Maintaining ISO 7144 Standards and Research Elements in Dissertations of Different Schools from 1999 to 2004, Kerman University of Medical Sciences

Maintaining the international standards and research elements in dissertations leads to clearly showing the results in a scientific way. It also facilitates indexing, abstracting and easily using them in information sources. This study aimed to assess ISO 7144 standards and research elements in dissertations of different schools from 1999 to 2004 in Kerman University of Medical Sciences. In this cross-sectional study, 602 dissertations in schools of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing (master’s degree) were evaluated. Data was collected using a checklist. Results of this study showed that there was a general ascending trend in maintaining ISO standards and research elements in the dissertations. The mean rate of maintaining ISO standard and research elements in references (90.81%), results (77.87%), figures and tables (77.29%) were higher than the other parts. In literature review (48.4%), thesis statement (50.2%) and abstract (55.18%), it was lower than other parts. This score was the highest in the dissertations of the School of Nursing (70.9%) in comparison with the other three schools. Our results suggest that although an ascending trend in maintaining ISO standards and research elements in the dissertations is met, but the general status is not satisfactory. Hence, it is suggested that maintaining international standards become obligatory so internal dissertations would be applicable and documented in international spectrum together with improvement in quality.