علی اصغر نادی قرا

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.

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 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<0.05).

The findings of the study showed that mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as issues related to people's lifestyles, such as healthy eating, inactivity, and skeletal problems, were determined among the needs-based priorities for community education. Due to the limitation in financial and human resources, it is necessary to conduct self-care training based on the needs assessment of the society, because, on the one hand, an important part of the health needs of the society will be answered. On the other hand, the educational subjects that have priority will be the target of educational programs.

Accompanying sleep disorders such as insomnia, delayed sleep, and wakefulness, as well as anxiety and depression with obsessive-compulsive disorder, are common in patients with OCD. However, not much research has been done on the relationship between sleep disorders and the severity of symptoms in patients with OCD. This article examines the frequency and relationship between sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, and the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in patients with OCD.

Convenience sampling was used in this cross-sectional research. The participants in the study were those who were referred to the clinic of a psychiatric hospital and the central clinic complex in Sari. Obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis of the participants was confirmed by a psychiatrist based on DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Eighty-eight patients participated in the study after obtaining informed consent. Demographic questionnaires, Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), morning-evening questionnaire (MEQ), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), WHO-5 well-being (Depression) Index, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). Data analysis was done with SPSS version 20 software.

Out of 88 patients, 65 (73.86%) were women 23 (26.14%) were men, 71.59% were married, 57.95% had under diploma degree, and 94.22% had no history of drug use. The average age of the patients was 44.48 ± 11.51 years. The duration of OCD was 11.28±14.60 years In terms of the severity of OCD symptoms, 1.1% was very mild, 19.32% was relatively mild, 42.45% was moderate, and 37.50% was severe. In the type of sleep schedule, 17.03% were inclined to evening or relative evening type. Four patients (4.62%) had daytime sleepiness. Also, 52 patients (61.90%) had some degree of insomnia. In terms of the severity of insomnia, 23.86% were mild, 28.40% were moderate and 6.81% were severe. The frequency of depression was 68% and anxiety was 79%. No statistically significant relationship was found between the severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder and hypersomnia, evening chronotype, anxiety, and depression. But insomnia (P= 0.046) and duration of illness (P= 0.004) were related to it. The Pearson correlation coefficient between age, duration of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms was 0.169 (P= 0.116) and 0.377 (P=0.001), respectively. Spearman's correlation coefficient between the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms with depression and anxiety was 0.090 (P=0.403) and 0.044 (P=0.685), respectively. The average severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms was 23.48±7.87 in women and 20.04±5.88 in men, and no significant difference was seen in both sexes (P=0.060). In linear regression, the two factors affecting the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms were the duration of the illness and the severity of insomnia.

Considering the higher frequency of insomnia in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder compared to the normal population and its role in the severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, it is necessary to examine patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder in terms of insomnia. Also, older OCD patients should be examined more carefully in terms of the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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<0.05 was considered significant.

After the intervention, the average scores of knowledge, behavior, GI, PI, and SBI indices were changed from 6.27, 5.90, 1.10, 0.85, and 0.31 to 7.53, 7.08, 0.73, 0.53, and 0.21, respectively. All indices in the control group also improved; however, after the intervention, a significant difference was recorded between the animation group and the control group in all indices, except health behavior (P<0.05).

Oral health education through animation is a novel and effective approach that can be more appealing to adolescents and beneficial in reducing periodontal diseases in young patients.

Background and

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nursing is viewed as a profession with a high prevalence of occupational, physical, and psychological problems. This study aimed to determine and compare subjective rumination and impulsivity among nurses working in psychiatric and non-psychiatric wards in Zare and Imam Hospitals, Sari.

This is a descriptive-analytic study done on 279 nurses of Sari, Zare and Imam Hospitals’ psychiatric (186) and non-psychiatric (93) wards, selected by simple random sampling. Research tools included demographic-occupational questionnaires, the short version of Ruminative Response Scale (RRS), and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and Minnesota job satisfaction questionnaire (MSQ). Data were analyzed by SPSS-24 software through Chi-square, t-test, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient with significance.

The mean score of cognitive, motor, non-planning impulsivity of nurses working in psychiatric wards’ nurses were 13.98±2.15, 11.61±2.67 and 15.50±1.88; and at non-psychiatric wards’ those variables were 14.75±2.50, 12.84±3.14, 16.21±2.49 (p=0.01). Moreover, the mean score of rumination of psychiatric and non-psychiatric wards’ nurses were (24.81±4.47) and (25.85±4.68), respectively, being statistically significant (p=0.05).

According to the obtained results, rumination and all dimensions of impulsivity were higher than average among nursing staff in non-psychiatric departments and lower than average in psychiatric department. According to the results, based on the presence of rumination and impulsivity among the nursing staff of different departments of the hospital, interventions can be designed to control rumination and impulsivity and provide safe and quality services to patients.

Accurate counseling is particularly important for improving the quality of life and development in society, especially in educational centers. The aim of this study was to investigate the students' viewpoints of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences regarding academic counseling.

In this descriptive- survey study in 2021, the opinions of 248 students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences were examined through a questionnaire which its validity and reliability were confirmed. Data were collected by completing a questionnaire, including three sections of students' personal characteristics, students' opinions about the current and the desired status of academic counseling. All analyzes were performed based on t-test and ANOVA at a significance level of 0.05 using SPSS.

Of the 248 participants, 149 cases were female and 99 cases were male. A total of 153 students (61.7%) stated that they were satisfied with their advisor and the advice provided.The highest number of students was in the age group of 23- 18 years (73.8%). Comparison of the mean and standard deviation of students' opinions from the current and desired situation was significant for the variables of gender, age and level of education (P<0.05). The results of Post Hoc test for the age group in the current and desirable status showed that the age group of 23- 28 years old compared to the age group over 35 years old were statistically significant with P=0.007 and P=0.036, respectively. The average scores of the students' opinions in the current and desired situations were 2.76±0.97 and 3.80±0.63, respectively.

