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"n Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1":*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Background: Chlamydia trachomatis is a common and curable STI that may be symptomatic or asymptomatic. The few studies on C. trachomatis among Iranian women have had, for the most part, small sample sizes and are therefore unsuitable for epidemiological deductions. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of urogenital C. trachomatis infections by PCR on urine samples of married women in their fertile years in order to determine the need for a C. trachomatis screening program for asymptomatic women in Iran."n"n Methods: This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study was performed on 991 married women. The research material consisted of questionnaires and urine samples, which were transported daily to Avesina Research Institute, Tehran, Iran, to extract their DNA and prepare them for PCR tests. The gathered data were analyzed by SPSS, version 13, and evaluated statistically by t-test, chi-square test, Fisher's exact test and logistic regression, considering p

Introduction and objectives: Despite the advances in the control of food-borne diseases, still one of the dilemmas in the health of most societies and a matter of concern for health authorities is food poi­soning and food-borne diseases by unsafe foods.Materials and methods: In total 390 samples, including 195 samples of raw kebabs and hamburgers and 195 samples of the cooked ones were gathered from shops, sampling raw and cooked meat at the same time, and they were sent to the laboratory for testing, over a period of one year. The methods used for the tests were based on the Iranian National Standard procedures, numbers 356 and 2394.Results: All the cooked specimens had bacterial contamination in acceptable standard levels and there­fore were considered consumable. From the 165 raw kebab samples, 90 samples (54.5%) were con­sumable but 75 samples (45.5%) were not fit for consumption, where from 30 raw hamburger samples, 22 samples (73.3%) were consumable and 8 (26.7%) were inconsumable. In serological evaluations, Thompson serotype had the highest prevalence in kebab and hamburger samples.Conclusion: The results of present study show that there is no reason for concern in consuming cooked kebabs.

This research studies the quality of medical prescriptions for children under 5 years of age and their effective factors carried out by Behvarzes at Eslamshar town."nMaterials and Methods: The study took place in 19 health houses considering the medical family files of patient children seeking for medical care by 33 Behvarz for quality of medical prescription. Two questionnaire were used for the study. The first questionnaire contained information about children medical prescription and variables evaluated in relation to medical prescription dose, duration of consumption and the cure duration period, which carried out for both girl and boy group separately. The second questionnaire contained information about the condition of working Behvarzes demographic in health houses considered variable for Behvarzes are: Age, Sex , experience, education, place of residence marital status."nResults: The important points of the study are as follow: - In cases that according to Behvarzy training patient follow up is necessary, 56.9%of the needed cases did not full fill the appropriate and necessary follow up program. - One of the important constraints of the research is the high percent of unrecorded cases by Behvarzes including:"n1 - 1.2% unknown medical prescriptions."n2- 44.2% unknown dose of prescribed medicine"n3- 52.4% unknown care duration period"n4- 36.5% unknown period of time for taking the medicine. Conclusion: According to the information: 1- 64.9 dose of prescribed medicine"n2- 73.2 period of time for taking the medicine"n3- 84.1 care duration period There were appropriate.

Objective(s): To detcnninc the short-term reacrogenicity of diphtheria-tetanus-whole cell pertussis (DTwP) vaccine administered to preschool children in a number of health centers of Tehran in 2006. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, 337 children aged 4-6 years were injected with DTwP vaccine manufactured by Razi Institute of Iran. Reactogenicity was assessed by the parents for 7 days post vaccination using diary cards. Local (pain, redness and swelling) and systemic (fever, loss of appetite, gasterointestinal symptoms, vomiting and eczema) side effects were recorded daily. Results: Out of 337 children, 312 (92.6%) reported local reactions and 220 (65.3%) reported systemic reactions. No serious adverse events related to vaccination were reported. Among local reacuons, pain was the most frequent (86.9%), but 11 was mostly mild or moderate. Redness (52.8%) and swelling (41.2%) were the most frequently observed signs in the second day. The systemic reactions observed in children included fever (48.4%), loss of appetite (24%), gastrointestinal symptoms (5 6%), vomiting (8%) and eczema (2.7%). Only 3.6% of children had auxiliary fever above 39 chr('39')c. All signs were observed to have reduced or completely disappeared during a week. Conclusion: Compared with previous reports in Iran, reactogenicity of DTwP of Razi Institute seems to be reduced, but it was still more frequent than the internationally approved cellular vaccine counterparts. Reactogcnicity of the cellular triple vaccine may be related to the vaccine formulation or the bacterial cell fragments used in vaccine production.

