The Effect of Training Pregnant Women and Their Husbands on Health Promoting Behaviors during Pregnancy and Postpartum Period

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Health promoting lifestyle is any kind of action that is taken to maintain the health of the individual. Healthy lifestyle plays an important role in improving the maternal-fetal outcomes. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of training pregnant women and their husbands on health promoting lifestyle. METHODS: This clinical trial was conducted among 189 pregnant women in the city of Bukan, Iran. Participants were categorized into three groups: the recipients of the training along with their husbands (the first intervention group), the recipients of the training without their husbands (the second group of intervention) and the routine care recipients (control group). Four sessions of group training were held for mothers of both interventional groups and one group training session was held for the mothers of the first intervention group regarding sleep health, nutrition, physical activity, self-image and sexual issues. Health promoting lifestyle questionnaire (score range: 52 - 208) was completed and assessed before the intervention, eight weeks after the intervention and six weeks after delivery. FINDINGS: There was no statistically significant difference between the groups before the intervention in terms of the total score of health promoting lifestyle. Eight weeks after the intervention, the mean score of health promoting lifestyle was 162.2±2.5 in the first group, 153.6±2.5 in the second group and 133.4±2.4 in the control group, which was significantly higher in both intervention groups compared to the control group (p<0.001). Six weeks after delivery, the mean score of health promoting lifestyle was 159.8±3.0 in the first group of intervention, 143.1±3.0 in the second group and 133.7±3.0 in the control group, which was significantly higher in the first group of intervention compared to the second group of intervention (p=0.003) and control group (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: The results of the study showed that training pregnant women along with their husbands or training the women alone improves lifestyle. However, training pregnant women along with their husbands proved to be more effective than training the women alone

Clinical characteristics, management and 1-year outcomes of patients with acute coronary syndrome in Iran: The Iranian Project for Assessment of Coronary Events 2 (IPACE2)

Objectives: To assess contemporary data on characteristics, management and 1-year postdischarge outcomes in Iranian patients hospitalised with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Setting: 11 tertiary care hospitals in 5 major cities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Participants: Patients aged �20 and �80 years discharged alive with confirmed diagnosis of ACS including ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), non-STEMI (NSTEMI) and high-risk unstable angina (HR-UA). Primary and secondary outcome measures: Patients were followed up regarding the use of medications and the end points of the study at 1 month and 1 year after discharge. The primary end point of the study was 1-year postdischarge major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs), defined as mortality (cardiac and non-cardiac), ACS and cerebrovascular attack (stroke and/or transient ischaemic attack). The secondary end points were hospital admission because of congestive heart failure, revascularisation by coronary artery bypass grafting surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and major and minor bleeds. Results: A total of 1799 patients (25.7 STEMI and 74.3 HR-UA/NSTEMI) discharged alive with confirmed diagnosis of ACS were included in the final analysis. During hospitalisation, the majority of the patients received aspirin (98.6), clopidogrel (91.8), anticoagulants (93.4), statins (94.3) and β-blockers (89.3). Reperfusion therapy was performed in 62.6 of patients with STEMI (46.3 thrombolytic therapy and 17.3 primary PCI). The mean door-to-balloon and door-to-needle times were 82.9 and 45.6 min, respectively. In our study, 64.7 and 79.5 of the patients in HR-UA/NSTEMI and STEMI groups, respectively, underwent coronary angiography. During the 12 months after discharge, MACCEs occurred in 15.0 of all patients. Conclusions: Our study showed that the composition of Iranian patients with ACS regarding the type of ACS is similar to that in developed European countries and is unlike that in developing countries of the Middle East and Africa. We found that our patients with ACS are treated with high levels of adherence to guideline-recommended in-hospital medications

Comparison of prevalence of metabolic syndrome between idiopathic and secondary deep vein thrombosis

Background- The association of the metabolic syndrome with idiopathic or secondary deep vein thrombosis (DVT) remains uncertain. In addition, the relevance of the different features of the metabolic syndrome as an independent or pivotal risk factor for DVT is controversial. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in patients with idiopathic or secondary DVT and also compare the prevalence of the different components of this syndrome in the two clinical etiological conditions of DVT. Methods- In a cross-sectional study, 115 consecutive patients with a recent objective diagnosis of DVT (idiopathic in 87 patients and secondary to a known risk factor in 28 patients) who were referred to Rajaei Heart Center between April 2009 and January 2010 were enrolled in the study. In all the patients, DVT was diagnosed by means of compression Doppler ultrasonography. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the ATP III recommendations. Results- Overall prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in the study participants was 9.6, and the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in patients with idiopathic or secondary DVT was 9.2 and 10.7, respectively, which was not different between them. Relative to the presence of the different numbers of the metabolic syndrome features, no difference was found between the groups with idiopathic or secondary DVT. The presence of no feature was found in 6.9 and 7.1, the presence of one feature was seen in 51.7 and 42.9, and the presence of two features was found in 32.2 and 39.3, respectively. Conclusion- Regardless of the etiology of DVT, the overall prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in our DVT subjects ranged from 9.2 to 10.7, and this prevalence was independent of the etiology (idiopathic or secondary) of DVT