Journal of Health Scope
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Apr 2017

Noise is one of the most important hazardous factors in industrial environments. Noise has many important negative effects on health; it can cause damage auditory, visual, neurological and psychological and hormonal systems, and physiological and cognitive functions.
The current study aimed to investigate the effects of noise exposure on changes in glucose and cortisol serum levels in adult male mice.
A total of 24 adult male mice were randomly divided into two experimental and one control groups. One of the experimental groups was exposed to a noise pressure level of 90 dB played by Cool Edit software on a computer in a frequency range 700 - 5700 Hz, and the other one was exposed to the same noise and received an injection of streptozotocin (60 mg/kg). The experimental groups were exposed to the noise for 30 days, eight hours per day. Twenty-four hours after the end of the exposure period the fasting cortisol and glucose serum levels were measured in the mice of the three groups.
The study results showed a significant difference in the level of glucose in non-diabetic and diabetic groups exposed to the noise, compared to the control subjects (P The results showed that exposure to a 90 dB noise can increase cortisol and glucose levels. Hence, in work environments where people are exposed to noise, it is expected that such noises have a negative impact on them and the noise may increase cortisol and blood sugar levels.

Studies show that the transformation of organizations to become customer- centric businesses is one of the strategic issues today.
The present study aimed to design a customer relationship management protocol with the approach of human resources.
This was a mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) research that has been conducted on hospital administrators (n = 290) based on the structural equations by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The software used for data analysis were Smart PLS version 2 and SPSS version 22. Constructions and items were selected through repeated scale according to the opinions of scientists, experts and comparatives studies. Confirmation of the researcher-made questionnaire reliability was performed using the judgments of experts and their reliability. The reliability upon Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.935.
Factors including employee satisfaction, organizational culture, communication management, organizational commitment, empowerment, teamwork, organizational structure, management change and organizational mission influenced the implementation of customer relationship management. Factor load of employee satisfaction (0.802) had the highest impact while the organizational mission had the least impact (0.587). Goodness of Fit of the model was 0.566.
Human resources management has an important role in the implementation of customer relationship management. Therefore, hospital administrators should provide cultural context and support staff to encourage customer-oriented culture.

Overcoming the challenge of human error occurrence in the healthcare section and patient safety improvement is impossible without understanding the nature of human error and without considering the fundamentals of human factors and ergonomics in designing and implementing sociotechnical systems. Therefore, the first step is to identify medical errors and their causes, using standard methods.
The aim of this study was to identify and evaluate human errors among nurses in the women’s infectious diseases ward in an educational hospital in the city of Qom in 2015.
This cross-sectional study was performed to identify the medical errors among sixteen female nurses working in the women’s infectious diseases ward, using SHERPA. Hierarchical task analysis (HTA) was performed; errors were identified by checklist and risk assessment was then carried out.
One hundred fifty-nine errors were identified and evaluated in 89 tasks. Most of the detected errors were of the action type (74.21%) and the least errors were of the selection type (0.63%). The least number of the errors’ risk level was placed in the undesirable, and the highest was in the unacceptable level.
Since the majority of the errors were of the action type, proper measures should be taken to prioritize them in disease control. In addition, designing a treatment process based on human factors and ergonomic principles is highly recommended to enhance the quality of services, improve patient safety and reduce errors. With respect to task analysis, the SHERPA is a good technique to evaluate and monitor medical errors.

Now the goal of water disinfection is not just inactivation of pathogenic organisms, but other goals such reduction or minimization of disinfection by products (DBPs) formation, providing residue to control secondary infections, maintaining the disinfectant’s residue in the water distribution system to take care of public health are important too.
The current study aimed to study the effectiveness of new technologies such as combined process of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with ultraviolet (UV) radiation on Escherichia coli inactivation as a water microbial pollution index and effects of some parameters on its efficiency.
AgNPs with average diameter of 20 nm was used in the presence or absence of UV light for disinfection. Escherichia coli species were cultured according to the standard methods for water and wastewater examination. The results were reported as CFU/mL.
Results showed that the disinfection efficiency of the UV light and silver nanoparticles (UV AgNPs) combined process was more than that of the catalyst AgNP. The maximum efficiencies of the three processes of UV, AgNPs and UV AgNPs in 60 minutes were 66%, 89% and 99%, respectively. The efficiency decreased with increasing the colony densities. However, statistical least significant difference (LSD) test showed no significant impact on the two consecutive levels (P > 0.05) . The removal efficiency increased with increasing the catalyst dose and contact time. The removal efficiency reached 100% when the catalyst dose was 0.4 mg/L at 20 minutes contact time.
It was concluded that the efficiency of silver nanoparticles to remove E. coli increases under the UV light. Intensified disinfection practice was due to producing electrons, active holes and active radicals by irradiation of UV light on AgNPs.

