Aim: This research aimed to evaluate the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards women managers.
This research was conducted using the general screening model. 122 healthcare professionals working in a public hospital affiliated to the Ministry of Health constitute consisted of this research sample. "Attitude Towards Women Managers Scale" was used as data collection tool.
Findings: The average score of healthcare professional' attitudes towards women managers is higher in "Task Role Behaviors" sub-dimension than other sub-dimension. While the attitudes of healthcare professional to women managers differ according to gender, occupation and manager preference variables, there is no significant difference according to age, education, marital status and seniority. Women's healthcare professional' attitudes towards women managers were found to be more positive than men's healthcare professional in "Task Role Behaviors", "Relational Role Behaviors" and "Work Ethic" sub-dimensions.
In the health sector, where the majority of women employees are in, it is thought that it will be beneficial to provide government support to raise the level of women in management at the same level as men, to develop and implement effective policies for them, and to make arrangements to support women as becoming managers.

Healthcare professional education is the undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development for doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals. Labour economics is the relationship between workers and employers, and the resultant effect on employment and wages. Healthcare professional education ultimately produces a workforce, and that workforce is governed by the rules of labour economics like any other workforce. Despite all of these largely incontrovertible facts, there has been remarkably little interest in the relationship between healthcare professional education and labour economics. This short article attempts to redress this shortcoming by describing some of the factors that can affect healthcare professional education and labour economics, and aims to mention some of the methods in which these two disciplines can interact with each other.

Muslim cancer patients and healthcare professionals face several challenges about the necessity of fasting and its possible side effects during the holy month of Ramadan. We aimed to study the prevalence of fasting among cancer patients during Ramadan and opinions of health care professionals about fasting among cancer patients in Iran.
We conducted a cross-sectional survey during the Ramadan (July-August) in 2013. Participants were 620 cancer patients and, 187 healthcare professionals in several cancer clinics from different provinces of Iran. We used self-administered questionnaires and collected data from patients, and healthcare professionals to collect data. We performed descriptive analysis by using Stata statistical software.
Out of 620 patients who participated in this study, 428 (69%) were women. 76 (13%) of patients had fasted for at least a day during Ramadan and, from which 41 (7%) had fasted whole months because of their religious belief. Among patients who had refrained from fasting, the reasons were lack of sufficient physical strength (403, 65%), excessive thirst (141, 23%). 275 (44%) of participants had consulted with their physician about fasting. We found that more than 50% of physicians advised against fasting for patients following surgery, pre-operation, recent hospitalization, and consumption of oral or intravenous chemotherapy. Most of the healthcare professionals (68%) believed that cancer survivors could not fast even if they have no signs or symptoms or side-effects after the treatment.
Although most of the cancer patients refrain from fasting, some cancer patients practice fasting and face challenges during the holy month of Ramadan in Iran. Most patients consult about fasting in Ramadan with their doctor who has variable opinions about this issue. Development of guidelines for healthcare professional and cancer patients regarding Ramadan fasting is needed.

Pharmacovigilance is central to the control of the menace of adverse drugs reactions. Despite the fact that development of policy and practice framework to improve patients’ safety partly rely on availability of authentic data on pharmacovigilance activities, knowledge about pharmacovigilance activities among healthcare professionals in Nigeria is limited. To help fill this gap, this study explored the awareness, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance activities among the healthcare professionals in the Nigerian Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital. A descriptive cross-sectional survey was carried out among healthcare professionals in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi. The participants were doctors, pharmacists, nurses and health records officers employed in the teaching hospital. The sample was selected using stratified random sampling. A structured, self-administered questionnaire was used as the survey instrument. Key informant interview was also conducted among hospital’s administrative officers using standard interviewer guide. Descriptive statistics were calculated for the demographic variables. Quantitative data were compared using inferential statistics. Low level of awareness among the healthcare professionals about pharmacovigilance activities was observed. About half of them, 130 (50.4%), stated that they were not aware of the Nigerian National Pharmacovigilance tool that is used for documenting and reporting of adverse drug reactions. Only about one tenth of the respondents, 35 (13.7%), mentioned that they use this tool for documenting and reporting of adverse drug reactions whereas the majority of them, 220 (86.3%), stated that they had not used the tool. The study indicated that the healthcare professionals in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching hospital, NAUTH (Nnewi) have low awareness about pharmacovigilance. There is also low frequencyof utilization of the Nigeria NPV tool for documentation and reporting of ADRs. Our findings highlight the need for educational and managerial interventions to improve ADRs monitoring and reporting within an all-inclusive pharmacovigilance system in this country.