Background: Due to its high prevalence, the survey on gastric cancer survival in Iran seems too important. In the case of relative long-term survival of the cases, using standard models is not conventional. So cure models are used to estimate the proportion of the cured patients that will never experience the event of interest and also to evaluate the survival function of susceptible individuals who may experience the event and effective factors. This study was carried out to determine the five-year survival rate of gastric cancer patients who have undergone surgical treatment. Materials and Methods: Three hundred and thirty gastric cancer operated patients with a maximum 10-year survival were enrolled in the study. The patients' life expectancy after surgery and cure fraction and their relationships with some variables were evaluated. Kaplan-Meier and Weibull Cure models were utilized for analyses. Results: The five-year survival rate and the median life expectancy were 24% and 19.9 months, respectively. Univariate analysis using the Weibull model showed that age, existence/site of metastasis and stage of disease influenced on the probability of curing (P<0.05). On assessing the simultaneous effect of different variables the age and stage of disease proved to be effective on curing (P<0.05), but none of the variables affected the life expectancy of patients (P>0.05). Conclusion: Using the cure models is beneficial in situations which the population under study suggests the presence of subpopulation. The cure/immune model methodology may separeltery identify the sets of covariates related to the cured proportion and also the failure time distribution of uncured one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Length of stay (LOS) in a hospital is one of the best hospital indicators that can be used for various purposes. In this survey, we studied the hospital LOS and its associated factors in Tehran University of Medical Sciences Women's Hospital (a teaching hospital) in Tehran using the Cox proportional hazards semi parametric model and compared the results with the results obtained using the multiple linear regression. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive-analytical study in which we reviewed 3421 files of inpatients hospitalized in, and those discharged from, the oncology, surgery and obstetrics units in 2008. The required data were collected using a data collection sheet and inpatient interviews. A P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The median of patients' LOS in the hospital was 50.8 hours, that in the obstetrics, surgical and oncology units being 48.5, 54.4 and 94.2 hours, respectively. Of all the patients, 2632 (76.9%) had been discharged with a recovery status and the rest (23.1%) with a no-recovery status. Results of the Cox proportional hazards model showed that the following variables had increased LOS: a distance longer than 200 km between a patent's residence and the hospital, hospitalization in the surgery and oncology units, admission on a Thursday, admission by an internist, hospitalization for neoplastic, endocrine, nutritional, or genitourinary system diseases (P<0.005), as well as a high number of diagnostic laboratory tests, radiographies or sonographies (P<0.001). Patients admitted and hospitalized as an emergency case had a shorter LOS (P<0.001) than others. On the other hand, based on the multiple linear regression model results, some occupations (being a worker, a farmer, a stockbreeder, or a retired spouse) admission on a Thursday, (The first day of the weekend in Iran), suffering from a neoplastic disease, and a high number of diagnostic tests or radiographies or sonographies increased, and admission by a resident decreased, patients' LOS (P<0.05). Conclusion: Considering having censored data, the Cox proportional hazards model is a more suitable model than the multiple linear regression models for identifying factors influencing patients' LOS in a hospital. From among the LOS Cox model's associated factors as identified in this study, policy-makers and managers can only change admission days and the number of diagnostic tests. That is to say, they should try to prevent admission on a Thursday (unless emergency cases) and also perform the required primary diagnostic tests before admitting a patient into the hospital, which would lead to a more effective utilization of hospital beds and other resources [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: The most common cancer in Iran is digestive system cancer, the highest incidence of which is reported from the Caspian Sea littoral. This study aimed to determine factors affecting the survival of patients with gastrointestinal cancer using the Cox and parametric models; the 2 models were compared. Materials and Methods: This survey was a prospective study conducted between 1990 and 1991. Data were collected through the Cancer Registry Center in Babol, which functions under supervision of the School of Public Health and Institute of Public Health Research, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. We tried to identify cases of gastrointestinal cancers. The individual characteristics of 484 patients, namely, age, sex, family history, marital status, smoking status, occupation, ethnicity, medication status, education, residence (urban, rural), and type of cancer were recorded. The patients were