International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Winter 2016

Nursing students require highly specialized competencies to accurately determine patients' states and to predict and cope with problems that may occur during nursing care. This study explores the definition, domains, and levels of nursing students' competency.

This study was a systematic review of nursing students’ competencies in English (ISI, SCOPUS, Ovid, Proquest, Iranmedex, Google scholar, PubMed) and Persian (Scientific Information Database) databases (1985–2015), according to the University of York Center for Reviewers and Dissemination Guidance approach, 2008.

From a total of 13,115 articles, 20 were retrieved in the final step. The individual experiences, dynamic process, and positive interactive social and beneficial changes in the equality of one’s professional life that cause meta-cognitive abilities, touch reality, motivation, decision making, job involvement, professional authority, self-confidence, knowledge and professional skills formulated the definition of nursing students' competency. Educational, cultural, individual, professional and inter-professional, research, clinical and practical domains were defined as belonging to nursing students' competency. Seven nursing student competency levels were identified.

Although the definitions of competency, its domains, and its levels vary by profession and country, this systematic review demonstrated the comprehensive ones in three scopes. However, more research is needed to examine the three scopes in the nursing student competency concept.

Among the United Arab Emirates (UAE) population more and more people now consider travelling abroad. This is potentially problematic because travelling enhances exposure between hosts and pathogens and so people that travel are putting their health at risk. This concern makes it necessary that public education is provided to inform people of the risks of travelling abroad so that such risks can be minimized. Guidelines and advice on travelling abroad are available and easily accessible but several studies have shown that travellers do not always follow such advice. In this study, the aim was to look into the practices and attitudes of UAE residents in relation to prevention of travel-related infectious diseases. A cross-sectional study was conducted from February to April 2015, in different emirates of the UAE. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was developed based on material acquired from similar studies. The methodology applied quota sampling whereby adults above the age of 18 who’d travelled abroad in the past year were chosen from the seven emirates. The number of participants selected from each emirate was proportionate to the population size of each state. A total of 385 questionnaires were completed. A remarkable 70% of respondents indicated that they had not taken on any precautionary measures prior to travel. Of greater interest was that only 21% of participants had taken advice on health prior to travel, while the outstanding majority 79% reported that they had not taken advice. The most common source of advice had been taken from family and friends among those who had taken advice at 41%, while only 15.4% had acquired it from specialized travel medicine clinics. High risk perception, spending more preparation time and travelling for longer durations were important factors that encouraged pretrial health consultation and undertook preventive measures. This study revealed that UAE residents had not taken adequate measures to prevent travel related infectious diseases. Despite the limitations of this study, it still provides sufficient data to improve public health intervention directed at encouraging travellers to acquire pre travel health consultation.

Medical tourism is a main source of national income. Thus, evaluating the viewpoints of medical tourists about the quality of service provided by healthcare centers may be useful in planning to develop this industry. The present study aimed to measure the gap between medical tourists' expectations and perceptions of the quality of service offered by the hospitals in Shiraz using the SERVQUAL model. This cross-sectional study was performed on 200 medical tourists referred to hospitals in the city of Shiraz which is located in the south of Iran. The subjects were selected randomly over the first 6 months of 2013. Data collection tools were a descriptive questionnaire and an adaptation of the SERVQUAL questionnaire. The results showed that the mean age of medical tourists was 49.67 and most of them were from Oman. Overall, the patients' expectations exceeded their perceptions of the provided quality of service, and all gap mean scores were negative. The largest negative gap score pertained to reliability with an overall average of -0.59, followed by responsibility, assurance, tangibility, empathy, and access to care. The research findings can effectively help managers identify problems with the current quality of service and improve performance so as to increase the medical tourists' satisfaction level. Also, highlighting the most important service attributes, which are highly attractive to patients, will help authorities improve their operation performance and develop innovative ideas on both strategic and tactical levels.

Today, access to healthcare is considered a major indicator of community health. Telemedicine technology is an opportunity to increase access and improve the quality of healthcare in a country's development of a healthcare system. The establishment of a telemedicine system and the provision of healthcare in this way require a proper infrastructure, and multiple factors must be considered. This study investigated the areas of establishing telemedicine and the factors affecting its success in the Health Department of Iran’s oil industry. This study is objective and analytical (non-experimental) and used the research-applied method to collect information. The statistic community included all professionals and personnel of the Health Department of Iran’s oil industry in 2014-2015. The establishment background and success factors of telemedicine provision were explored based on the study of 341 health experts and professionals. Data was analyzed by SPSS16 and Lisral Software. The results show that both variables, i.e. establishment background (0.63) and organizational effectiveness factors (0.52), had a significant positive effect on the successful implementation of a telemedicine provision system. Furthermore, the factors of successful establishment of a telemedicine system (0.67) had a significant effect. Among the establishment background factors, financial structure (0.87) had the most significant effect on the successful establishment of a telemedicine system. Among the factors influencing success, organizational regulations and rules (0.83) were the most significant. Based on the results of the current study, it is clear that giving the same attention to the establishment background and organizational effectiveness factors will lead to the successful implementation of telemedicine. It is recommended that the managers and policy makers of the country's health sector use and implement telemedicine in other areas as well. With proper planning, this could lead to increased community access to health services, savings in human and financial resources in the healthcare system, and reduced healthcare costs.

Every year a large number of Muslims, especially from Iran, travel to holy places in Iraq for pilgrimage. Like Hajj and other mass gatherings, the health of pilgrims in Iraq is a major issue. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of diseases in pilgrims referring to Iranian clinics in Iraq.

This descriptive study was conducted in April and May, 2013. All Iranian pilgrims referring to clinics in Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad, or Kazmain during this one-month period were entered in the study. Data was gathered from medical records in these clinics and analyzed using SPSS software version 16.

From 22 April to 20 May, 2013, a total of 26,574 patients were admitted to Iranian clinics in Iraq, 42% of whom were women and 58% were men. The main causes for referring to the clinics were signs and symptoms of acute respiratory infection (48%), musculoskeletal problems (19%), control of underlying disease (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, gastritis) (16%), and gastroenteritis (7%). The prevalence of underlying conditions was higher in women.

According to the survey results and specific conditions in terms of climate and the infrastructure of facilities in Iraq, it seems that infectious and communicable diseases can be prevented by providing appropriate training prior to the pilgrimage and emphasizing and monitoring the use of personal protective equipment. Moreover, vaccination, medical examination before deployment, and establishing medical records can be better ways to treat underlying diseases, control health, and ensure the better health of pilgrims.