Evaluating the Effect of Socio-Economic Status on DMFT Index in Children Aged 12 in Iran through Zero-Inflated Poisson Regression

Introduction: The most common index in dental studies is the decayed, missing, or filled teeth (dmft)/DMFT. Risk factor evaluation in order to investigate the significant factors that affect this DMFT in children has an important role in dental epidemiological studies. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between socioeconomic factors and dental caries. Materials and Methods:  This cross-sectional study was a part of a national survey for assessing the oral health status of Iranian citizens in 2012. The target population was children aged. The data and oral examination results were collected by the clinical examination form and trained calibrated dental group (dentists and hygienists). A zero-inflated Poisson regression model (ZIP) with a random effect was utilized for evaluating the effect of socioeconomic status on DMFT. Results:  In general, 1564 subjects were studied. From the entire subject in this study, the frequency of zero was 4176 (67%). The result of the ZIP model with random effect in zero part showed that socioeconomic status (OR = 1.97; P-value <0.001) had a significant effect on zero DMFT occurrences. The variance component of the random intercept in zero part was significant too (σ2 =17.11, P < 0.001). Conclusion: The zero-inflated Poisson model with random effect in zero part was fitted to this data. Children from lower socioeconomic classes experienced more DMFT. &nbsp

Considering time-interaction terms using parametric survival models for interval-censoring data

Background: Many of the variables which are investigated in survival research are time-invariant, i.e. their values do not change over time. But their effects, may yet vary over time. Thus, the change in behavior that occurs over time needs to be included in the analysis. This can be done by adding time-interaction terms to the model. Method: In this research, a parametric survival model, which is capable of evaluating the effects of time-dependent variables, was applied for interval-censored data such that the time to invariant variables interaction terms were considered as time-dependent variables. Results: Using a practical example, the results of the study show that this model can alter the interpretations regarding the effects of exploratory variables. Conclusion: when dealing with fixed variables whose effects change over time, the researcher can incorporate their interaction effect with time, and treat them as time-dependent variables and obtain appropriate inferences

Ultraviolet-induced Surface Grafting of Octafluoropentyl Methacrylate on Polyether Ether Ketone for Inducing Antibiofilm Properties

Since octafluoropentyl methacrylate is an antifouling polymer, surface modification of polyether ether ketone with octafluoropentyl methacrylate is a practical approach to obtaining anti-biofilm biocompatible devices. In the current study, the surface treatment of polyether ether ketone by the use of ultraviolet irradiation, so as to graft (octafluoropentyl methacrylate) polymer chains, was initially implemented and then investigated. The Fourier-transform infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra corroborated the appearance of new signals associated with the fluoroacrylate group. Thermogravimetric curves indicated enhanced asymmetry in the polymer structure due to the introduction of the said new groups. Measuring the peak area in differential scanning calorimetry experiments also showed additional bond formation. Static water contact angle measurements indicated a change in wettability to the more hydrophobic surface. The polyether ether ketone–octafluoropentyl methacrylate surface greatly reduced the protein adsorption. This efficient method can modulate and tune the surface properties of polyether ether ketone according to specific applications

Federated Learning in Medical Imaging:Part II: Methods, Challenges, and Considerations

Federated learning is a machine learning method that allows decentralized training of deep neural networks among multiple clients while preserving the privacy of each client's data. Federated learning is instrumental in medical imaging due to the privacy considerations of medical data. Setting up federated networks in hospitals comes with unique challenges, primarily because medical imaging data and federated learning algorithms each have their own set of distinct characteristics. This article introduces federated learning algorithms in medical imaging and discusses technical challenges and considerations of real-world implementation of them

“Do the editors-in-chief of Iranian medical journals have a good Knowledge, attitude and practice of plagiarism?”

Plagiarism is one of the misconducts which are specifically observed in scientific journals. It is important to prevent and reduce it in scientific communities. The chief editors of journals can play an effective role in this regard. Therefore, this study aims to determine the knowledge, attitude, and the practice (KAP) of the chief editors of scholarly journals in Universities of Iran about plagiarism. The data for this descriptive survey were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire which was developed and validated in three sections of knowledge, attitude, and practice. The statistical population of the study included all the chief editors of scholarly journals in Universities of Medical Sciences in Tehran. The scores of the editors were calculated separately in each section. The data collection procedure was followed either by email or in-person. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS. The chief editors’ score is %88.8 in the section of “knowledge of plagiarism” which represents a high score. The chief editors’ “attitude toward plagiarism” indicates a high level (%61.3), which represents a negative attitude of plagiarism, and their “practice” is also at a mid-level approaching towards high level. In general, the knowledge, attitude, and practice of chief editors about plagiarism are in a better status comparing to similar studies. However, it is expected that the editors in chief achieve a more favorable level in this regard

