International Archives of Health Sciences
Volume:6 Issue: 4, Oct-Dec 2019

The aim of this study was to assess some parameters of cardiovascular health among male problem gamblers and the possible effect of long-term participation in aerobic exercise training on the parameters.

Three hundred and sixty-eight male volunteers aged between 35 and 55 years, were enrolled in this randomized controlled trial, they were confirmed as problem gamblers from the results obtained from the analysis of the South Oaks Gambling Screen. After the exclusion of 168 participants, 200 participants were randomly assigned to the control group (n = 100) and treatment group (n = 100), respectively. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured. Participants in the treatment group participated in a supervised vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise training program; jogging for 30 min/day at an estimated intensity of 6.32 metabolic equivalents, three times/week, consistently for 1 year. Data were analyzed using the SPSS (version 20 Armonk, NY, USA), and significant difference was determined at the level of P < 0.05.

The findings from this study shows statistically significant improvements in BMI (control: 27.18 ± 0.52, treatment: 21.73 ± 0.30, P < 0.000), SBP (control: 134.35 ± 1.63, treatment: 110.69 ± 1.11, P < 0.000), DBP (control: 89.18 ± 1.16, treatment: 77.14 ± 0.52, P < 0.000), HR (control: 76.85 ± 0.70, treatment: 72.06 ± 0.25, P < 0.000), and WC (control: 91.14 ± 0.78, treatment: 86.26 ± 0.41, P < 0.000) among participants in the treatment group compared to the control group.

Vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise training led to a statistically significant decrease in BMI, SBP, DBP, HR, and WC among male problem gamblers.

Functional decline in activities of daily living caused by chronic fatigue and postural control weakness are common symptoms of aging that needed to be considered. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate the effects of weight-bearing exercise (WBE) on postural control and Fatigue Index of elderly males.

Fifty-two elderly men of Qazvin City were volunteered to participate in the research and were allocated randomly into the two groups of either WBE (n = 26; 67.3 ± 2.4 years) or control group (n = 26; 68.1 ± 2.9 years). Functional test including maximal tolerance to treadmill walking (MTW) and test of Blood Lactate Acid Concentration (BLA) were considered as Fatigue Index before and after exercise intervention. In addition, good balance test was used to measure postural balance via static and dynamic balance. The exercise group performed (WBE) in a seven consecutive day, lasting 30 min in a session. Independent t-test and paired t-test were used to analyze the data at the significance level of 0.05.

The results suggested that both functional test (MTW [P = 0.003]; BLA [P = 0.02]) and postural control (static balance index [P = 0.001]; dynamic balance indices [P = 0.001]) were significantly improved in exercise group compared to control group.

It appears that WBE would improve the functional performance of daily activities (postural control and fatigue tolerance) in the geriatric population.

The study was aimed at identifying the acute effects of dynamic sitting exercises (DSE) on Stroop performance and quality of sleep in elderly persons with cognitive impairment.

Sixty-eight elderly males with cognitive impairment were attended in research voluntarily, following screening tests, 62 participants were assigned randomly assigned to either DSE or control groups. At the end, 5 participants discontinued from the study. The experimental group participated in eight sessions of DSE in 2 weeks (four sessions a week). The exercise protocol consisted of stepping patterns on a chair; stretching and finger movements. The Stroop test was used to evaluate the cognitive performance of participants before and after exercise intervention. Actiwatch 7 was used to measure sleep quality. Paired t-test and independent t-test were used to analyze the data.

It was suggested that Stroop performance was positively affected by DSE (P ≤ 0.05); meanwhile, no statistically significant change was found in the control group (P ≥ 0.05). All parameters of sleep patterns, including sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset, and movement and fragmentation index, were improved significantly (P ≤ 0.05).

Although the aging process besides the environmental factors, especially lifestyle could result in cognitive impairment, DSE would improve the cognitive performance in Stroop performance test.

Occupational accidents are usually directly or indirectly related to unsafe behaviors of individuals, and various personal and occupational factors contribute to such behaviors. On the other hand, the personal and occupational characteristics of workers with and without the experience of occupational accidents can be different.

The current cross-sectional study was conducted on 355 workers in the metal industry of Kashan, Iran, 2018. Demographic data and information regarding the job, safety, and occupational accidents were collected by a questionnaire. Then, the relationship between different variables was investigated.

The participants comprised 355 male workers, with a mean age of 35.08 ± 7.31 years, 53.2% of which experienced an accident. Accident rate among illiterate workers, uncompleted high school diploma, high school diploma and bachelor’s degree were 75%, 47.3%, 55.3% and 59.6% respectively. There was a significant relationship between work-related education and accident. Workers with monthly income of 77$ constituted 64.4%, 77–230$ 51.1%, and above 230$ constituted 33.3% of the accidents. There was a statistically significant relationship between education and occupational accident (P < 0.05).

The results of the study showed high incidence of accidents in metal workers. Furthermore, individual and economic factors such as level of education and income and occupational factors such as position had a significant relationship with the occurrence of the accident, which should be considered more seriously.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of schema therapy education and mindfulness on couple intimacy, commitment, and happiness of women with couple burnout.

