Why Focusing on Social Determinants of Health?

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The Cost analysis of cervical cancer screening services provided by Damavand health center in 2013

Background: Today, the health sector in many countries is facing with severe resource constraints; hence it is absolutely necessary that cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness assessment have a major role in design of health services. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cost-benefit and effectiveness of cervical cancer screening service (Pap smear test) done by the health centers in Damavand County in 2013.  Methods: This is a descriptive study with cross-sectional method. All data was extracted from existing documents in Damavand health network.Cost of service screening for doing Pap smear test (manpower costs of performing the service, the cost of transferring samples, water, electricity, telephone and gas) was estimated in all health centers then results, were compared with the incomes of this service.  Results: Screening program coverage was 22.3%, 6.9% and 6.05% in 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively. All costs and incomes of units performing Pap smear screening test were calculated. Entire costs and incomes of this service during 2013 were respectively 303,009,000 and 11,640,000 RLS equal $12,227 and$496.73. Therefore, the cost-benefit ratio of this screening test was approximately 0.040.  Conclusion: The costs of units performing cervical cancer screening test in Damavand Health Center were much more than this benefit and because of a none-positive Pap smear test in spite of high cost, performing this test in Damavand health centers was not cost effective

Autologous Plasma rich platelet versus Low Molecular weight Hyaluronic Acid in Knee Osteoarthritis: a Non-placebo Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: This study aimed to compare the effect of autologous plasma rich platelet (PRP) versus Low molecular weight Hyaluronic acid (HA) on pain, function and stiffness in knee osteoarthritis during six months follow-up. Design: Through a non-placebo blocked randomized controlled trial with parallel design on 77 patients with knee osteoarthritis; 50 in intervention group, treated by PRP; 27 in control group, treated by HA.  They received three injections and assessed before, after two and six months. Pain, stiffness and function were assessed using WOMAC and VAS. Descriptive statistics, chi-square, and ANOVA were used when appropriate. Results: Pain reduced in both groups compared to their respective baseline (P<0.007); the reduction rates were similar in both groups (P>0.1). WOMAC and VAS scores were different between before injection and both two and six months follow-ups in both groups (P<0.001); although increasing of VAS score between two and six months follow-ups was more considerable in PRP but not statistically significant (P=0.08). Considering Kellgren-lawrence classification of knee osteoarthritis, WOMAC scores were different in patients with grade 2 and 3 in both groups (P<0.01); but VAS scores were different with grade 3 only in PRP group (P=0.009). Conclusions: There was no difference between PRP and HA in reducing symptoms of knee osteoarthritis compare to their baseline but sustainability of the effect may be more with HA

Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus between 2011-2014

Background: Scientometric evaluations are important part of research assessment which can help universities to visualize the effect of their achievements and assess the effect of policy changes and investments in the field knowledge development. Current study aimed to evaluate the scientific production of the faculty members affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus database between 2011- 2014.Methods: Faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences participated in this cross sectional study. We had the names and affiliation of all faculty members based on university's Human Resources Management database. All the faculty members were recruited in the study. Total number of the articles, total article’s’ citations and H Index between 2011-2014 were used for evaluation of faculty members. Scopus online webpage was the source of extracting the indices.Results: there had been 1299 faculty members working at the university. Of all participants, 165 (12.7%) were professors, other academic degrees were associate professors 335 (25.8%), assistant professors 656 (50.5%), associate professors 335 (25.8%) and instructors 112 (8.7%)., respectively. The findings of current study showed that each faculty member was contributed in in a mean of 14 person- articles and there had been 95 citations to the articles in average. The mean H index for the university was 3.2 .Conclusion: Current study has illustrated a general image of the articles affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences which were indexed at Scopus database from 2011-2014. Results showed the universities scientific production had significant growth during these years.

Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Web of Science between 2011-2014

Background: Along with the prospers of scientific production there is a need for measuring and evaluation of university’ s scientific productions by means of accepted international indices to make comparison between academic institutions. This study aims to evaluate the scientific production of faculty members affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMUS) in Web of Science from 2011 to 2014.Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences from last updated list of faculty members based on human source management of the university was evaluated. The evaluation criteria was total number of the articles, total number of the articles between 2011-2014, total article’s citations, total article’s citations between 2011-2014 and H Index was extracted from the Web of Science webpage. Results:Totally 1300 faculty members had been evaluated in the study. Scientific productions had an increasing trend from 2011 to 2014. There had been 6445 articles and 41120 citations with a Mean (SD) of 4.96 (1.22) and 31.63 (122.5) respectively. Mean H Index of the university was 2.2. School of Pharmacy had the highest H Index score (4.9).Conclusion:There has been an increasing trend in scientific production of SBMUS in Web of Science data base. As Iran is between the first three high ranked countries in the Middle East in based scientometric indices, monitoring of scientific production by yearly intervals seems necessary.Keywords: Cross-Sectional Studies; Faculty; Universitie

