Epidemiology of Hereditary Coagulation Bleeding Disorders: A 15-Year Experience From Southern Iran

Background: Data on the frequency of hereditary bleeding disorders (HBDs) and associated mortality and morbidities during a long-term follow-up from Iran are scarce. Objective: This study evaluated the epidemiologic features among patients with HBD in one of the largest referral centers in southern Iran. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 619 patients with HBD were evaluated during the period 1996 to 2011. Aside from baseline characteristics and type of factor deficiency, associated morbidities including viral infections, neurological disorders, asthma, thalassemia, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, diabetes, hypertension, cardiac and renal diseases were evaluated. Furthermore, among patients who died, the underlying disease and etiology of death were also evaluated. Results: Patients’ mean age was 24.4 ± 13.5 years. Factor VIII deficiency was the most prevalent type (50.4%) of HBD, and combined Von–Willebrand and factor XIII deficiency (2.3%) was the most prevalent type of combined factor deficiency. A total of 0.5% had hepatitis B and 11.5% had hepatitis C. Cardiac disease was seen in 1.5%, hypertension in 0.2%, renal disease in 0.2%, and diabetes in 1.3% of patients. Overall, 5.2% had intracranial hemorrhage, 2.1% had epilepsy, and 0.8% had mental retardation. During the 15-year follow-up, 22 patients died; car accident was the leading cause of death in this population. Conclusion: Associated morbidities were seen in 24.3% of patients with HBD. Most prevalent morbidities were HCV infections (11.5%) and neurological disease (7.3%). The mortality rate among patients with HBD was 3.4%, and the most common cause of death was accident, which is similar to that of normal Iranian populations

Assessment on the Dissemination and Knowledge Translation of Medical Students and PhD Students’ Theses in the Year 2006-2013

Objective: The importance of research and its fundamental role in the country’s growth and development is vital. Connecting research to knowledge translation is an essential component of research process and its production, management, and the maintenance of this process is the reason behind the survival of the national health research system. Knowledge translation is the process of disseminating knowledge into actual use, or simply application of knowledge. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on 418 university students enrolled in medical universities throughout the country during the period from September 2006 to 2013. Results: About 42.5% of respondents have expressed that results of dissertations will benefit the health care providers while 2.2% of respondents have expressed that research results can benefit the industrial sector, they further expressed that 11.4% of researchers and 32.2% of the general population can benefit from these researches. Furthermore, in order that results of students’ dissertations will become useful to others 71.7% of the students have expressed that research results be published as an article in international indexed journals. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that majority of students have selected the title of their research project based on their personal interest and then decided based on the opinion of their thesis mentor. The principles of accurate and relevant data management must be implemented in order that researches will be directed toward being more practical rather than theoretical. Hence, by performing more extensive researches, barriers as well as factors that promote researches will be identified and by emphasizing on knowledge translation a cultural environment aiming at presenting research results to users will be achieved and researches and dissertations that resulted to the solution of the problems of the community will be promoted