Search

Background and purpose: Seborrheic dermatitis (SD) is a chronic skin condition that is accompanied by scaling and itching. Stress and mental rumination followed by the disease affect the quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of seborrheic dermatitis on the quality of life and to compare it with the quality of life of healthy people. Materials and methods: This study was a cross-sectional study. The study sample included 60 randomly selected patients with seborrheic dermatitis who referred to Bouali and Tooba dermatology clinics in Sari during 2019-2020. Two questionnaires (DLQI and SF-36) were used to assess general quality of life in patients. Results: The relationship between the disease and occupation was statistically significant. There was a significant relationship between smoking and seborrheic dermatitis. We also found a significant relationship between the frequency of recurrences and quality of life. The mean of physical and social function in the healthy group was higher than its value for the patient group, but the difference was not significant. Conclusion: Our study showed that age, education, occupation, and smoking are factors that contribute to seborrheic dermatitis. Moreover, the findings revealed that physical and mental health as well as quality of life were less affected in the married group compared to the single group.

Background and purpose: Production of functional foods is one of the most important achievements in food industry and using these products provides the convergence of two important events in life; namely receiving nutrients from the diet and promoting health for consumers at the same time. This study aimed to verify the viability of microorganisms and stability of these microorganisms in digestive conditions of the body in order to benefit from the claimed properties of these products. Materials and methods: In this experimental study, 14 samples of probiotic yogurts were collected from three dairy factories in Mazandaran province in summer 2020. The test method consisted of three main steps; determining the viability of probiotic bacteria in the samples over time, then simulating the conditions of the gastrointestinal conditions, including pH changes and exposure to pepsin and bile salts, and finally, evaluating the resistance of microorganisms after passing the conditions of gastric and intestinal simulated condition. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS. Results: In the study of viability of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, a significant difference was observed between the mean number of colonies both at different weeks and different pH levels (P

Objectives: Illicit drug abuse and drug-related crimes are still a growing problem worldwide. Understanding the increasing number of individuals arrested for drug charges, as well as their characteristics is necessary to predict and establish preventive and treatment programs. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Shahroud, Northeast of Iran from 2015-2018. Data were collected at the time of arrest from all homeless addicts and drug offenders arrested by the police and were sent to the rehabilitation camps or prisons (n=5486). Results: Drug-related charges were the largest category of arrest charges in Shahroud. The mean age of arrestees had significantly decreased each year. In total, 19.1% of the arrestees were referred to the rehabilitation camps (18.6% male and 40.3% female). The number of cases arrested for drug charges referred to the rehabilitation camps had significantly increased over time in both men and women. The number of arrestees showed an increase each year, whereas their mean age had decreased significantly. Discussion: Drug-related laws in Iran have been reformed, emphasizing the judicial supervision of arrest, treatment, and release processes. Treatment of arrestees with drug abuse provides opportunities for decreasing substance abuse and criminal behaviors and rearrests.

Background and purpose: Self-care is recognized as a fundamental approach in the field of providing, maintaining, and promoting health in individuals, families, and society. Providing essential training in the field of self-care is one of the important tasks of primary health service systems to the community, including household health ambassadors. On the other hand, determining the educational needs of self-care in each society should be based on the educational needs assessment in the same society. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the educational priorities of self-care using the educational needs assessment of health ambassadors. Materials and methods: The current study is a cross-sectional study (descriptive-analytical). The research community included household health ambassadors living in the Golestan and Mazandaran provinces. Entry criteria included being family health ambassadors, being between the ages of 20 and 60, and volunteering to enter the program. Also, the exclusion criteria included the health ambassador's unwillingness to participate in the evaluation. The study tools included a demographic questionnaire and a researcher-made questionnaire on "self-care educational needs" for health ambassadors. The health ambassadors' needs assessment questionnaire was the result of self-care educational priorities based on a general survey of the community, which was scored by the health ambassadors. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20 software. U-Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyze the data. Results: Results showed that the average age of health ambassadors participating in the study was 38.11±9.64 years. 987 people (57.8 percent) of them were health ambassadors of Golestan province and 721 people (42.2 percent) of them were health ambassadors of Mazandaran province. Also, concerning the participants' gender, 1439 people (84.3%) were women and 269(15.7%) were men. The educational needs assessment showed the top 10 priorities among self-care education topics determined by household health ambassadors, including stress and anxiety, healthy eating, life skills, parenting skills, water hygiene, inactivity, depression, skeletal problems, and lack of vitamins. , and oral and dental health. It was also shown that there is a statistically significant difference between different subgroups of participants such as gender, place of residence, education level, occupation, and ethnicity with self-care educational priorities in household health ambassadors (P