Patient refusal of care often puts healthcare professionals in an ethical dilemma. The ethics of refusing nursing care are examined in this editorial, which emphasizes the patient’s autonomy and the healthcare professional’s duty to provide care. Coercion and information manipulation to override patient’s refusal contradict principles of autonomy and justice. Through ethical analysis and case examples of assisting post-operative patients with early ambulation, it is clear that an excessive focus on patient’s autonomy and the duty to provide care could jeopardize ethical practice.

Tuberculosis is an infection caused by bacillus-type bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), primarily affecting the lungs in countless individuals on a daily basis. Healthcare professionals are the most significantly affected group by this infection, especially at the points where healthcare is provided to infected individuals. In order to protect healthcare professionals from tuberculosis, it is very important to eliminate the lack of knowledge and to provide the necessary personal protective equipment. In this context, there are important tasks for both healthcare system managers and employees for protection from tuberculosis. Specifically, there are administrative, environmental, and respiratory tract measures.

Evidence-based practice, as a new paradigm for healthcare practice and medical education, has become a core competence for the new century healthcare professionals and thereby, it is now possible for healthcare professionals to easily retrieve, critically appraise, and apply evidence from primary and secondary quantitative research. However, despite the increasing growth of qualitative research in the field of healthcare and the importance of the use of evidence from qualitative research in clinical decision-making and practice, the retrieval, appraisal, and application of qualitative evidence have been neglected in the principles of evidence-based practice. This editorial briefly introduces the SPIDER (Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type) framework as an alternative to the PICO (Population/Problem, Intervention/Exposure, Comparison/Control, Outcome) framework for systematic retrieval of qualitative evidence.

Social support is the physical and emotional comfort given to someone in times of need or crises and it is especially important for maintaining good physical and mental health. Despite the contribution of intelligent technological devices, which have led to the availability of various types of social support systems, the latter are still not widely known to many. These support systems are currently available in many versions, such as in tablets and smartphones, where many health information systems have been created specifically to accommodate to the needs of current mobile healthcare consumers. In this paper, we systematically review the role of social support provided via health information systems and report a qualitative study that investigates the perceptions of healthcare professionals and consumers towards incorporating social support in self-care applications. The results obtained through our study reveal that social support is associated with better health management and is a vital component to be incorporated in any novel health information system. Likewise, the results are supported by our qualitative study that indicates healthcare professionals and consumers emphasize the inclusion of the social support component in self-care applications to achieve better health outcomes.

Healthcare areas, especially fertility care (commonly accompanied with high emotions, as well as long-term and recurring treatment periods) could exclusively benefit from patient-centered care (PCC). Despite evident advantages of PCC, this approach has not been practiced as a routine procedure in current clinical environments yet, even in western developed countries. Therefore, this review aimed to evaluate the significance and different aspects of PCC, while emphasizing on patient-centered fertility care, its challenges, and applicable recommendations in this regard.
This narrative review was conducted on 29 relevant medical and clinical papers (published during 1990-2015) collected using various national and international databases (e.g., SID, Magiran, Medlib, Google scholar, Proquest, Pubmed, Wiley, Science direct, and Scopus). Key words and phrases used in this review were “infertility”, “fertility care”, “childlessness”, “patient-centered care”, “patient-centered fertility care” “shared decision-making”, “infertile patient preferences”, and “patient involvement in fertility care”.
According to the literature, implementation challenges of patient-centered fertility care were reported as different individual and organizational factors. These factors include lack of professional motivation to change, underestimating the significance of patient-centeredness by healthcare professionals, difficulty in translation of feedback into concrete measures, lack of time and financial resources, insufficient experience of healthcare professionals with regard to identification of needs and preferences of patients, traditional organizational culture, and common misconceptions.
Promotion of patient-centered fertility services requires the identification of infertile needs and priorities of individuals, designation of interventional and supportive programs based on sociocultural characteristics of the community to fulfill such preferences, and considering patients as the most significant stakeholders of each healthcare center. This review might provide important data for healthcare professionals and policymakers aiming to improve patient-centered fertility care.

To inform healthcare professionals of a rare serious reaction leading to leg amputation following intramuscular injection of iron dextran and report comments for preventing such reactions.A case of leg amputation following intramuscular injection of iron dextran reported to Iranian Pharmacovigilance Center was reviewed. Patient and reaction data was collected by assessing the reported yellow card, patient chart review and interviewing with patient and physicians. World Health Organization definition for serious reactions was used to determine the seriousness of the reaction. Naranjo algorithm was used to determine probability scale. The probability of the reaction was determined based on questionnaire of Schumock et al. The studied case is classified as a rare and serious but preventable reaction induced by intramuscular injection of iron dextran in a 32 year old woman. The probability of the reaction is appeared to be “probable” based on Naranjo algorithm. It seems that Iron dextran could cause serious and life threatening adverse effects. It is necessary for healthcare professionals to be informed of such rare but serious reaction in order to apply preventive actions.