Federated Learning in Medical Imaging:Part I: Toward Multicentral Health Care Ecosystems

With recent developments in medical imaging facilities, extensive medical imaging data are produced every day. This increasing amount of data provides an opportunity for researchers to develop data-driven methods and deliver better health care. However, data-driven models require a large amount of data to be adequately trained. Furthermore, there is always a limited amount of data available in each data center. Hence, deep learning models trained on local data centers might not reach their total performance capacity. One solution could be to accumulate all data from different centers into one center. However, data privacy regulations do not allow medical institutions to easily combine their data, and this becomes increasingly difficult when institutions from multiple countries are involved. Another solution is to use privacy-preserving algorithms, which can make use of all the data available in multiple centers while keeping the sensitive data private. Federated learning (FL) is such a mechanism that enables deploying large-scale machine learning models trained on different data centers without sharing sensitive data. In FL, instead of transferring data, a general model is trained on local data sets and transferred between data centers. FL has been identified as a promising field of research, with extensive possible uses in medical research and practice. This article introduces FL, with a comprehensive look into its concepts and recent research trends in medical imaging

Analysis of longitudinal binary outcomes in clinical trials with low percentage of missing values

In interventional or observational longitudinal studies, the issue of missing values is one of the main concepts that should be investigated. The researcher's main concerns are the impact of missing data on the final results of the study and the appropriate methods that missing values should be handled. Regarding the role and the scale of the variable that missing values have been occurred and the structure of missing values, different methods for analysis have been presented. In this article, the impact of missing values on a binary response variable, in a longitudinal clinical trial with three follow up sessions has been investigated Propensity Score, Predictive Model Based and Mahalanobis imputation strategies with complete case and available data methods have been used for dealing with missing values in the mentioned study. Three models; Random intercept, Marginal GEE and Marginalized Random effects models were implemented to evaluate the effect of covariates. The percentage of missing responses in each of the treatment groups, throughout the course of the study, differs from 6.8 to 14.1. Although, the estimate of variance component in random intercept and marginalized random effect models were highly significant (p <0.001) the same results were obtained for the effect of independent variables on the response variable with different imputation strategies. In our study according to the low missing percentage, there were no considerable differences between different methods that were used for handling missing data

Evaluation of CD26/DPPIV level in the serum of lupus nephritis patients

Abstract Background: Lupus is one of the most common autoimmune diseases. IFN-α as an important factor in the pathogenesis of lupus has been introduced. Also, CD26 with its enzymatic activity has many roles in the regulation of immune responses. In the current study, we investigated the level of CD26 and IFN-α in the serum of SLE patients. Materials and methods: In this case-control study, 46 SLE patients and 44 sex and age-matched controls enrolled. Patients were grouped into subgroups of active patients (n=24) and inactive (n=22), or nephritis patients (n=17) and non-nephritis patients (n=29). Serum level of sCD26 and IFN-α were measured by ELISA and the Mann-Whitney test was used for statistical analysis. Results: Difference between patients and controls in serum levels of CD26 (438.96±137 vs. 579.66±409 ng/mL) and IFN-α (73.93±31.7 vs. 62.36±7.5 pg/mL) was not significant. Additionally, the concentration of sCD26 between active and inactive patients was not significant. A significant elevated level of sCD26 was observed in patients with nephritis vs. non-nephritis patients (771.4±553 vs. 467.26±243 ng/mL, p<0.05). Conclusion: In regards to the roles of sCD26, significant elevation in sCD26 level in lupus nephritis patients could be considered as a sign of anti-inflammatory responses. Therefore, measurement of serum sCD26 as a biomarker can define new criterion for measuring anti-inflammatory responses

Predictor Factors of Breastfeeding Attitude in Iranian Breastfeeding Mothers: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Breastfeeding is an ideal nutritional method that has many benefits for mothers, infants and the health system.Negative attitude toward breastfeeding is accompanied with unpleasant consequences. We aimed to determine the predictors of breastfeeding attitude in Iranian breastfeeding mothers. Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted on 346 mothers in the first 24-48 hours after delivery in selected hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran. Convenience and continuous sampling method was used in this study. The Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS), Breastfeeding self-efficacy scale-shortform (BSES-SF(, and researcher made questioner for socio-demographic, obstetric and breastfeeding characteristics were used for data collection. Results: The mean score of attitude was 45.90 ± 4.68 out of 11-55, which indicates a positive attitude toward breastfeeding. The results showed a significant relationship between mother age, breastfeeding self-efficacy score, mother’s employment status, planned pregnancy, selected feeding method for infant, and the breastfeeding duration of the previous child with breastfeeding attitude score (

Evaluation of Patient Satisfaction Referred to Health Center Traditional Medicine in Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2016