Background and purpose: User interface environments of databases should be designed in such a way that, in addition to facilitating users' information-seeking behavior, they can provide appropriate strategies to solve their problems in the shortest possible time. The user interface allows users to get a proper understanding of the information base and they can take advantage of it. The closer the design of the user interface is to the mental patterns and information-seeking behavior of the users, the more effective and useful it is and the less the user's efforts. Despite the development of medical information technology in the field of user interface design, most medical information systems have not been able to meet users' expectations mainly due to: a lack of awareness of information needs, information behavior of users, and lack of understanding of its nature. This research aims to present a new model for effective information retrieval and increasing the desirability in the design of user interface environments of information databases. Materials and methods: This study is a mixed type with a quantitative and qualitative approach which has been done with the design of combined exploratory methods. In the qualitative part, the research community included expert professors and specialists, and in the quantitative part, specialized and research-oriented PhD students of the basic science fields of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. In the qualitative part, 12 people were included in the study with the purposeful sampling method, and with this number of interviews, information saturation occurred. In the quantitative part, stratified random sampling was used and 100 people were included in the study. The required data was collected through content analysis and researcher-developed questionnaires. The data was then analyzed using SPSS software version 22 and inferential statistics (Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, and structural analysis). Results: According to the IPMA analysis, the findings of the research showed that among the variables that explain the desirable information-seeking behavior in terms of importance, the highest rank in desirable information-seeking behaviors is related to the dimension of users' position with an emphasis on ability (with a significance coefficient of 0.437 and the lowest is related to the ease of access component (with a significance coefficient of 0.048) and in terms of performance, the highest rating is related to the user interface design dimension with an emphasis on the database efficiency variable (with a performance factor of 57.191) and the lowest was related to the ease component (with a performance factor of 40.793). Also, the proposed model was able to obtain the necessary validity and reliability. Conclusion: The presented model helps users of database user interface environments so that they can use the basic elements as much as possible to speed up work and save time. Also, the proposed model can provide the necessary ideas to the designers of database environments so that they can implement the appropriate features for better interaction with the databases to facilitate and understand as easily as possible for more users. considering that the proposed model has obtained the necessary validity and reliability, it can be claimed that this model will not only be able to answer the issues raised in the field of searching and retrieving information, but it can be used, criticized, and perfected in future researches as a basis for designing and implementing user interface environments.

Background and purpose: Current scientometric indicators have some strengths and weaknesses. This study was conducted with the aim of developing a new scientometric index for the comprehensive scientific evaluation of researchers, the so-called multifold index. Materials and methods: The study was conducted with 96 researchers from Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences with at least two articles in Scopus and at least one citation to the articles. A checklist was used that included variables, such as the scientific age of each individual, the square root of the total number of each article, the sum of references to top articles, the H-index, etc. Some statistical analyzes such as factor analysis, KMO test and Bartlett’s test for sphericity, correlation matrix and SPSS software version 22 were used. Test functional characteristics and area under the rock curve were used, and sensitization was performed, extracting 99% predictive power and diagnostic power (0.7). Results: When calculating the multifold index, the H-index has the largest weight of 0.238, and the numerical value it provides is appropriate and measures all aspects of a person's scientific activity. This index is different for researchers who have the same H-index. Conclusion: The Multifold Index leads to a qualitative assessment and takes into account all aspects of a person's scientific activity. It can be used for assessments, predictions about the scientific status of researchers, educational and research groups and for creating a comprehensive scientific map of the country.