According to the results, the students were not very satisfied with the current state of academic counseling in the university, and on the other hand, they had a positive attitude regarding its favorable condition, which is related to the importance and constructive role of counseling and guidance. It seems that in order to improve the current situation of counseling, this issue should be considered as a specialized issue and while supporting the professors and at the same time training them, the communication between the university counseling unit and the counseling professors should be facilitated.

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.

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.

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<0.05). Yet, the number of probiotic bacteria remained within acceptable standard range (106 cfu/g) over time and did not show a considerable reduction even after passing the acidic and alkaline conditions and tolerating the simulated digestive conditions.

According to this study, if strains (probiotic bacteria) resistant to acid and bile are selected and also suitable environmental conditions are used, consumption of probiotic yogurts can be of great benefit in improving the health of consumers.

Inhaling substances are hydrocarbons that are converted to gas at room temperature and enter the lungs through the nose and mouth and then our brain. Neurological and psychiatric effects are reported following inhalation, however, there are few studies about acute effect of inhalant on brain electroencephalogram (EEG).

This observational study was performed in Quantitative Electroencephalography unit in Sari Zare Hospital, 2020. Twenty people who used nail polish containing aceton for cosmetic usages participated in this study. Brain signals were recorded before, during, at first and second three minutes after termination of using nail polish containing acetone, were recorded by mitsar 201 amplifier in eyes-open condition. The relative power of the band frequency waves in the occipital, frontal, parietal and midline lobes were calculated using Neurogide software. Data analysis was performed in STATA-15.

During acetone nail polish use and at first and second 3 minutes after that relative power in delta and beta band waves significantly increased in C3, C4, Cz, F3, F4, Fz, O1, O2, P3, P4, and Pz (P<0.01) while relative power of alpha frequency band significantly decreased (P<0.01). Theta frequency band showed no changes.

In this study, acute exposure to acetone increased relative power of delta and beta waves and reduced relative power of alpha waves, in frontal, parietal, occipital, and midline regions in both hemispheres.

Fatigue and dyspnea are common asthma symptoms and using non-phamacological methods are preferred to reduce the symptoms in elderly. Guided imagery is a mind-body intervention and is effective in reducing physiological problems. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of guided imagery on fatigue and asthma control in older adults.

In a randomized clinical trial, 90 elderly with asthma attending Sari Imam Khomini Hospital and Qaemshahr Razi Hospital (2020) were allocated into either an intervention group or a control group (n= 45 per group) using randomized blocking. Patients in intervention group listened to a 12-minute audio file of guided imagery for six weeks, twice a day (except weekends). Data were collected using demographic questionnaire, asthma control questionnaire, and fatigue severity scale and then analyzed in SPSS V22 applying Mann-Whitney U test, Wilcoxon test, and Chi-square test.

A total of 80 elderly were analyzed. After six months, the score for fatigue in intervention group reduced to 33.10±6.74 from 38.11±6.65 before the study (P<0.001), but no significant difference was seen in control group before and after the study (37.96±6.60 and 38.17±6.42, respectively, P=0.059). After six months, asthma control score in intervention group increased to 17.90±4.78 from 14.22±3.40 before the intervention (P<0.001). But the score change in control group was not found to be significant (17.77±4.66 before the study and 17.83±4.50 after the study, P=0.226).

Guided imagery as a non-pharmacological method seems to improve asthma control and decreases fatigue in elderly with asthma. Implementing such measures is recommended to health providers.

Competency and teaching quality of professors play a key role in the quality of active learning in students. The present study aimed to predict the components of competency and teaching quality of professors regarding active learning in the students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
In this study, 359 students were selected via stratified random sampling, and Cochran’s formula was used to determine the sample size. Validity of three questionnaires was assessed using content validity and face validity, and the reliability was determined at the Cronbach’s alpha of 0.853 for the questionnaire of professors’ competency, 0.894 for the questionnaire of teaching quality, and 0.938 for the questionnaire of active learning in students. Data analysis was performed using parametric tests.
Variables of professors’ competency, teaching quality, and active learning in students were estimated to be above average at the significance level of 0.001 in the affiliated schools. A significant association was observed between teaching quality and professors’ competency at the significance of 0.001 and correlation-coefficient of 0.65. In addition, there was a significant association between teaching quality and active learning at the significance of 0.001 and correlation-coefficient of 0.61. Our findings indicated a linear correlation between the variables of competency and teaching quality compared to active learning (F=126.958; P=0.0001).
According to the results, there seems to be a significant correlation between teaching quality and professors’ competency, which could predict the level of active learning in students

Background and Sense of security in patients is a prerequisite for developments in delivering appropriate health services. It can play a major role in finding solutions to improve the quality of care being delivered. The aim of this study was to design and validate a questionnaire to evaluate the sense of security in hospitalized patients.
This methodology was conducted in 900 patients in selected hospitals in Mazandaran province, Iran. A questionnaire consisting of 78 items and 11 factors based on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 was designed. The content validity of the scale was examined by content validity ratio and content validity index and construct validity was examined by exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha.
Only six items were found with no appropriate content validity. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the first factor (11 items) had the maximum of factor loadings (27.66) and factor 11 (4items) exhibited the minimum factor loadings (1.54). The internal consistency in all items was found to be more than 0.80.
The questionnaire designed is a valid and reliable scale for evaluating the sense of security in patients.