followed up for a period of 15 years, i.e., until 2006 year. To determine the effective factors on survival of patients, the Cox model and parametric models such as exponential, weibull, log-normal, log-logistic, and the AIC criteria and residuals were used to compare the effectiveness of the models. The SAS and STATA software were used for data analysis, with a significant level of 0.05. Results: Sixty-six percent of the patients (total n=484) were males and 34% females, with a mean age of 59 and 55 years, respectively. Their distribution according to type of cancer was as follows: esophageal cancer, 359 (74.2%); stomach cancer, 110 (22.7%); colorectal cancer, 15(3.1%). Estimated one-, three-, and five-year survival rates were 24%, 16% and 15%, respectively. Conclusion: The results of this study reveal that gender and family history can be strong risk factors for GI cancer. Log-normal and log-logistic models in multivariate and univariate analyses gave almost similar results. However, based on AIC criteria and residuals analysis, the log-logistic model gives the best fit as compared to other parametric models and can be used instead of the Cox model for determining factors affecting survival of patients with gastrointestinal tract cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Today human beings working in organizations are faced with various types of stress factors which jeopardize healthiness of their body and mind. These stresses are not easy to identify and eliminate and, as a result, produce undesirable effects on the efficiency of trained manpower, particularly managers who play important roles in development and success of organizations. The objective of this study was to identify stress factors and the effect of stress on performance of managers in different sections of hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Methods and Materials: This descriptive-analytic study conducted in 2008 included 220 managers from different sections of hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The data was collected using a standard questionnaire (Likert scale) with 70 questions in 4 parts. Results:About 68.2% of the managers were females, 72.8% were married, and 47.7% had a service record of 10-20 years. On the whole, 93.4% of the managers had had severe stresses in the previous 2 years. The work environment was the most stressful factor for 84.4% of the managers. Other stressful factors were the amount of work and expectations of the higher-ranking managers. The findings also indicated that stress had a negative impact on the managers' ability to make decisions effectively at work. There were statistically significant associations between stress factors and educational level (p=0.01) and between marital status and family stress factors (p = 0.05). In addition, an inverse relation was found between the effect of stress on performance and length of service record (-0.17, p=0.01 Conclusion: Based on the findings, it is suggested that the university authorities and hospitals' senior managers make attempts to minimize stressful conditions in the work environment. The following strategies can be adopted to achieve this end: sound management of human resources; social support of the personnel; better time management; delegating responsibilities to subordinates; and improving working conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: The large volume of reports and statistics in the literature on the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in Iran and other countries indicates that it is essential to assess the ergonomic situation in different occupations. These disorders can be caused by long-term exposure to different agents or by trauma to the musculoskeletal system. A large part of the work force in Iran is engaged in general construction and dam construction workshops. The postures of these workers while working in the workshops are unsuitable postures. The objective of this study was to assess the ergonomic situation of workers in dam construction workshops. Methods and Materials: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2008. The sample included 110 randomly selected male-workers in a dam construction workshop in Takab City, Iran, engaged in 25 different jobs. Data were collected using the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire and the National Institute of Occupational Health-Center to Protect Worker Rights Checklist (NIOSH-CPWR), both developed by the National Institute of Occupational Health-Center to Protect Workers Rights. The software used to analyze data was SPSS. Results:The average service record of the workers was 36.6 ± 86.8 months. The data show that the most common (55.5%) MSDs were in the low back region. There were statistically significant positive associations between prevalence of MSDs and many independent variables, namely, age, weight, education level, service record, smoking, type of job, lengths of time of standing and sitting at work, total duration of work, work pressure, undesirable postures, and surface for walking. Conclusion: The results of this study generally confirm findings of previous investigators. It can be concluded that ergonomic assessment of jobs may give valuable information to be used by occupational health and safety authorities in planning preventive and educational programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]