r. ghanei gheshlagh

Professionalism encompasses clinical competence, communication skills, and ethical and legal awareness. The assessment of professional ethics varies among different groups based on their characteristics. This study aimed to develop and validate an ethical behavior intention instrument for medical students, based on the theory of planned behavior.

In this cross-sectional study, an item pool was generated based on an extensive literature review. Then, psychometric features, such as face validity (qualitative and quantitative), content validity (qualitative and quantitative), item analysis, and construct validity (exploratory factor analysis) were evaluated. Finally, the reliability was assessed using internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha).

A total of 200 medical students filled out the questionnaires, with a mean age of 21.84±4.47 years. In face validity, content validity ratio, and item analysis, six, nine, and three items were removed, respectively. In the exploratory factor analysis, six factors of gaining informed consent, accepting role limitations and collaborating with the treatment team, respect for colleagues and professors, abstract norms, perceived behavior control, and respect for patient values, needs, and culture together explained 51.128% of the total variance. Moreover, seven items were not included in any factor. The internal consistency of the entire questionnaire and its dimensions was acceptable.

The ethical behavior intention scale, which is designed based on the theory of planned behavior, is a valid and reliable scale that covers and measures the standards of professional ethics in medical students.

 The rapid spread of the COVID-19 disease has led to fear and anxiety in pregnant women. While extreme fear and anxiety in pregnant women leads to negative consequences in mothers and fetuses. This study was conducted to determine the status of fear of COVID-19 and its related factors among pregnant women in the city of Bam.

 This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted on 161 pregnant women referring to women's clinics of Bam University of Medical Sciences in 2021. The participants were selected by convenience sampling method. Demographic information form and women's fear of COVID-19 questionnaire were used to collect data. The data was analyzed by SPSS software version 22 and with descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) and inferential (independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and linear regression) tests at a significance level of p<0.05.

 In this study, 161 pregnant women between the ages of 21 and 25 participated, most of them were housewives (95%), had less than diploma education (49.7%) and were in the third trimester of pregnancy (72.7%). The average score of fear from COVID-19 was 23.39±5.20 (out of 35 scores). There was a significant relationship between the fear of COVID-19 with the level of education and the history of the disease (p<0.05).

 The findings showed that the fear of COVID-19 in pregnant women was moderate to high. Furthermore, the level of fear was related with factors such as level of education, economic status, and history of illness, which requires interventions according to these conditions. Therefore, due to the harmful consequences of fear and anxiety on the health status of the mothers and fetuses, it seems necessary to hold training courses to effectively deal with fear in this group

Social media has increasingly been used as a tool to deliver health education. This study examined the effect of a Telegram delivered oral health education program on self-efficacy, perceived benefits and barriers, gingival index, motivational beliefs, and dental cleaning behavior among students with gingivitis.

This randomized controlled trial was conducted in Sanandaj city, Iran, from January to December 2019. A total of 160 students were recruited from 8 schools and randomized into intervention and control groups. An oral health education program aimed at increasing dental cleaning behavior was developed based on the trans-theoretical model. The program consisted of 9 sessions delivered via a social media app called Telegram for 24 weeks. Outcomes included dental cleaning behavior, perceived self-efficacy, benefits, barriers, motivational beliefs, and gingival index, measured at baseline and 24 weeks after the intervention.

There were significant differences between the intervention and the control groups in the mean scores of perceived self-efficacy (p=0.01), perceived benefits (p=0.01), motivational beliefs (p=0.01), and gingival index (p=0.01) after the intervention. Further, 71.3% (n=57) of students in the intervention group (versus 10.1% (n=10) in the control group) performed the dental cleaning behavior after intervention (p<0.01).

The findings showed that an oral health education program delivered via social media apps could improve students' oral health. Social media apps could reach a broad range of users, thus could improve access to oral health education programs.

One of the challenges of patients who are candidates for anesthesia is difficult intubation, which leads to severe complications and even death after anesthesia. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea and difficult intubation through systematic review and meta-analysis.

In this review article, observational articles about the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea and difficult intubation were extracted without time limit by searching national and international databases and the keywords were: difficult intubation, problematic intubation, Intra tracheal-endotracheal, difficult airway OSA, OSAS, obstructive sleep apnea, sleep breathing disorder, anesthesia, and their Persian equivalents. Data were analyzed using meta-analysis and fixed effects model. In order to study the heterogeneity and contradictions in the studies, Q Cochrane and I2 indices were used, respectively.
FINDINGS: Of the 72 found articles, 9 articles with a sample size of 1,126 and an average of 125 subjects were included in the study. The results of this study showed that the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea and difficult intubation is significant (OR = 3.88, CI95% = 2.69 – 5.61). In addition, the results of the analysis based on country showed that the highest and lowest odds ratios were observed in studies conducted in France and Canada, respectively.

The results of this study showed that there is a correlation between obstructive sleep apnea and difficult intubation.