فصلنامه حیات
سال دوازدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 31، زمستان 1385)

Background & Aim: Fatigue is a significant problem during pregnancy that has rarely been studied, and may increase the number of caesarean deliveries and preterm births. Reflexology can be utilized for decrease of fatigue. Therefore this study was aimed to identify the effect of sole reflexology on pregnant women’s fatigue severity. Methods & Materials: This research was a clinical trail study using a pre-post test design. The subjects consisted of 74 pregnant women referred to treatment health centers of Ramsar city, with 36 and 38 cases in the test and control group respectively. Sole reflexology was preformed for 30 minutes, twice a week through five weeks, in the test group. To evaluate the effect of sole reflexology, the score of fatigue was measured before and after the experiment in both groups. The instruments used included: The sample selection form, demographic data form and fatigue severity questionnaire. The collected date was analyzed by chi-square, t-test, and paired t-test Pearson correlation coefficients. Results: There was a statistically significant decrease in fatigue in the test group compared to the control group, after reflexology. (p=0.0001). In addition there was significant negative relationship between score of fatigue and social support (r=-0.46, p=0.002) and also score of fatigue in persons that received ferrous sulfate significantly lower than others. (p<0.000). Conclusion: According to the results of this study It is suggested that sole reflexology might have beneficial effects on reducing fatigue in pregnant women, and can be recommended as a nursing intervention program for this persons.

Background & Aim: Fatigue is a significant problem during pregnancy that has rarely been studied، and may increase the number of caesarean deliveries and preterm births. Reflexology can be utilized for decrease of fatigue. Therefore this study was aimed to identify the effect of sole reflexology on pregnant women’s fatigue severity. Methods & Materials: This research was a clinical trail study using a pre-post test design. The subjects consisted of 74 pregnant women referred to treatment health centers of Ramsar city، with 36 and 38 cases in the test and control group respectively. Sole reflexology was preformed for 30 minutes، twice a week through five weeks، in the test group. To evaluate the effect of sole reflexology، the score of fatigue was measured before and after the experiment in both groups. The instruments used included: The sample selection form، demographic data form and fatigue severity questionnaire. The collected date was analyzed by chi-square، t-test، and paired t-test Pearson correlation coefficients. Results: There was a statistically significant decrease in fatigue in the test group compared to the control group، after reflexology. (p=0.0001). In addition there was significant negative relationship between score of fatigue and social support (r=-0.46، p=0.002) and also score of fatigue in persons that received ferrous sulfate significantly lower than others. (p<0.000). Conclusion: According to the results of this study It is suggested that sole reflexology might have beneficial effects on reducing fatigue in pregnant women، and can be recommended as a nursing intervention program for this persons.

Background & Aim: Sleep is an important physiological process that has deep effects on psychological and physical health. This study carried out to investigate the association between quality of sleep and health-related quality of life in nurses. Methods & Materials: In this cross sectional and descriptive-analytic study، 127 nurses in Imam Hossein Hospital of Shahroud، Iran، during February and March 2006 were chosen enumeration and then their sleep quality and their quality of life in eight dimensions were measured with using Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and 12-item short form health survey (SF-12) questionnaire and were compared. The data were analyzed using SPSS 11.5 software. Results: Upon to the results of this study، 25.2%، 70.9% and 3.9% of cases were working on morning shift، circulator shift and afternoon/night shifts respectively. Mean of time that they spend in bed were estimated 30.2 minute and 2.1% of subjects declare they get to sleep more than 30 minutes after going to bed. Mean of gotten up time in the morning in was at 6 and 58% of them described that they wakeup 1 hour earlier to anticipation time. According to the results، 35.5% of subjects have taken medicine (prescribed or «over the counter») to help them sleep. Spearman correlation coefficient test revealed a significant correlation (p<0.05) between the mean of Sleep Quality score and the mean of quality of life score in all dimensions in subjects. Conclusion: According to the results، quality of sleep is poor in majority of nurses and significantly has decreased their quality of life in different aspects، especially in general health، mental health and physical pain.

Background & Aim: Adolescent is a unique period during the life cycle. Knowing about the suitable nutrition in this period would prevent from a lot of diseases related to the nutrition during the adulthood. But unfortunately in recent decades we have observed having unsuitable snaking in adolescents. This study aimed to determine the quality of snaking in adolescents 12-18 years old in one of district of Tehran، Iran. Methods & Materials: This study is a descriptive cross sectional research with the purpose of determining the quality of snaking in adolescents 12-18years old at 17 districts in Tehran city. The samples were 907 students that including the Iranian girls and boys who were 12-18 years old and educating in one of the guidance school or high schools of the district 17 in Tehran city. The instrument was a questionnaire and interview the data were analyzed by SPSS software. Results: The results showed that majority of students 35.1% were 14-16 years old، 52.8% were boys، 26.1% were educating in the first year of high school. 71/5% had 1-3 sisters or brothers and also the majority of students had natural BMI، 28% were having fried potato and cheese puff over than moderate level as snaking 46% were having snaking daily. Less than half of the studied cases 46.7% believe that having snaking is necessary 56.9% had sometimes snaking. Chi2 test and p<0.05 showed a significant relationship between some of demographic variables with snaking in adolescents. Conclusion: The result showed that type، time and number of snaking were not suitable and it is necessary to teach the students and their parents more about matter.

