International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health
Volume:3 Issue: 2, Spring 2015

Travel agencies may be consulted by intending travelers seeking pre-travel health advice. Travel agents should be equipped to deal with such queries and have access to a source of high quality travel health advice. This study aimed to establish the level of knowledge of travel health risks among Irish travel agencies.
A web-based survey was distributed to travel agents affiliated with the Irish Travel Agents Association. The questionnaire recorded the travel agents´ approach to clients seeking pre-travel health advice. Specific knowledge relating to health risks in specific destinations, the mode of spread of infectious tropical diseases and the need to direct clients to a source of professional travel health advice was assessed.
Twenty four travel agents responded to the questionnaire. Sixty-three percent of respondents reported that traveling clients frequently seek their advice about destination health risks. The majority of travel agents respond to their enquiries by suggesting that the traveler attend their general practitioner or travel medicine specialist. Less than a third (32%) of those questioned provide health information leaflets to their clients. The majority of agents estimated that fewer than 20% of travelers attend their practice with insufficient time remaining to consult with a healthcare professional. Travel agents generally underestimated the health risks associated with popular travel itineraries. There was a low level of knowledge of the mode of transmission of various tropical infectious diseases. The majority of respondents (81%) welcomed an opportunity to engage with travel medicine specialists.
This study highlights the need to educate travel agents on travel health risks and travel health advice provision.

Self-esteem is a sense of values, the degree of approval, affirmation, acceptance and being valuable that a person has toward himself. As exercise causes a feeling of adequacy and efficiency, it may increase self-esteem. The present research aimed to study the effect of a physical activity program on self-esteem of male college students.
The present study was a randomized controlled trial. The study randomly assigned 90 male college students into two groups of intervention and control. Eight weeks of exercise program were applied to the intervention group and the control group received no intervention. The program was composed of regular aerobic exercises. Before and after the study, self-esteem of the subjects were assessed by using the Copper Self Esteem Scale. The results were analyzed using the SPSS16 software. Descriptive statistics (frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test, independent and paired t-test) were applied.
The mean self-esteem of the students in the intervention group changed from 90.6±9.5 to 109.8±5.3, while it was stable for the control group (91.1±1.3 to 92.4±2.1). The independent sample’s t-test showed a statistically significant difference between the level of improvement between the two groups (P<0.001).
The results indicate that physical activity programs boost the self-esteem of male college students. Considering the ease of implementation, the benefits of physical activity and no serious adverse events, we recommend the use of mild to moderate physical activities as an intervention to enhance self-esteem, a determinant of mental health.

Many countries endemic for the rabies virus are popular tourist destinations for travelers from developed countries. This study was designed to assess the level of awareness of rabies in a sample of travelers attending a travel medicine clinic and to assess whether the rabies-specific information provided verbally should be reinforced into a written form before the travelers complete their rabies pre-exposure prophylaxis.
During a 4-month period travelers intending to travel to rabies-endemic countries completed a questionnaire, and received standardized information on rabies risk reduction. When they received booster doses of rabies vaccine, subjects were asked if they considered themselves at risk of rabies and they were also asked to list the steps they would take if bitten by an animal.
Thirty travelers participated in this study. A significant proportion of them underestimated their personal risk. This trend persisted at follow-up despite intervening education. Many travelers did not recognize trekking as a risk factor for rabies exposure. While most travelers were aware that dogs can transmit rabies, very few understood the risk posed by other warm-blooded animals. The majority of travelers expected to be safely treated in the event of developing rabies. Most travelers understood the importance of consulting a doctor following potential rabies exposure but a minority of travelers was aware of the need for immediate first-aid treatment.
Travelers’ knowledge of the information provided during their medical consultation appears to decay rapidly. This study points to the importance of reinforcing this advice by providing a convenient reference guide which could be inserted into the traveler’s vaccination booklet.

Acute appendicitis is the most common cause of acute abdomen and is considered as a surgical emergency. Approximately, 10% of patients with acute appendicitis and delayed diagnosis can face many complications. This study was designed to examine the correlation between ultrasound and pathological findings in patients with appendicitis and aimed to determine the diagnostic levels of ultrasound in these patients.
This study is a retrospective study conducted on 500 patients with clinical symptoms suggestive of appendicitis in 2010-2012 in the Ayatollah Kashani hospital. These patients have undergone appendectomy. Having collected clinical and ultrasound data and compared them with pathological results, the data were analyzed.
In this study, 56.3% of patients were male and 43.7% of them were female. The mean age of the study population was 24.8±14.1 years. In this study, the sensitivity of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis was 83% and its specificity was 56%. The positive predictive value of ultrasound in this study was 89.2% and the negative predictive value was 42.6%.
Based on these results and by comparing with those of other studies, the sensitivity and specificity of ultrasonography in the center is acceptable and is at the similar level to other centers. Besides, the accuracy of ultrasound in the negative cases is much more than the positive ones.