Factors affecting medical tourism: A case study of Azeri tourists in Iran

Background: Health tourism is one of the effective factors in the economic prosperity of the countries, the beautiful nature and hot springs of Ardebil province makes it a good destination for health tourism. The aim of this study was to investigate demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of health tourists in Ardebil. Methods: To investigate the viewpoint of health tourists coming to Ardebil province from Azerbaijan, a comprehensive Turkish language questionnaire was designed by the researcher and by visiting medical centers in Ardebil, pharmacies and restaurants, the questionnaires were completed. Results: Out of 200 distributed questionnaires, 193 were completed. The average age of the participants was 26.2 years. They often had less than 1800 USD monthly income. 184 (95.4%) of participants were not covered by the general insurance of Azerbaijan. The cost of treatment and the total travel cost per person for participants was less than 120 USD. About the hospital services, one-third of respondents rated them as “well”. More than 95% of the tourist were from the near border provinces. Conclusion: The lack of public insurance coverage in Azerbaijan and the higher value of the Azerbaijani Manat compared to Iranian rial attract health tourists to Ardebil, but the quality of services provided needs to be improved. Government planners need to focus more on health tourism issues, especially in Ardebil so as to improve the infrastructures and remove barriers, it is a step towards the prosperity of this lucrative industry

A comparison of artificial intelligence algorithms in diagnosing and predicting gastric cancer: a review study

Today, artificial intelligence is considered a powerful tool that can help physicians identify and diagnose and predict diseases. Gastric cancer has been the fourth most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer mortality in the world. Thus, timely diagnosis of this type of cancer could effectively control it. This paper compares AI (artificial intelligence) algorithms in diagnosing and predicting gastric cancer based on types of AI algorithms, sample size, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.  This narrative-review paper aims to explore AI algorithms in diagnosing and predicting gastric cancer. To achieve this goal, we reviewed English articles published between 2011 and 2021 in PubMed and Science direct databases. According to the reviews conducted on the published papers, the endoscopic method has been the most used method to collect and incorporate samples into designed models. Also, the SVM (support vector machine), convolutional neural network (CNN), and deep-type CNN have been used the most; therefore, we propose the usage of these algorithms in medical subjects, especially in gastric cancer

The Frequency of Academic Burnout and Related Factors among Medical Students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, in 2016

Abstract  Background: Academic burnout is the state of negative emotions and low motivation in one’s education. Understanding the status of academic burnout is the primary step to make proper decisions. The present study, therefore, was conducted to investigate comparative degrees of academic burnout among medical students in their first five semesters of medical education at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.  Methods: In the present cross-sectional study, a total of 525 medical students at the School of Medicine filled out the Persian version of Maslach Burnout Inventory – Student Survey from January 15 to February 5, 2016. Chi-square, Mantel-Haenszel, and Kruskal–Wallis tests were run in SPSS for data analysis. P-value<0.05 was considered significant.  Results: Based on the collected data, it was shown that 49.2% of the participants were male and 50.8% were female. Only 8 (1.5%) participants were married. No statistically significant difference was observed between the variables investigated and academic burnout (P>0.05). It was also observed that only four (0.8%) medical students (all new-comers) were in low academic burnout group and 521 (99.2%) were categorized in medium academic burnout group. Finally, it was found that academic burnout of the students increase as their educational level advance, making the first-semester students having the lowest and fifth-semester students the highest academic burnout indices (P<0.001).  Conclusion: It is concluded that, from among the variables studied, only students’ educational level made a difference in medical students’ academic burnout.Keywords: Academic efficacy; Burnout; Cynicism; Exhaustion; Medical Students

Seroprevalence of Toxocara infection among healthy individuals referred to the medical center laboratories in Tehran City, Capital of Iran

Background: Toxocarosis is a zoonotic disease with worldwide distribution. Humans’ infection occurred by incidental ingestion of eggs shed in feces of dogs or cats. Studies on general population are rare in Iran. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated seroprevalence, and risk factors associated with toxocariasis among the healthy individuals in Tehran, capital if Iran.Materials and Methods: In total, 374 sera samples were investigated for the presence of anti-Toxocara IgG. We applied ELISA as screening test using available commercial kit. In addition, demographic data were obtained from participant’s questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using SPSS16.Results: The overall seroprevalence of toxocariasis was found 5.6% (21/374). Regarding the socio-demographic variables, age (P<0.001) and eating unwashed vegetables (P=0.049) were significantly associated to toxocariasis in univariate analysis. In the logistic regression analysis, only age (P<0.001) was identified as potential risk factor associated with Toxocara infection.Conclusion: This study revealed that seroprevalence of toxocariasis is relatively low in the healthy individuals in Tehran. We suggest carrying out further studies in the different part of Iran and investigate on the prevalence of toxocariasis in high-risk groups such as asthma, hyper-eosinophilic, epilepsy, rheumatism and schizophrenia patients