This quasi-experimental study was performed as pretest-posttest with a control group. The population included all women with couple burnout who were referred to the charity of association Baghiyato Allah Al-Azam of Khomeini Shahr in 2018. From this population, 36 people were selected by available sampling method and were randomly assigned to three groups, namely schema therapy (12 individuals), mindfulness (12 individuals), and control (12 individuals). Both experimental groups received eight 90-min training sessions. The study instruments were Couple Intimacy Scale, Couple Commitment Scale, Couple Happiness Scale, and Couple Burnout Scale. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using multivariate covariance analysis and one-way covariance analysis.

The findings showed a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in intimacy (P = 0.001, F = 20.84), commitment (P = 0.001, F = 30.52), and couple happiness (P = 0.001, F = 47.85) in the posttest phase. In addition, there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of two schema and mindfulness therapies on intimacy, there was a significant difference in commitment and couple happiness.

According to the findings, it can be concluded that the schema and mindfulness therapies can increase the level of intimacy, commitment, and couple happiness. Therefore, it is recommended that therapists use these approaches as an effective treatment for enhancing intimacy, commitment, and couple happiness.

The purpose of this study was to design and test a model of relationships of psychological empowerment and self-regulation with job performance of teachers.

Correlation study design was performed through structural equation modeling, and the research population consisted of 1092 teachers of the second high school level of Khorramabad, Lorestan Province, Iran, of which 385 were selected by multistage cluster sampling method. The research questionnairs were Spreitzer and Mishra psychological empowerment (1995), Yesim, Sungur, and Uzuntiryaki self-regulation (2009), and Patterson job performance (1970).

The results indicate that the model is fitted with the data, and 0.112% of the variance of job performance variable is explained by the variables of psychological empowerment and self-regulation. The analysis of structural equation modeling showed the effectiveness of the proposed model. Findings showed the direct effects of psychological empowerment on job performance (t = 4.449, P < 0.01), self-regulation on job performance (t = 4.577, P < 0.01), and psychological empowerment on self-regulation (t = 7.696, P < 0.01). The coefficients of indirect effects of psychological empowerment on job performance through self-regulation were also significant.

According to the results of this study, the education organization can plan to improve psychological empowerment and self-regulation of teachers to deliver good job performance.

Literature in workplace safety has classified the causes of occupational accidents into unsafe conditions and unsafe acts. Job burnout can lead to loss of quality and efficiency of the individual, reduce physical and mental health, and may cause to increase of unsafe acts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation of unsafe acts with job burnout among workers of Kashan smelting industries.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 112 workers of metal melting industries. The unsafe acts of them were monitored through observation and using the Tarrant’s checklist. The examination of burnout was carried out using the Maslach questionnaire. The demographic data were also collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. The results were analyzed using the Chi-square test, independent t-test, and analysis of variance.

The results indicated that 43.23% of workers’ behaviors were unsafe. The most frequent unsafe act was the fail to using personal protective equipment (38.1%), and the least frequent was inadvertency (0.07%). There was a significant relationship between smoking, work units, safety education, and working hours with unsafe acts (P < 0.05). There was no significant relationship between the dimensions of occupational burnout with unsafe acts.

The prevalence of unsafe behavior in the metal smelting industry is relatively high, and job burnout cannot be used as an appropriate indicator to predict unsafe acts in metal melting industry. Planning for safety training to workers and the setting of suitable work hours can be used as effective strategies to reduce unsafe acts.

Dormitories as the second home of students are very decisive in increasing their academic quality. Unfortunately, dormitories of the universities in Iran are not safe due to a large number of causes. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the level of safety of the dormitories at Kashan University of Medical Sciences using the audit method.

This descriptive study was conducted by the safety audit checklist at Kashan University of Medical Sciences. The checklists were completed by observation, interviewing, and document control. The safety status index (SSI) was then used to evaluate the safety of the student dormitories. The SSI was then graded based on the three scales of undesirable (below 50), moderate (50–75), and desirable (above 75).

According to the results, the highest percentage of noncompliance with the safety dimensions and the different parts of the dormitory building was related to the safety signs (99.12%) and warehouse (83.95%), respectively. Furthermore, the lowest percentage of noncompliance with the safety dimensions was related to housekeeping and surface safety and public safety (33.3%). Such a noncompliance was related to staircases (53.84%) in different parts of the dormitory building.

This study showed that the safety was not desirable in the dormitories studied. Therefore, it is recommended that a safety and health management system should be established to both improve the level of safety and eliminate the deficiencies in the student dormitories.

Prophylaxis against stress ulcer in mechanically ventilated patients is one of the causes for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Our aim was evaluating the effect of intravenous pantoprazole and ranitidine in the incidence of VAP in critically ill patients.

Patients with at least 48 h of expected mechanical ventilation were allocated randomly to receive either 50 mg ranitidine (R) every 8 h or 40 mg pantoprazole (P) every 12 h intravenously from admission. VAP diagnosis was according to the Clinical Pneumonia Infection Score and positive culture.

Eighty-six patients during a 15-month period were analyzed; the study showed a low difference between VAP incidence in the ranitidine and pantoprazole groups. No significant difference was observed in terms of gastrointestinal bleeding, intensive care unit, hospital length of stay, and mortality between the groups.

VAP incidence is hardly related to the type of stress ulcer prophylaxis agent with a high rate of VAP and low utilization of VAP prophylaxis bundle.