زمینه و هدف: رضایتمندی از خدمات سلامت یک معیار مهم برای سنجش کیفیت مراقبت‌های بهداشتی شناخته شده است و تاکنون بررسی از نظر میزان رضایتمندی بیماران مراجعه‌کننده به سلامتکده‌های طب سنتی انجام نشده است، لذا در این مطالعه برای نخستین‌بار به سنجش کیفیت خدمات در سلامتکده طب سنتی دانشگاه شهید بهشتی پرداخته شد. مواد و روش‌ها: مطالعه حاضر یک مطالعه توصیفی ـ مقطعی (Cross–Sectional) است که جهت سنجش رضایت بیماران، از 150 بیمار مراجعه‌کننده به سلامتکده طب سنتی دانشگاه شهید بهشتی در سال 1395 انجام شد. نمونه‌ها از طریق نمونه‌گیری در دسترس، پس از اخذ رضایت‌نامه، با پرسشنامه رضایتمندی محقق‌ساخته بررسی شدند، سپس اطلاعات جمع‌آوری‌شده توسط نرم‌افزار SPSS 20 و شاخص‌های آماری توصیفی و استنباطی مورد تجزیه و تحلیل قرار گرفت. ملاحظات اخلاقی: این پژوهش حاصل طرح تحقیقاتی مصوب معاونت پژوهش دانشگاه علوم پزشکی شهید بهشتی با کد IR.SBMU.RETECH.REC.1395.487 می‌باشد و کلیه اطلاعات بیماران به صورت محرمانه حفظ شد. یافته‫ها: میزان رضایتمندی بیماران نسبت به عملکرد کلی سلامتکده خوب (میانگین 4/54) گزارش شد. میانگین امتیاز رضایتمندی در ابعاد مختلف، شامل وضعیت برخورد پزشکان با بیماران 4/73، وضعیت برخورد دستیاران با بیماران 4/69، وضعیت فضا و امکانات بهداشتی 4/66، وضعیت خدمات تشخیصی 4/74، وضعیت خدمات درمانی 4/50، نحوه وقت‌دهی و برخورد پرسنل 4/59، رضایت از داروخانه 4/62 که نشان‌دهنده طیف نسبتاً راضی به سمت کاملاً راضی بوده است. میانگین بیشترین میزان رضایت در بین بخش‌های مختلف تخصصی، از نظر وضعیت برخورد پزشکان با بیماران مربوط به بخش گوارش 4/82 می‌باشد. بیشترین میزان رضایت مراجعه‌کنندگان در بین بخش‌های مختلف تخصصی از نظر وضعیت خدمات تشخیصی (بخش مفاصل، زنان، گوارش و اعصاب و روان) مربوط به بخش اعصاب و روان بود (P=0/039). نتیجه‌گیری: رضایت بیماران از ارائه خدمات سلامتکده مورد مطالعه در سطح مطلوبی قرار داشت، اما در جهت ارائه خدمات با کیفیت بالاتر به بیماران انجام برنامه‌ریزی دقیق‌تر ضروری به نظر می‌رسد.Background and Aim: Satisfaction from health services is an important criterion for measuring the quality of health care and so far, there has been no study on the satisfaction of patients referring to traditional medicine health centers. Therefore, in this study, for the first time, the quality of services in the traditional medicine health center of Shahid Beheshti University was assessed. Materials and Methods: The present study is a cross-sectional study, in order to measure patients satisfaction, out of 150 patients referred to Shahid Beheshti University Traditional Medicine Health Center, it was performed in 2016. Samples were examined through available sampling, after obtaining consent, with the researcher-made satisfaction questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software and descriptive and inferential statistical indices. Ethical Considerations: This research is the result of a research project approved by the Research Vice Chancellor of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences with the code IR.SBMU.RETECH.REC.1395.487 and all patient information was kept confidential. Findings: Patients' satisfaction with good general health center performance was reported (Mean 4/54). Mean of satisfaction in different dimensions, including The situation of doctors with patients was 4/73, the situation of patients with patients 4/69, the condition of space and health facilities 4/66, the status of diagnostic services, 4/74, the state of health care 4/40, the manner of staffing and staffing 4/59, satisfaction from the pharmacy 4/62 that this range represents a fairly pleasingly satisfactory range. The average of the highest satisfaction among different specialized departments, in terms of the situation of doctors, with patient’s gastrointestinal tract are 4/82. The highest satisfaction rate was observed in the diagnostic services status in the various specialized departments, which is related to the neurology and psychiatry is significant (P=0/039). Conclusion: Patients' satisfaction from the health services provided by the study center was at a desirable level .In order to provide higher quality services, patients need to be more accurately planned. &nbsp; Please cite this article as: Tansaz M, Adhami S, Choopani R, Mokaberinejad R, Movahhed M, Ghasemi E, Ilkhani R. Evaluation of Patient Satisfaction Referred to Health Center Traditional Medicine in Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2016. Med Hist J 2020; 12(43): 61-72