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Background: The socio-demographic and cultural factors closely related with Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of users at rural setting. Unfortunately studies on KAP of women about Family planning services from rural setting are almost absent. This study was designed to determine the responsible factors role on KAP of users for receiving family planning services from rural setting of Bangladesh. Methods: Qualitative descriptive analytical study was employed to follow a structured questionnaire format. A total 420 users were interviewed from two unions. Relevant literatures were reviewed to enhance our understanding of the issue in question. The questionnaires were pretest before finalization and it's has both open and close-ended questions. Results: The knowledge of users (87%) was mostly universal, while community women were more advanced than men. The unmet need for contraception's remains about 16% and 40% of mothers to have unintended births. Of all users, Pill was most known methods (68%), although IUCD (18%) and condom (14%) methods were common at community. Side effect (69%) and husband disapproval (31%) was barrier of practice of FPMs, although space for child bear (37%), health problems (30%), financial problems (25%) and education (8%) were push factors to users. Approximately 40% respondents travelled more than 4 kilometer to getting services. Factors were found to be significantly associated with KAP of users were: education (X2=29.73; p<0.001), occupation (X2=16.67; p<0.001) income (X2=17.61; p<0.011) family size (X2=25.44; p<0.022) distance (X2=18.75; p<0.013) cultural beliefs (X2=23.84; p<0.001, and accessibility (X2=23.67;p<0.00). Poor practice (44%) associated with schooling of users. Conclusion: Regular yard meeting with users' community and services allied persons may be arranged at community levels for upgrading the existing KAP. Stakeholders' from different ages, genders, and socioeconomic groups have to be engaged to promote evidence-based services. Extensive education and communication programs are needed to address family planning methods and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although numerous studies have found higher rates of abortion and still births following consanguinity (familial marriages), the question of whether consanguinity significantly increases the risk of neonatal death has inadequately been addressed. This study aims to evaluate familial marriage effects on neonatal death in rural areas in Iran. Materials and methods: In this nested case-control study, 6900 new borns who were born in rural areas of Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad Province (South-West of Iran)were followed till the end of neonatal period, and neonatal death was the outcome of interest. Subsequently 97 cases and 97 controls were selected in study cohort by using risk set sampling model. Crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) were estimated by using a conditional logistic regression model. Results: In the final model, prematurity (OR = 5.57), low birth weight (LBW) (OR = 7.68), consanguinity (first cousins) (OR = 5.23), C-section (OR = 7.27), birth rank more than 3 (OR = 6.95) and births interval less than 24 months (OR = 4.65) showed significant statistical association with neonatal mortality (p < 0.05). Conclusion: According to our findings, after adjusting the effects of other significant risk factors, familial marriage to first cousins is considered as an important risk factor for neonatal death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 5-year survival rate is a good prognostic indicator for patients with Gastric cancer that is usually estimated based on Kaplan-Meier. In situations where censored observations are too many, this method produces biased estimations. This study aimed to compare estimations of Kaplan-Meier and Weighted Kaplan-Meier as an alternative method to deal with the problem of heavy-censoring. Data from 330 patients with Gastric cancer who had undergone surgery at Iran Cancer Institute from 1995-1999 were analyzed. The Survival Time of these patients was determined after surgery, and the 5-year survival rate for these patients was evaluated based on Kaplan-Meier and Weighted Kaplan-Meier methods. A total of 239 (72.4%) patients passed away by the end of the study and 91(27.6%) patients were censored. The mean and median of survival time for these patients were 24.86±23.73 and 16.33 months, respectively. The one-year, two-year, three-year, four-year, and five-year survival rates of these patients with standard error estimation based on Kaplan-Meier were 0.66 (0.0264), 0.42 (0.0284), 0.31 (0.0274), 0.26 (0.0264) and 0.21 (0.0256) months, respectively. The estimations of Weighted Kaplan-Meier for these patients were 0.62 (0.0251), 0.35 (0.0237), 0.24 (0.0211), 0.17 (0.0172), and 0.10 (0.0125) months, consecutively. In cases where censoring assumption is not made, and the study has many censored observations, estimations obtained from the Kaplan-Meier are biased and are estimated higher than its real amount. But Weighted Kaplan-Meier decreases bias of survival probabilities by providing appropriate weights and presents more accurate understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Natural disasters are one of the most important adverse health events. The earthquake that happened in the city of Tabas in 1978 was ranked third in terms of number of deaths caused by natural disasters over the past 100 years in Iran. This study was aimed to evaluate the economic and human capital consequences of earthquake in Tabas district. Method: We used a two percent random sample of Iran Census Dataset from 2006 to run a difference-in-difference study. The difference-in-difference methodology was used to evaluate (1) the mean changes in variables including years of schooling and wealth; (2) the odds changes in primary school completion and literacy of people born (5 or 10 years) post-event versus (5 or 10 years) pre-event in Tabas compared with the same values for those born in the same period of time in the control districts. Results: Differential increase in years of schooling for being born 10 years after the earthquake versus in 10 years before earthquake in Tabas was one-third of a school year less than in the control districts. There were 89.5% and 65.4% decrease in odds that an individual is literate, and 0.26 and 0.104 average decrease in the SES index for those born in Tabas in periods of 5 and 10 years, respectively, compared with control districts. Conclusion: Tabas earthquake had negative long-term effects on human capital and wealth. This study can help official authorities to promote educational and economic plans and to implement comprehensive reforms in earthquake-stricken areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]