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Objectives Falling can have significant negative consequences on the health and quality of life of older adults. This study aims to assess the effect of online self-care education on the knowledge, attitude and practice of older adults in preventing falls at home. Methods & Materials This is a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test/post-test/follow-up design that was conducted on 120 people aged ≥65 years referring to comprehensive health centers in the south of Tehran, Iran, in 2021. A researcher-made questionnaire was completed by the participants before, immediately after, and three months after the intervention. The intervention was a virtual self-care educational program for fall prevention at home. Data analysis was done in SPSS software, version 26 using descriptive statistics (such as Mean±SD) and analytical tests including independent t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, and chi-square test. Results About 22% of the elderly had a history of falling in the past year. Immediately after the intervention, the mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice were 18.39±2.86, 14.99±2.51, and 13.76±3.1, respectively, which were significantly higher than the pre-test scores (P

Objectives Falling can have significant negative consequences on the health and quality of life of older adults. This study aims to assess the effect of online self-care education on the knowledge, attitude and practice of older adults in preventing falls at home. Methods & Materials This is a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test/post-test/follow-up design that was conducted on 120 people aged ≥65 years referring to comprehensive health centers in the south of Tehran, Iran, in 2021. A researcher-made questionnaire was completed by the participants before, immediately after, and three months after the intervention. The intervention was a virtual self-care educational program for fall prevention at home. Data analysis was done in SPSS software, version 26 using descriptive statistics (such as Mean±SD) and analytical tests including independent t-test, Mann- Whitney U test, and chi-square test. Results About 22% of the elderly had a history of falling in the past year. Immediately after the intervention, the mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice were 18.39±2.86, 14.99±2.51, and 13.76±3.1, respectively, which were significantly higher than the pre-test scores (P<0.001). Three months after the intervention, the mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice were 18.18±1.14, 14.91±1.57, and 9.06±2.78, respectively, which were significantly higher than the pre-test scores (P<0.001). Conclusion Online self-care education for fall prevention at home can significantly increase the knowledge, attitude, and practice of the elderly and reduce the risk of falling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: health practices of pregnant women affect the maternal and neonatal health and pregnancy outcomes. We aimed to determine the effect of virtual childbirth preparation education on improving the health practices of pregnant women. Materials and Methods:A quasiexperimental study was conducted in three phases on 633 pregnant women covered by health centers in the south of Tehran in 2019. Since the number of eligible individuals were close to the sample size, sampling was not done and the census method was used. In total, 310 of individuals were placed in the intervention group and 323 individuals in the control group. In the pre-test phase, the health practices of pregnant women questionnaire were completed by women in both intervention and control groups. Then women in the intervention group participated in virtual childbirth preparation education. In the post-test phase, the questionnaire was completed again by women in the 34th to 38th week of pregnancy. We used the SPSS 26 software for data analysis and the effectiveness of educational intervention was evaluated by Generalized Linear Model. Results: The mean scores of participants in the intervention group in the aspects of nutrition, special health care for pregnant women and correct pregnancy information were significantly higher than the control group (P < 0.001) and the overal mean scores of health practices of pregnant women in the intervention group (90.53±9.71) were significantly higher than the control group (83.86±10.58) (P<0.001). Among the participants charactristics, nationality had an effect on the relationship between virtual education and health practices of pregnant women (P=0.03). Conclusion: virtual childbirth preparation education had a positive effect on the health practices of pregnant women. When it is not possible to hold face-to-face childbirth preparation education, virtual education is a suitable alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Osteoarthritis is a common chronic disease of the musculoskeletal system in older adults. Aim: This study aimed to compare the effects of in-person and distance exercise training on the outcomes of knee injury and osteoarthritis among the elderly with limited literacy. Method: In this two-group randomized clinical trial with a pretest-posttest design, 60 elderly patients with knee injuries and osteoarthritis selected from two public parks in Mashhad during 2017-2018 were assigned to two groups of In-person and Distance training. The educational content, which included two stretching and three strength exercises for knee injury and osteoarthritis, was presented to the Distance group using booklets and multimedia. In the In-person group, the exercises were trained in eight 30-minute sessions, two days a week. The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis questionnaire was completed before and two months after training the exercises. To analyze the data, Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were run in SPSS, version 16. Results: The mean ages of the In-person and Distance groups were 68.2±5.6 and 69.2±9.4 years, respectively. We found a significant difference in the outcomes of knee injury and osteoarthritis post-intervention between the In-person and Distance groups (13.8±14.0 vs. 5.0±2.6; P≤0.003). Implications for Practice: Both methods could affect the outcomes of knee osteoarthritis. The in-person method was superior to distance training. These exercises are recommended as safe and cost-effective methods that could be included in health promotion programs targeting older adults.