A Quantitative Study of Quality of Life (QOL) on Postgraduate Students in Universiti Sains Malaysia

A Quantitative study was done to analysis Quality of Life (QOL) between Iranian and Malay postgraduate students in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). For this purpose, data were elicited from 35 Iranian and 35 Malay students through a WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. WHOQOL-BREF has 26 questions and four broad domains namely: Physical health, Psychological, Social Relationships and Environmental domains. Sample characteristics were determined using means and standard deviation and Independent t-tests uses to consider differences for the domain of QOL in two groups of postgraduate students. The participants were of the same language proficiency. Results showed that the internal consistencies (Cronbach alpha) in physical health, psychological, social Relationships and environmental domains are 0.74, 0.79, 0.61, and 0.72, respectively. Moreover, domains are evaluated 60.5 ±10.6, 62.9±11.3, 64.5±14.5, 60.2±10.1 for Malay postgraduate students, and 66.5±13.5, 64.5±16.1, 63.6±17.7, 59.4±13.4 for Iranian postgraduate students, respectively. According to these results, the physical domain is only significant between two groups (P<0.008). Furthermore, our study indicates QOL is in the middle level (50 – 75 %) for all postgraduate students. This study provides comprehensive information that can be applied to improve education quality in national and international students

Effective Factors on Needle Stick Injuries in Health Care Workers

Aims: Needle stick accidents are a serious health risk for blood-borne infections among health care workers. This study was conducted to evaluate the frequency of needle stick injuries in health care workers and its related factors. Instrument &amp; Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried on HCWs of Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Kashan City, Iran (270 individuals), from September 2013 to March 2014. Due to the low number of samples, all those who had the experience of needle stick injuries and confirmed to participate were entered to the study. A researcher-made questionnaire with 20 questions was used. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16 software using descriptive statistics. Findings: The most injuries of needle sticks (75.2) were superficial and the most common device for NSIs was the needle of syringe (51.8). Blood sampling was the most common activity during NSIs (28.4). The most common contamination was blood and its products (69.5). 61 participants (43.3) used gloves during NSIs. 118 participants (83.7) were vaccinated completely against hepatitis B, and 19 participants (13.5) had incomplete HBV vaccination. 4 participants (2.8) had no history of vaccination against hepatitis B. Conclusion: Needle stick injuries among health care workers of Kashan Hospital are relatively high

A sham-controlled trial of acupressure on the quality of sleep and life in haemodialysis patients

Background Sleep disorder in haemodialysis patients can lead to disturbance in their psychosocial function and interpersonal relations, and reduced quality of life. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of acupressure on the quality of sleep of haemodialysis patients. Methods In a randomised controlled trial, 108 haemodialysis patients were randomly divided into three groups: true acupressure, placebo acupressure, and no treatment. The two acupressure groups received treatment three times a week for 4 weeks during dialysis. Routine care only was provided for the no treatment group. The main study outcome was sleep quality. Results The total Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score decreased significantly from 11.9±3.13 to 6.2±1.93 in the true acupressure group, from 11.3±3.69 to 10.6±3.82 in the sham acupressure group, and from 10.9±4.10 to 10.7±3.94 in the no treatment group. There was a significant difference between groups (p<0.001). Conclusions Acupressure seems to have a positive effect on the sleep quality in haemodialysis patients. Clinical trial registration IRCT201106145864N2

Prospective Evaluation of Doppler Sonography to Detect the Twinkling Artifact Versus Unenhanced Computed Tomography for Identifying Urinary Tract Calculi

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135595/1/jum201231101619.pd

An Item Analysis of Written Multiple-Choice Questions: Kashan University of Medical Sciences