Background and purpose: Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in the world, including Iran. Cardiac rehabilitation is associated with improving patients' performance and reducing mortality from all causes of death. This study aimed to investigate the changes in exercise capacity and hemodynamic factors following cardiac rehabilitation in patients referred to the cardiac rehabilitation department of Mazandaran Heart Center. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out by examining the medical records of 262 patients referred between February 2018 to February 2020. Each of the three groups of patients with coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, and chronic heart failure were separately examined in terms of values before and after cardiac rehabilitation related to systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and resting heart rate (HR). Data were analyzed with SPSS-22, STAT-15 software. Results: In each of the three mentioned groups of cardiac patients, the mean SBP, DBP, and MAP variables had a significant decrease (P0.2). Conclusion: Cardiac rehabilitation may improve exercise capacity and hemodynamic factors, including SBP, DBP, and MAP in patients with various heart diseases and is recommended as a class І suggestion in eligible patients.

Background and purpose: Utilizing engaging techniques, such as animation, to educate adolescents about oral health can significantly impact their knowledge and behavior, resulting in the prevention of periodontal diseases. The current study aimed to compare the effectiveness of health education utilizing animation vs traditional education methods in improving adolescents' attitudes, behavior, and periodontal markers. Materials and methods: In this interventional study, 371 students aged 13 to 15 were randomly selected by cluster sampling and divided into two groups: control (187 students) and intervention (184 students). Questionnaires and clinical examinations of the Gingival Index (GI), Plaque Index (PI), and Sulcus Bleeding Index (SBI) were completed before and four weeks following the intervention, and the data were entered into the SPSS software (v. 23). The independent t-test and covariance analysis were used to analyze the data, and P

Background and purpose: Heavy metals are among the pollutants that can cause destructive and fatal effects on marine organisms, including fish, in aquatic environments. This study aimed to determine and compare the concentration of heavy metals in the edible tissue of highly consumed farmed fishes (trout and carp) and marine fishes (carp, mullet, and whitefish) in Mazandaran province, Iran. Materials and methods: In this study, 10 farmed fishes of Rainbow trout and Carp and 20 marine fishes of Carp, Leaping mullet, and Rutilus kutum were purchased from several cities of Mazandaran province, including Sari, Farahabad, Babolsar, Fereydoun Kanar, and Mahmoud Abad from the fishmongers market in two seasons (spring and summer). In this study, the edible tissues were completely separated and homogenized by a meat grinder; then, the freeze-dried tissues were analyzed by an ICP-MS to identify heavy metal contents. Results: The average length and weight of the sampled marine fish species were 33.05±6.24 cm and 354.65±230.54 gr, respectively. Also, the length and weight of the farmed fish species were 33.45±10.30 cm and 586.45±501.32 gr, respectively. The results showed that the average concentration of most heavy metals in both farmed and marine species was within the permissible ranges, and only the average amount of zinc and manganese in both groups was reported higher than the maximum allowed permissible ranges. Spearman's statistical analysis showed no significant relationship between the metal concentration and the fish's length and weight (P

Background and purpose: Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is known as a major complication of Prematurity. In this study, we aimed to examine complete blood count (CBC) variables in preterm infants with IVH. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, we studied preterm infants less than or equal to 34 weeks and less than 1500 g admitted to the NICU and neonatal ward of Bu Ali Sina and Imam Khomeini hospitals in Sari from 1395 to 1398. The presence of IVH in brain ultrasonography was recorded in these neonates. Results: Out of 367 neonates, 49.05% were boys and 50.95% were girls. The mean gestational age was 30.96±2.30 weeks and the mean weight of the patients was 1461±504.99 g. 41 patients (11.17%) had intraventricular hemorrhage. Infants with a history of maternal diabetes were more common in the group with intraventricular hemorrhage (P= 0.042). Mean hemoglobin, MCV and MCH were significantly higher in the group with ventricular hemorrhage and mean CRP and blood glucose were higher in this group (P