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Abstract Background & Aims: Health literacy is one of the most important priorities for improving health care quality through enhancing patient- provider communication. Implementing health literacy strategies enables nurses to provide information and instructions for patients in a manner that is more commensurate and understandable. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting nurses’ intention to implement health literacy strategies in patient education based on theory of planned behavior. Material & Methods: A cross- sectional study conducted among 148 nurse practitioners of Al-Zahra Hospital affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran, using descriptive-analytical method. Data collected via standardized questionnaire based on theory of planned behavior constructs and analyzed by SPSS v.17 using ANOVA, Independent T-test, Pearson correlation and linear regression. Results: There were statistically significant correlation between using health literacy strategies and marriage status, attending in retraining courses, employment type, job history, and job status. Perceived behavioral control was the most powerful predictor of intention (β= 0/417) and use health literacy strategies in patient education and behavior of nurses (β=0/319). Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, perceived behavioral control is a powerful determinant of nurses’ intention and behavior of using health literacy strategies in patient education. Hence we recommend nurse educators to pay special attention to the constructs of this theory mainly perceived behavioral control in retrain courses about patient education and health literacy strategies.

Background and Objectives: Nutrition in pregnancy has an important role in fetus and mother health, and also in the pregnancy outcome. One of the significant changes related to nutrition is weight gain of pregnant women as one of the influencing indicators which is measured by Body Mass Index (BMI). This study was conducted to determine nutritional education effect upon pregnancy weight gain in pregnant women on the basis of health belief model (HBM) in Gonabad, Iran. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental randomized and controlled study on 110 pregnant women referring to health centers in Gonabad, Iran. They were divided into experimental and control groups who participated in the study, in the year of 2009. The data of two groups were collected by reliable and valid questionnaires during the first part of pregnancy care in pre-test stage. Then, two educational sessions were held for the experimental group. Post test was done for both groups in the last stage of pregnancy care, and the data were analyzed by paired T, T independent, the correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney, and Chi-square. A p

Introduction and Purpose: Academic anxiety is an important educational problem that affects millions of students in colleges and schools over the world each year. Although a low level of anxiety can cause positive motivation for improvement of educational functioning, high levels of it can cause a disturbance in concentration, attention, storage of knowledge, recall and educational reduction. It has also been recently determined that there is a relationship between anxiety and assertiveness. Therefore, this study is an attempt to determine the effect of assertiveness training on reducing anxiety levels in pre-college academic students in Gonabad city in 2008., Methods: In this clinical trial study, all the pre-college students of Gonabad city were invited to participate and 89 students were divided into experimental and control groups. There were 3 questionnaires, namely demographic, academic anxiety and assertiveness Rathus questionnaires in which the validity and reliability were calculated and approved. The intervention for the experimental group was 5 sessions of assertiveness training using the PRECEDE model and 1 session for parents and teachers to help and support the intervention program. We had a post-test 8 weeks after the last training session for each group was conducted. The data was analyzed by SPSS., Results: The results showed that anxiety levels and decisiveness in the target group were moderate to high and it is seen as a significant reverse relationship between these two factors (r = -0.69 and p < 0.001). The results also showed that there was a significant anxiety decrease in the experimental group after the intervention. On the one hand, there was a significant increase in decisiveness for both groups, but there was not a significant difference between academic anxiety and assertiveness in the control group.before and after the intervention., Conclusion: Due to a significant decrease in anxiety and increased decisiveness in the experimental group, it can be claimed that assertiveness training is an effective non-pharmacological method for reducing academic anxiety and it can improve academic performance.