Diabetes is among the prevalent chronic non-communicable diseases, which in recent decades has dragged much attentions toward improving care of patients in Iran.
The current study aimed to compare the health-promoting lifestyle of patients with and without diabetes.
In the current study, 150 patients with diabetes and 150 patients without diabetes referred to the Imam Hossein subspecialty Clinic in Shahroud in 2014 were enrolled. Data collection tools included a 52-item lifestyle questionnaire and a 22-item nutritional behavior and dietary habits questionnaire. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and conditional multiple logistic regression.
The mean score of nutritional behavior in patients with and without diabetes were 20.9 ± 3.9 and 19.9 ± 4.1, respectively. Over 75% of the patients with diabetes had not passed the training course. The results of multivariate model showed the odds of having diabetes in people with obesity was 2.6 times more than that of the people with normal weight. Interpersonal relationship, stress management, physical activity and nutrition scores in patients with diabetes were significantly lower than those of the patients without diabetes (P Patients with diabetes need more attention and care to manage diabetes to change their lifestyle to adjust with their conditions. Stress management, improved interpersonal relationships, physical activity and diet in this group can have a role to control the disease.

Health promoting behaviors are amongst the best methods through which people can maintain and control their health.
The aim of this study was the prediction of health promoting behaviors through the health locus of control in a sample of adolescents in Bandar Abbas, in the south of Iran.
In this cross-sectional study, the Wallston questionnaire and adolescent health promoting scale were used for data collection. From the 378 distributed questionnaires among the students, 342 questionnaires were completed and returned (response rate = 90.5%). Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regressions were used to analyze the data by the SPSS 19 software.
The mean age of the subjects was 16.1 ± 1.1 years. Overall, 44.7% were male. The results showed that 12% of changes in health promoting behaviors were predicted by the health locus of control (including internal locus of control, chance and the powerful others) (P Strengthening the internal locus of control and following up the advices of individuals like physicians and health experts are recommended to promote the health behaviors of students.

The urban soil characteristic is very important since numerous people live in cities nowadays. In recent decades, heavy metals enter into the urban environment due to the urbanization and different activities in cities. These metal contaminations can pose serious threats on community health. Contamination factor is a suitable tool for ecological geochemistry assessment.
The current study aimed to determine the distribution and concentration of heavy metals (Ni, Pb, Zn, Cd, Cu and Cr) in soil from urban soils, assess the pollution level and potential ecological risk of heavy metals.
Forty surface soil samples from different areas with different functions in five districts of Esfarayen, Iran, were collected and transferred to laboratory, after drying the samples at laboratory temperature, they were analysed to measure Ni, Pb, Zn, Cd, Cu and Cr using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry.
The results showed the mean contents of Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb and Zn in soil of Esfarayen were 0.21, 33.27, 39.9, 32.3, 25.2 and 106 mg/kg, respectively, which were more than the natural background content. The potential ecological risk index ranged from 21.0 to 651 with a mean value of 159.
Among different functional areas, the industrial areas had the maximum metal concentrations. According to the potential ecological risk indices, industrial region and city squares in Esfarayen have serious metal contamination and belong to the considerable pollution level. The results of the current study are very important for managers who define development strategies in cities and are also good to source pollution reduction.

Cost and cost analysis is a managerial tool that can place needed data at managers’ disposal and help them in making informed decisions in investing services and infrastructures.
The aim of this study was to estimate the cost of eye surgeries and compare them with tariffs approved by the Iranian ministry of health.
The present retrospective-descriptive study was carried out at Nikookari ophthalmic hospital, from April 2013 to April 2014, in Tabriz, Iran. Surgical operations of cataract, strabismus and glaucoma were considered on the grounds that they were global and the most frequent. The required data was collected through conducting interviews with experts and relevant units, direct observation of activities, analysis of documents in the financial department, and hospital information system (HIS) and financial software system of the hospital. The cost of surgical operations was estimated by activity based costing (ABC).
According to the findings, the amount and the share of the total costs of the activities identified in the main centers were as following: human resources $2 818 722, depreciation of medical equipment $277 233, consumable medicals and supplies $218,484, building depreciation $138004, depreciation of non-medical equipment $43640, consumable non-medicals and supplies $26804, utility costs $4724, and costs of indirect units $864 455. Ultimately, the costs of different surgeries were estimated to be as follows: strabismus surgery $464, glaucoma $505 and cataract surgery $400, which respectively had $235, $298 and $75 difference with the approved governmental tariffs.
This price gap can negatively affect the performance and quality of services provided by hospitals in the long term. Since the costs of personnel, indirect costs and depreciation of medical equipment account for 90% of the total costs of surgery, hospital managers should pay more attention to these issues in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, but little is known about the effect of Human Development Index (HDI) on the prevalence rate of DM.
This study aimed to identify the variations in DM-specific rates by HDI among world countries.
This global ecological study was performed based on the data from the international diabetes federation (IDFD) and the world bank report for the year 2013. The analysis for this study was performed on ecological data available for 161 countries in 2013.
Globally, the prevalence of DM ranged between 4% and12% in 2013, with the highest prevalence in Middle-East and Northern African (> 12%) and the lowest in Sub-Saharan countries ( The pandemic of diabetes is a major public health problem around the world, mostly in the countries with high and very high HDI. In addition, the prevalence of diabetes is associated with population pyramid and the income level of countries. Knowledge of national and regional rates of diabetes and associated factors can help policymakers to optimize diabetes control in countries with limited resources.

The nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) has good potential for heavy metals removal from aqueous solution because it has special physicochemical properties. In addition, it could remove Lead from aqueous solution.
The aim of this study was to study Lead removal from aqueous solution with nZVI and investigate the effect of pH, contact time, nZVI dosage and Lead concentration in this process.
This study was done with the batch technique at room temperature. Final Lead concentration was measured by the ICP-AES machine. The effect of pH, contact time, nZVI dosage and Lead initial concentration on removal efficiency were determined with the DOE software for 21 analyses. In addition, isotherm and kinetic models were derived from earnings data.
The results showed that high removal of Lead with nZVI was at pH 9, contact time of five minutes, nZVI dosage of 0.1 g/L and Lead initial concentration of 10 mg/L, with 80% - 100% Lead removal efficiency. Results of isotherm model indicated that Freundlich isotherm was a good model for 10 and 100 mg/L of Lead initial concentration when other parameters were variable. In addition, kinetic studies showed that the second-order kinetic model was the best model for 10 mg/L of Lead concentration with other parameters being variable.
The findings of this study indicated that nZVI could be a good adsorbent for Lead removal from aqueous solution. Based on the results, the Freundlich isotherm was the goodness-of-fit model for this process. The second order kinetic model was the best for low concentration of Lead ion removal from aqueous solution.

Adsorption isotherms describe the relationship between the equilibrium concentration of the adsorbed matter in the solution and the amount of adsorbed matter on the surface of the adsorbent.
The main objective of the present research was to investigate different adsorption isotherms for describing adsorption of humic acid by nanoclay.
In this study, Langmuir, Freundlich, BET, Temkin and Dubinin Radushkevich isotherms, for describing the behavior of humic acid adsorption by bentonite and montmorillonite nanoparticles, were examined.
The results showed that due to the regression coefficient (R2), humic acid adsorption on bentonite and montmorillonite nanoparticles has greater compliance with Dubinin Radushkevich isotherms. The value of E or average energy of adsorption for humic acid by bentonite and montmorillonite nanoparticles was 0.17 and 0.15 kJ mol-1, respectively, which specifies that the type of adsorption of humic acid on both nanoparticles was physisorption. The qmax value obtained from the Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms, for bentonite and montmorillonite nanoparticles were 27.78 and 28.70 mg/g, respectively.
According to the results of this study, bentonite and montmorillonite nanoparticles have a great potential for the removal of humic acid from aqueous solutions.

As environmental parameters may affect the precision of the real amounts of analytes absorbed by solid phase micro-extraction therefore in this study the effects of humidity, temperature and wind velocity on air sampling rate from some halogenated hydrocarbons were investigated. Also, different conditions for sample storage are tested. In this cross-sectional study, a dynamic system was built in the laboratory for atmosphere generation. The configuration of the chamber was suitable for sampling at various environmental parameters. Carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane (CAR/PDMS) was selected for sampling and the samples were analyzed by GC-MS. The results showed no significant difference for ± 5°C temperature variation in the range of 20 to 30°C (P value > 0.05). Data analysis revealed that increased humidity has a significant negative effect on the sampling rate. Our data showed no significant difference with retracted SPME at different air velocities in the chamber (P > 0.05). The effect of storage time and conditions on the mass recovery at different condition showed that halogenated hydrocarbons were lost after three days in ambient temperature. It is concluded that the relative humidity must be considered during sampling and samples can be stored for three days in sealed septum-capped glass tubes in the refrigerator.