant (P for heterogeneity = 0.08, I-2 = 39.8). Conclusions: There is a relationship between depression and metabolic syndrome

Prophylaxis against Deep Venous Thrombosis in Patients Hospitalized in Surgical Wards in One of the Hospitals in Iran: Based on the American College of Chest Physician's Protocol

Background: There is not enough studies to determine the frequency of using the prophylaxis against deep venous thrombosis (DVT) based on the American College of Chest Physician's (ACCP) guidelines in Iran. Thus, providing such statistics is essential to improve thromboprophylaxis in hospital. The present study aimed to determine the frequency of using the prophylaxis against DVT based on ACCP guidelines in patients hospitalized in surgical wards in one of teaching hospital in Ilam, Iran. Methods: In a cross-sectional, the samples were selected among medical records of patients who were hospitalized and underwent surgery in surgical wards of the hospital from April 2012 to September 2013. Type of prophylaxis was determined based on ACCP guidelines. After reviewing inclusion and exclusion criteria, patients' data were extracted from medical records based on required variables. Results: In reviewing 169 qualified samples, 46.2 (78 patients) were women. Of these, 132 patients were at risk of DVT and needed prophylaxis, only 39 patients (29.5) received prophylaxis. Thromboprophylaxis based on ACCP guidelines had been fully implemented only in 30 cases (22.7) of patients with the risk of DVT.. The highest thromboprophylaxis was in the intensive care unit (46.6) and neurosurgery (37.5), and the least rate was in urology (0). Conclusions: As the results of this study, there are differences between clinical practice and the ACCP guidelines recommendation in prophylaxis against DVT. Thromboprophylaxis has not been implemented based on ACCP guidelines in more than 75 of patients with the risk of DVT. Thus, new strategies are needed to implement thromboprophylaxis against DVT in Iranian hospitals

CERUMEN AS A POTENTIAL RISK FOR TRANSMISSION OF HEPATITIS B VIRUS

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission via blood and other body fluids from infected individuals to healthy people has been largely demonstrated. However, in the current literature, there is little information available on the potential role of cerumen in HBV transmission. Cerumen and blood were collected from 70 patients infected with HBV and 70 volunteer healthy people were selected as the control group, and the samples were evaluated by ELISA and Real-time PCR. All the patients proved positive for HBsAg and anti HBc total. Sixty-one of the 70 cerumen samples of cases (82.1) and 5 (7) of controls were positive for HBV DNA with ranges from 1.53 x 10(2) to 2.9 x 10(8) and 1.3 x 10(2) - 2.6 x 10(5)/ml, respectively. In three patients, the level of HBV DNA in cerumen was higher than that in the serums. The patients who were positive for HBeAg showed a higher rate of HBV DNA in the serum and cerumen. The results of this study showed the level of HBV DNA as a probably indicator of high risk transmission factor, which was present in the cerumen of chronic hepatitis B patients in west of Iran

Prevalence of Hypothyroidism, Hypoparathyroidism and The Frequency of Regular Chelation Therapy in Patients with Thalassemia Major in Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis study

The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of hypothyroidism, hypoparathyroidism and the frequency of regular chelation therapy in patients with thalassemia major in Iran. Searching process was performed by two independent researchers using valid keywords in the national and international database, including: Magiran, Iranmedex, SID, Medlib, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane, Web of Science, Springer, Wiley Online Library and google scholar search engine. All studies were searched until 2016 with no lime limit. All articles met inclusion criteria were evaluated and the data were analyzed by using SATA Software Ver.11.1. Twenty-seven studies about hypothyroidism (sample size of 4851, the mean age of 16.36 +/- 5.5) and 19 studies related to hypoparathyroidism (sample size of 3219, the mean age of 17.44 +/- 6.5) were examined. The prevalence of hypothyroidism was calculated 5.7 (95 CI: 4.7-6.8) in patients with thalassemia major in Iran (P=0.000; I-2 index=93.9). The prevalence of overt and subclinical hypothyroidism was estimated 3.1 (95 CI: 1-4.7) and 6.7 (95 CI: 3.3-10), respectively. The prevalence of hypoparathyroidism was calculated 10 (95 CI: 7-12) in patients with thalassemia major in Iran. In reviewing 5 studies, the frequency of regular chelation therapy was estimated 54.6 (95 CI: 28-81.2) in these patients. The prevalence of hypothyroidism and hypoparathyroidism is high in patients with thalassemia major in Iran. Thus, new planning and supervising seem to be essential to minimize endocrine complications in these patients. There is no connection between serum ferritin level and developing hypoparathyroidism. A high percent of Iranian patients with thalassemia major perform the chelation therapy irregularly. It's been recommended to adopt the necessary measures such as educating and enhancing awareness of the patients about its complications