Zahedan Journal of Research in Medical Sciences
Volume:20 Issue: 12, Dec 2018

Surgery is one of the most common strategies to treat hydatidosis reserved as a complementary treatment with chemical agents. Due to low efficacy and the adverse effects of these chemical agents, it is necessary to develop a new and effective scolicidal agent to prevent the recurrence of hydatidosis after surgery. The current study aimed at investigating the scolicidal effects of Berberis vulgaris, Peganom harmala, and Zataria multiflora methanolic extracts on protoscolices of hydatid cyst. Protoscolices were aseptically obtained from sheep livers infected with hydatid cyst in Hamadan slaughterhouse (Hamadan, Iran). After methanol extraction of herbs, different concentrations of extracts were used in various exposure time for mortality rate assay of protoscolices in laboratory. The obtained results showed that various concentrations of B. vulgaris and Z. multiflora extracts could kill 100% of protoscolices after five minutes of exposure and the mean of mortality rate of protoscolices was remarkably higher in the experiment group comparison with that of the control group (P < 0.05). However, the current study findings showed that P. harmala extract at a higher concentration (100 mg/mL) killed 14%, 12%, 12.67%, 15.67%, and 17% of the protoscolices after 5, 10, 15, 20 and 40 minutes of exposure, respectively. There was no significant difference between the experiment and control groups in terms of the mean of mortality rate (P > 0.05). The current study findings showed that B. vulgaris and Z. multiflora extracts can be natural sources to develop new scolicidal agents used in hydatid cyst surgery to prevent recurrence of the disease. However, the in vitro examination revealed that the P. harmala extract had no strong scolicidal activities.

Different psychological factors may explain the differences between epileptic and non-epileptic seizures. Accordingly, the present study was conducted to compare alexithymia, perceived stress, and emotion regulation between patients with epileptic and non-epileptic seizures. In the present cross-sectional research, 82 patients (39 with epileptic seizures and 43 with non-epileptic seizures) were selected. Using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) (Bagby et al., 1994), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) (Cohen et al., 1983) and cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (CERQ) (Garnefski and Kraaij, 2006), the required data were collected and then analyzed using the SPSS-19 software. According to the results, patients with non-epileptic seizures had significantly higher scores in TAS, especially in the subscales of difficulty identifying feelings and externally oriented thinking, PSS and CERQ, especially in the subscales of catastrophizing and other-blame and lower scores in CERQ’s subscales of acceptance, positive reappraisal, and positive refocusing compared to patients with epileptic seizures (P < 0.05). The non-epileptic seizure group score was higher in the event acceptance subscale (as a positive emotion regulation) (P < 0.05). The results of this study showed that patients with epileptic seizures have a more favorable condition in terms of alexithymia, emotion regulation, and perceived stress compared to those with non-epileptic seizures.

Internet abuse has had a growing trend among medical students. This practice incurs negative consequences on many aspects of an individual’s life, including academic, professional, and communicative status as well as loneliness and sleep quality. These consequences have adverse effects on the quality of patient care and safety, as well as physical and mental health of students. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Internet addiction and loneliness, and sleep quality among students of the Nursing and Midwifery Faculty. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 216 students of Zahedan Nursing and Midwifery Faculty during year 2016. The study population was selected through the stratified random sampling technique. The data were collected using the demographic form, Young’s Internet Addiction Test, University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Data analysis was performed using independent t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), multivariate regression, and Pearson correlation coefficient in SPSS-20 software. According to the results, 62.1%, 10.3%, and 1% of the students had mild, moderate, and severe Internet addiction, respectively. The mean scores of Internet addiction, loneliness, and sleep quality were 37.92 ± 13.32, 44.11 ± 9.63, and 10.7 ± 5.29, respectively. Furthermore, there was a significant difference between males and females in terms of the mean Internet addiction and sleep quality (P < 0.001 and P = 0.02, respectively). Additionally, sleep quality showed a significant correlation with Internet addiction (r = 0.16, P = 0.01) and loneliness (r = 0.22, P = 0.001). Nevertheless, no significant relationship was observed between Internet addiction and loneliness. Moreover, 8% of the total variation of Internet addiction among students was dependent on sleep quality and gender. Considering the effects of Internet addiction on the health dimensions of students, it seems necessary to implement periodic educational courses, refer them to counseling centers, and perform interventional studies to assess the effectiveness of such programs.

Experimental evidence demonstrated that endurance training (ET) could be beneficial for the diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), but its mechanism is not clear. Due to the critical role of the ADP-ribosylation factor (Arf6) in the nervous system, the current study aimed at evaluating the effects of ET on gene expression of Arf6 in cerebellum of male Wistar rats with DPN. Animals were randomly divided into three groups: Control (C), diabetic control (DC), and diabetic trained (DT). Diabetes induction was performed by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ). Behavioral nociception assessment was conducted by Von Frey filaments and tail flick tests. Treadmill protocol consisted of six weeks of moderate intensity endurance training. The Arf6 cerebellar gene expression was assessed by the real-time PCR. In the current study, the Arf6 gene expression levels in the DC group were significantly higher than those of the C group (P = 0.003). Also, ET could damp this elevation in diabetic rats (P = 0.004). It seems that Arf6 is an important mediator of stress-induced plasticity in the nervous system in response to ET and neurodegeneration disease, but the exact physiological functions of Arf6 are not clear. Hence, further studies are required to identify these issues.

Patients with cancer experience various physical and psychological complications during treatment. Fatigue is a common and often disabling medical symptom in patients with cancer. It is necessary to have a reliable and valid tool to examine cancer-related fatigue in adults with cancer. This descriptive study was conducted on 150 patients with cancer that had referred to Shahid Sadoughi Hospital (Yazd/Iran). Data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire that was designed for fatigue assessment. The reliability was determined using the Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest method. Factor analysis was used in SPSS/21 software to verify construct validity. Face validity and content validity was confirmed through an expert panel. According to experts’ suggestions, unnecessary items were removed and required changes were made in the questionnaire. According to the results of factor analysis, this questionnaire has three categories including: Daily activities and general problems (ten questions), sleep problems (nine questions), and mental states and emotions (five questions). Cronbach’s alpha was more than 0.8 for all dimensions and was 0.93 for the entire scale. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was in the range of 0.84 to 0.92; also, ICC was 0.92 for the total questionnaire and was close to one for all dimensions of the questionnaire. In addition, the total mean fatigue was 53.44 ± 16.61, considering the total score of 100. There was a significant difference between total mean fatigue and gender, job, economic status, and type of cancer. This study shows that cancer-related fatigue questionnaire can be used as a tool with validity and reliability at all research levels.