Background: Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) are one of the most common types of exams used in evaluation of students in any educational setting. The question items making up these exams need to be examined if they are to meaningfully contribute to the student scores. Such characteristics are amenable to examination by item analysis. Objectives: The purpose of this research was to examine the quality of MCQs used in Nursing and Midwifery Faculty and to compare the results with the other faculties in Kashan University of Medical Science in the academic year 2008-2009. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 101 multiple-choice exams were randomly chosen for the study, and 37 exams were selected from the faculty of nursing and midwifery. The difficulty, discrimination indices and Cronbach’s Alpha were calculated for every exam and then mean values for each index were calculated by LERTAL 5.0 software purchased from Assessment Systems Corporation of the United States. Results: A total of 7062 MCQs in the university and 1793 items in the faculty of nursing and midwifery presented to the students by different instructors were analyzed. The average of difficulty index of the faculty of nursing was 0.5. The discrimination index was 0.36, and the average of Alpha-Cronbach was 0.82 in the faculty of nursing. All the values were significantly better in the faculty of nursing and midwifery compared to the rest of the university. Conclusions: The difficulty index, the discrimination index and the Alpha-Cronbach values in the faculty of nursing were within the acceptable range recommended by experts in the field of educational measurement. However, some of the tests had values less than the recommended

Comparing of emotional intelligence in bright talents and non-talented students in Golestan university of medical sciences

هوش هیجانی دیدگاه جدیدی درباره پیش‏بینی عوامل مؤثر بر موفقیت افراددرجامعه را فراهم میسازد. هوش عمومی دربهترین شرایط، تنهاعامل بیست درصدازموفقیت‏های زندگی است. هشتاد درصد موفقیت‏ها به عوامل دیگر از جمله هوش هیجانی وابسته است. درنظام آموزشي ما، اين مشكل وجود دارد كه برهوش شناختی تأكيد و هوش هيجاني كه بي اندازه درسرنوشت افراد اهميت دارند، ناديده گرفته مي شود. این مطالعه به مقایسه هوش هیجانی دانشجویان استعداددرخشان وغیراستعداددرخشان می پردازد. Background and Objective: Emotional Intelligence provides a new perspective to anticipate effective factors on people's success in a society. Cognitive Intelligence, in its best context, is the cause of 20 percent of people's success in their life. 80 percent of success depends on other factors like Emotional Intelligence.In our educational system there is more emphasis on cognitive intelligence than emotional intelligence. Therefore, as EQ is of paramount importance in people's future, this study investigated a comparison between talented and normal students regarding Emotional Intelligence. Materials and Methods: This sectional descriptive study had an analytical approach between two groups and was conducted in 1392 on students of Golestan University of Medical Sciences. 152 students, including 41talented and 111 normal students participated in this study. Instrument of collecting data included a questionnaire with 133 Questions about Emotional Intelligence with N-bar normalization and demographic and educational specification. Analysis of data was performed by ANOVA, T-test and Kruskal Wallis. Results: Findings showed that an average EQ of talented students was 77.103 and that of normal ones was 41.98. Comparison test and T-test showed that there was no significant difference in EQ of students between the two groups (P= 00085). In self-actualization component, there was a meaningful significance between talented and normal students (P=0.004). As a whole, it was worth to note that there was a meaningful difference regarding EQ among talented students with educated fathers (P=0.046). It was also shown that there was a meaningful difference regarding EQ among normal students with educated fathers (P=0.04). Conclusion: Results showed that there was no significant difference regarding EQ between talented and normal students. So it can be said that being talented could not be the only factor to have higher abilities. It is proposed that in measuring talented students' abilities, not only cognitive intelligence but also EQ which causes more than 80 percent of peoples' success in a society should be considered

Effect of foot reflexology on fatigue in patients undergoing hemodialysis: A sham-controlled randomized trial