The present study has aimed to demonstrate the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and three variables of self-esteem as a psychological factor along with thin-ideal internalization and appearance-related social comparison as psychosocial factors.
To conduct this study, 477 Tehran high-school students were recruited by a cluster sampling method. Afterwards, they filled out the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, Appearance Evaluation Subscale, Physical Appearance Comparison Scale as well as Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance Questionnaire-4. Finally, the collected data were analyzed using the Pearson’ correlation coefficient together with the stepwise regression.
Findings were indicative of a direct correlation between body image dissatisfaction and variables of thin-ideal internalization as well as appearance-related social comparisons. Meanwhile, there was a negative correlation between self-esteem and body image dissatisfaction. In addition, self-esteem could better work in assessing body image dissatisfaction. Because, it explains 19% of the variance thereof.
According to the results, it can be concluded that self-esteem plays a central role in predicting body image dissatisfaction. Therefore, health professionals should place a value on such a role while using preventive measures or interventions.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common disabling neurological disease in young people. It is estimated that about 2 million people in the world suffer from this disease. Ocular involvement is one of the most prevalent clinical signs of MS. It is said that 25% of individuals suffer from vision problems during the development of disease. Therefore, this study was conducted in Yazd due to its climate changes and lack of study in this regard.
This study is a cross sectional type, conducted with the aim of studying the frequency of eye symptoms in MS patients referring to the Shahid Sadoughi Yazd ophthalmology Clinic from 2012 to 2014. The Sample size includes 150 patients who referred to the clinic. The tool for gathering information was a questionnaire. After gathering 150 samples, all the data was coded and entered into the computer. Results were analyzed by SPSS18, descriptive statistics, and Chi 2 test.
The examined patients included 150 MS patients aged 33.48 years on average and with 28.43 years the onset age of disease examined. This study shows that blurred vision rate of 78.7% and the diplopia rate of 56% were the most prevalent vision complaints of patients from the starting the disease until examination. Optic atrophy with 14.7% and optic neuritis with 12% were the most common ocular findings in the examination.
We can conclude that vision disorders are the common consequences of MS. These disorders are accompanied by factors such as age, sex, residence, and family background. Therefore, it is necessary to take the patients’ demographic characteristics into account in their initial examinations.

Nowadays, due to the advances of many industries people tend to travel much more in compared to the past. Without any doubt, various types of climates and weathers, vemacular diseases, changes in life style and qualitative and quantitative changes of nutrition are all the factors of which many diseases occur during trips. Travel associated anxieties and fears are common. It has been suggested that enjoyment of travel depends upon a predisposition to cope well with a variety of physical and psychological stresses. In this study we have aimed to survey the cognitive and psychological factors effecting the passengers as they travel.

Contextual factors such as ethnicity, gender, place, and their intersections determine the social condition that populations and individuals live in. As a result, environmental stressors that shape exposures, and also resilience and vulnerabilities are specific to the population. This emphasizes the role of the intersection of such contextual factors in studying psychosocial causes of depression. The aim of this case study is to review the role of war related stress as a unique environmental cause of depression among Kurdish women who live in the Middle East. First, we reviewed the literature on the direct effects of ethnicity, gender, place, and their intersections on depression. Then we discussed the contextual (indirect) effects of these factors in modifying the effect of (resilience and vulnerability to) risk factors of depression. Then we reviewed the evidence highlighting the role of war related stress as a unique social cause of depression among Kurd women. We hope this paper provides an example of how social causes of depression depend on intersections of ethnicity, gender, and place. We argue that depression should be seen as a condition, with population specific causes and consequences. We also believe that ethnicity, gender, and place help clinicians and public health officials to better approach depression within populations. Contextual factors should not be undermined in approaching depression across population groups. In this view, context not only determines the exposure to the risk and protective factors, it also changes the vulnerability and resilience to them. Thus we need to better understand how ethnicity, gender, place, and their intersections modify separate, additive, and multiplicative effects of risk and protective factors on depression.