Vol 4 No 3/4 (2018)
Original Article(s)
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Background: Depression is one of the most important causes of pathogenesis and disabilityin individuals. Through the timely diagnosis of this disorder, it can be prevented fromprogressing, and finally, ensure the mental health of students and the community. The issues,such as non-familiarity with the university environment or culture of the area, being nonindigenousand away from family, lack of interest in the field of study, and incompatibility withother people, can result in mental illnesses, such as depression and a decline in the students’academic performance. This study was performed to measure the rate of depression in thepharmacy students in the first two years of study and its influencing factors.Methods: This longitudinal-descriptive study was done to measure the rate of depression in pharmacystudents of the Ahvaz Jondishapur University of Medical Sciences from 2015 to 2017. To the end,the students first were evaluated using the Beck questionnaire, and then they answered the samequestionnaire in 2017. The obtained data were evaluated using SPSS 21 .ر software and the t-test.Results: In this study, 37 students were studied for two years. In the first year, the averagescore of depression was 6.21±7.02 and in the third year, it was 8.83±11.49. Despite anincrease in the depression score, it was not in the depression range. Also, the results of thet-test showed that the students in the third year showed no significant difference comparedwith the first year of the university in terms of depression score (P=0.242).Conclusion: Because of the high prevalence of depression in non-native students, theofficials of this university have to pay more attention to the non-native students andadapt the dormitories environment appropriately for them. They also can provide culturalprograms to change the students’ morale. In addition to these activities, holding workshopson psychology, proper training, and motivating students to pass lessons difficult to learn byuniversity counselors can be effective in reducing the prevalence of depression.
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Background: Complementary and alternative medicine is defined as “diagnosis, prevention,and treatment, which complements mainstream medicine by contributing to a commonwhole, by satisfying a demand not met by belief or by diversifying the conceptual frameworksof medicine”. Alternative medicine may include acupuncture, homeopathy, phytotherapy,leech therapy, and other methods. According to the public popularity of these methods, weconducted this study to investigate the views of the public about these treatments.Methods: To perform this study, we designed a questionnaire scoring on a 10 five-point Likertscale. The goal of the study was explained to patients before filling out the questionnaire.Results: In this research, 100 cases with an average age of 30±8.47 years were studied.One percent of the studied population was uneducated, 41% had a diploma, and 58% hada university degree. Respectively, 28%, 10%, 40%, 15% of the participants expressed theirconfidence in Iranian traditional medicine as follows: very high, high, medium, and low,and 7% did not believe in alternative medicine. Also, 24% of respondents had used at leastone of the methods of alternative medicine, like leech therapy. In addition, 33% usuallyand 42% sometimes used herbal tea for relieving their physical and mental illness withoutconsulting the physician, and 25% never used it without consulting. According to the opinionof respondents, 69% believed that both modern and traditional medicine is effective, 10%expressed that modern medicine is more effective than traditional medicine, 9% were notfamiliar with traditional medicine, and 7% stated that traditional medicine is more effectivethan modern medicine.Conclusion: According to the results, most of the participants believed in alternative methods,especially along with modern medicine. For this reason, accurate and scientific educationabout alternative methods seems necessary for the healthcare team and the public.
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Background: The present study was conducted to evaluate the use of vancomycin accordingto the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee guidelines in the ImamKhomeini hospital of Urmia.Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in Urmia Imam Khomeini Hospital(intensive care unit, surgery, internal medicine, and dialysis wards). In the retrospective phase,the demographic and clinical data related to all patients who were treated with vancomycinin April, May, and June 2015 were collected according to a HICPAC-based questionnaire. Thelevel of compliance of vancomycin with the recommendations mentioned was determined.Non-compliance with the instructions was identified as the goal of the next interventions.Results: The results of our study showed that the highest starting doses were among thepatients with pneumonia. We did not measure the serum level of vancomycin in none of thepatients studied. The duration of treatment for patients was 4.45±4.91 days. Also, our resultsshowed that 68.5% of patients had no antibiogram before the treatment.Conclusion: The obtained findings showed that the necessity of an antibiogram and patient’sweight measurement and avoiding the simultaneous use of broad-spectrum antibioticsand measuring the serum level of vancomycin in order to promote patients’ treatmentand promote the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics Vancomycin should be taken intoconsideration.
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Background: Poisoning and drug overdoses are considered a health problem in moderncountries. In this study, we assessed the pattern of poisoning and drug overdoses at ImamKhomeini hospital in Sari city, the northern region of Iran.Methods: To assess the pattern and circumstances of poisoning, the patients’ informationwho were referred to the emergency unit with acute toxic poisoning over four years wererandomly obtained retrospectively from their medical records.Results: A total of 1,646 patients were analyzed. The highest rate of poisonings was related tosuicidal intentions and mostly occurred at age of 18 to 35 years and in females. Medicationswere the principal groups of poisons involved (53.15%), including benzodiazepines as themost common agents (30.3%), followed by multiple medications (25.5%) and opioids (10%).Organophosphate compounds (3%), aluminum and zinc phosphide (2.7%), and rodenticide(1.7%) were also among the commonly used poisons; however, they were the main leadingcause of overdose deaths. Thirty patients (1.8%) died in total, and death was caused mostcommonly by zinc and aluminum phosphide (8 cases), followed by opioids (6 cases) androdenticide (4 cases).Conclusion: The high prevalence of intentional overdoses and mortality among young adultsrequires considerable attention, and further surveys are needed to address the fundamentalunderlying causes. More restrictive regulations and increasing public awareness regardingthe role of centers providing information about poisoning available in the region can assist toprevent the development of this public health problem.
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Background: Management science is seeking ways to realize organizational goals, strategies,and expectations, which are the criteria for a company’s successful performance. One of themost important aspects of management in an organization is the evaluation and measurementof business performance. Measuring business performance is crucial and according to someexperts, “you cannot manage what you do not measure”. Having a systematic view ofbusiness performance in pharmaceutical companies is of great significance.Methods: According to the studies and interviews with pharmaceutical experts, we developeda conceptual model and examined the factors affecting pharmaceutical companies’ innovativestrategies. A descriptive method, specifically the Partial Least Squares Structural EquationModeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted. The statistical population of the study consisted ofpharmaceutical companies’ experts selected by cluster sampling. Also, according to the MorganTable, the number of statistical population and sample members were 70 and 59, respectively.Results: The obtained results indicated that the key processes and product innovativestrategies improved business performance. Financial management, as the moderatorvariable, affected the relationship between product and process innovation and businessperformance improvement. Intellectual capital, as the other moderator variable, affectedthe relationship between product and process innovation and business performanceimprovement.Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that factors, like financial management,product innovation strategy, process innovation strategy, and intellectual capitaldevelopment significantly affect business performance improvement. Generally, a reviewof previous literature showed that the present study confirms their results to some extentand by including some factors, which had not been considered before, it is a more novelcomprehensive research on this issue.