Background & Aim: Pain control in newborns is one of the important tasks، which produced many controversies in pediatric medicine. Nowadays، it is proposed the usage of non-pharmacologic pain control methods. This study has been done to investigate the effect of breast feeding on pain control in newborns. Methods & Materials: A clinical trial was designed to evaluate analgesic effect of breast-feeding during injection of hepatitis B vaccine. 130 newborns had been referred for hepatitis B vaccination، were selected from Mirza Kochak Khan Hospital، Tehran، Iran. After describing the procedure was described the testimonial was took from parents. They were divided randomly in tow groups. In cases group، feeding was begun two minutes before injection and continued for 45 seconds. In the control group injection was made without breast feeding. Pain assessment was performed with Douler Aigue Nouveaune (DAN) scale. Results: In the case group 35.4% of newborns got 4 points and no one got more than 7 points according to DAN scale. In contrast the control group 32.4% got 8 points or more and no one got less than 3 points. The mean of pain severity in case group was 3.5 and in control group was 6.7 and it show significant difference according to Mann-Whitney U test (p<0.0001). Conclusion: This study shows that breast-feeding can significantly reduce pain in newborns. Therefore، we suggest this simple method generally for all painful procedure to prevent the development of possible permanent psychological effects in newborns.

Background & Aim: The main aim of performance appraisal is aid to staff development and increasing job motivation. Outcomes of performance appraisal consider as a determining indicators of the amount of success in achieving the mentioned aims. The aim of this study is to determine the employed nurses’ views regarding the performance appraisal''s outcomes and its relation with job motivation in medical-surgical wards of affiliated hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Methods & Materials: This investigation is a descriptive correlational study. The sample size was 120 of employed nurses in medical-surgical units in Tehran University of Medical Science that was selected by cluster sampling. The data was collected by questionnaire. Descriptive statistics، t-test and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used for analysis. Results: Perception of the most samples was almost positive (65%) about performance appraisal’s outcomes. They believed that the rate of the job motivation in surveyed units was low. There was a statistical significance relationship between performance improvement as one of the outcomes of the performance appraisal and job motivation (p<0.05). Conclusion: Aiding to nurses performance improvement with using of performance appraisal was the only factor that was correlate with the job motivation in comparison with the other expectances of performance appraisal.

Background & Aim: Because of importance of communication and its defects which has been observed in communication with clients، this study has been planned and done with the aim of investigation of usage of’ communication skills by midwives and its relation to client’s satisfaction. Methods & Materials: In a correlational study 50 midwives and 400 clients were investigated. Data collection method included observing midwife- client encounter using a checklist and interviewing clients to fill out satisfaction questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics included chi- square test، fisher’s exact test and Pearson correlation (p<0/05) were used for data analysis. Results: The results of this study showed that midwives’ communication skills (verbal and non- verbal) was undesirable (62% and 56%). There was no relation between demographic variables and midwives’ communication skills application. Just there was a relation between marital status and non-verbal communication skills application. Also clients’ satisfaction with midwives’ verbal and non-verbal communication skills (50% and 48/4%) was related meaningfully to midwives’ communication skills application. There was a relation between clients’ satisfaction and their age، educational status service they needed. Conclusion: According to undesirable usage of communication skills by midwives، administering interim training programs for midwives is recommended. Also it seems better to include communication skills training to midwifery curriculum

Background & Aim: Nurses can support the patients’ rights advocacy، if they are informed of these rights. Furthermore in order to exercise and protect of these rights، the working environment should be appropriate. Methods & Materials: The aim of this descriptive analytical study was to explore the nurses’ awareness of patients’ rights in Tehran teaching hospitals and the facilitators of observing theses rights from their perspective. To achieve this، 517 nurses were selected using multi stage stratified sampling method. Data were gathered utilizing a researcher made questionnaire with 3o statements regarding patients’ bill of rights، and an open question about patients’ rights facilitators at the end. Results: The findings indicated that overall nurses had a high level of awareness regard patients’ rights. In addition nurses mentioned 17 factors as facilitators of patients’ rights practice. These were classified to three groups: organization related، personnel related and client/ patient related factors. The most frequent items were in the group of organization related factors. Conclusion: Despite of nurses’ high awareness of patients’ rights، observing these rights in practice needs many other requirements. These requirements should be recognized and identified. This can be the first step for finding proper solutions by all health care providers and policy makers as well.

Background & Aim: Development of an integrated health information system in order to prioritization of needs، sources devoting، diseases surveillance; detecting and early responding is very important. Therefore، this comparative study has been done about natural disaster health information systems in Iran، Japan، and U.S.A in 2005. The aim is to provide logical proposes to reinforce for developing the Iranian natural disaster health information system. Methods & Materials: This is a descriptive and comparative study that was accomplished in form of cross sectional survey. The data was extracted from literature، papers، Iranian & foreigner journals، e-mails and other related document. Results: Natural disaster health information system in U.S.A illustrates that there is integration and consistency between responsibilities and roles are played between involving organizations and entities. The required data for natural disaster health information system collected through National Electronic Disease Surveillance System، Pulse Net، Bio Watch، Bio Net، Syndromic Surveillance System، and “the American Red Cross-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health Impact Surveillance System” in U.S.A and Early Estimation System and Emergency Measures Support System in Japan and Diseases Surveillance in Iran. However، in spite of U.S.A and Japan there is no classification system in Iran. Conclusion: According to the results، Iranian natural disaster health information system can be improved by using of different data gathering methods، systems and soft wares، also applying of geographical information system and establishing health and natural disaster network and using of classification of diseases advised to up grade natural disaster health information system for Iran.