Background and purpose: Fatigue is a common symptom in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Reflexology is a nursing intervention that could reduce fatigue. This study aimed at determining the effects of foot reflexology on fatigue in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Materials and methods: A clinical trial with before and after design was conducted in hemodialysis patients attending Imam-Ali and Iran-mehr clinic in Bojnurd, 2013. Using randomized sampling 78 patients were allocated into three groups: intervention, placebo, and control group. The patients in intervention group received foot reflexology, and simple foot reflexology without pressing certain parts of the foot was done in placebo group. The patients in control group received only routine care. Piper Fatigue Scale was used to measure fatigue level before and after the intervention. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and Paired t-test. Results: The results showed a significant difference between fatigue scores in intervention and control groups before and after the intervention (P<0.001). After the foot reflexology, the fatigue score in intervention group reduced to 3.8±1.27 (vs. 4.34±1.35 before the intervention), while the fatigue score in control group increased to 5.19±0.87 (vs. 4.91±1.04 before the intervention) (P<0.05). The placebo group showed no significant difference before and after the intervention (P=0.9). Conclusion: Reflexology can be used as a nursing intervention in reducing fatigue among patients undergoing hemodialysis. © 2016, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

A survey of attitudes, practices, and knowledge regarding drug-drug interactions among medical residents in Iran

Background When prescribing medications, physicians should recognize clinically relevant potential drug–drug interactions (DDIs). To improve medication safety, it is important to understand prescribers’ knowledge and opinions pertaining to DDIs. Objective To determine the current DDI information sources used by medical residents, their knowledge of DDIs, their opinions about performance feedback on co-prescription of interacting drugs. Setting Academic hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) in Iran. Methods A questionnaire containing questions regarding demographic and practice characteristics, DDI information sources, ability to recognize DDIs, and opinions about performance feedback was distributed to medical residents of 22 specialties in eight academic hospitals in Iran. We analyzed their perception pertaining to DDIs, their performance on classifying drug pairs, and we used a linear regression model to assess the association of potential determinants on their DDI knowledge. Main Outcome Measure prescribers’ knowledge and opinions pertaining to DDIs. Results The overall response rate and completion rate for 315 distributed questionnaires were 90% (n = 295) and 86% (n = 281), respectively. Among DDI information sources, books, software on mobile phone or tablet, and Internet were the most commonly-used references. Residents could correctly classify only 41% (5.7/14) of the drug pairs. The regression model showed no significant association between residents’ characteristics and their DDI knowledge. An overwhelming majority of the respondents (n = 268, 95.4%) wished to receive performance feedback on co-prescription of interacting drugs in their prescriptions. They mostly selected information technology-based tools (i.e. short text message and email) as their preferred method of receiving feedback. Conclusion Our findings indicate that prescribers may have poor ability to prevent clinically relevant potential DDI occurrence, and they perceive the need for performance feedback. These findings underline the importance of well-designed computerized alerting systems and delivering performance feedback to improve patient safety

Effect of vitamin D supplementation on depression in elderly patients: A randomized clinical trial

Background & aims: Treatment of depression in elderly population is a crucial issue. The effect of vitamin D supplementation on treatment of depression in older adults was investigated in this clinical trial. Methods: It was an 8-week, randomized clinical trial of vitamin D supplementation and placebo in the treatment of depression in 3 psychiatric clinics. The study sample included 78 older adults aged over 60 years with moderate to severe depression. Subjects were randomly allocated to receive 50,000 U vitamin D3 pearl weekly for 8 weeks or placebo (39 subjects in each group). Main outcome measures comprised Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15) questionnaire and 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 25(OH)D3. The analysis utilized Mann Whitney U test, Wilcoxon signed ranks test, chi-square and multiple regression analysis. Results: The mean baseline 25(OH)D3 concentration was 22.57 ± 6.2 ng/ml in vitamin D group and 21.2 ± 5.8 ng/ml in placebo group (p = 0.16). The Vitamin D increased to 43.48 ± 9.5 ng/ml in vitamin D and 25.9 ± 15.3 ng/ml in placebo group. The depression score decreased from 9.25 to 7.48 in vitamin D group (p = 0.0001), while there was a non-significant increase in depression score in placebo group. The multiple regression analysis showed that the vitamin D group and the score of depression before study were the variables that could explain 81.8% of depression score after intervention. Conclusion: The findings indicated that vitamin D supplementation can improve the depression score in persons aged 60 and over. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolis

Association of RS4784227-casc16 (Loc643714 locus) and RS4782447-ACSF3 polymorphisms and their association with breast cancer risk among iranian population

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