Middle East Journal of Rehabilitation and Health Studies
Volume:2 Issue: 3, Jul 2015

Depression is a common illness worldwide and results from a complex interaction between social, psychological, and biological factors. Although there are studies reporting a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and mood disorders, a consensus on a concrete link between vitamin D levels and depression has yet to be reached.

 In this short review, we discuss the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and depression. Our literature review yielded 42 articles published since 2006 in the electronic databases of MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, AMED, and PsycINFO.

This study was conducted on the assumption that low levels of vitamin D are associated with depression. However, for all the evidence indicative of an association between low levels of vitamin D and depression, there is still a great deal of controversy over such correlation due to the current conflicting results. Further research is needed to fully elucidate the issue.

The initial assumption of a relationship between vitamin D and high prevalence of seasonal affective disorder in winter was based on the high prevalence of depression on high latitudes. Although some studies have shown an association between depression and vitamin D deficiency, it still cannot be indisputably concluded that augmenting the levels of vitamin D alone alleviate depression

Word comprehension starts between 5 - 9 months after birth and before babies can produce any single word. Although in most domains of word learning, comprehension starts before production, for some categories such as color words, this order can be reversed. Children start producing color words without having any adult-like comprehension of these words.

The aims of the present study were to investigate the ability of Persian-speaking children to comprehend Berlin and Kay’s 11 basic color words plus 5 color terms that are frequent in Persian, to compare girls’ to boys’ scores, and to determine the easiest and most difficult color words to comprehend for children.

In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study, 36–71 month-old Persian-speaking children (N = 81, 43 girls and 38 boys), divided into 3 age groups with a one-year interval, were selected from 7 kindergartens by convenience sampling method. The color-word comprehension subtest of the picture receptive vocabulary test for Persian children was used. The data was statistically analyzed with a Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U-test, and Spearman rank-order correlation using SPSS software.

There was a significant difference between age groups to comprehend primary colors (P = 0.001), early-secondary colors (P = 0.002), and 5 common color words (P = 0.002). Girls’ scores were significantly higher than boys’ scores (P = 0.028). The correlation between age and color-word comprehension was positive (r = 0.423).

The findings of this study indicate that older children are more proficient in comprehension of color words compared to younger children, and girls are more proficient than boys. The two easiest and two most difficult color words for children to comprehend within the 3 age groups were “black” and “red” and “phosphoric-green” and “turquoise-blue,” respectively. There was a positive relation between age and color-word comprehension.

Marital quality is deeply associated with its psychological, physical, and emotional aspects.

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between marital dissatisfaction and variables of attachment styles and alexithymia.

This research method is descriptive and correlational. The population study comprised 400 parents of female students in Tehran during the academic year of 2013 - 2014. The study sample was selected using multistage cluster sampling method. The Pearson correlational coefficient and multivariate regression methods have been used for data analysis. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS 18.

The results showed a significant negative correlation between secure style and marital satisfaction (P = 0.001, r = -0.154). Also, significant relationships were observed between marital dissatisfaction and variables of insecure style (P = 0.001, r = 0.243), ambivalent style (P = 0.001, r = 0.247), difficulty in emotional identification (P = 0.001, r = 0.335), and external orientation (P = 0.001, r = 0.286). However, there was no significant relationship between marital dissatisfaction and difficulty in describing emotions (P = 0.001, r = 0.033).

The results have shown a significant negative correlation between secure style and marital dissatisfaction. There were positive significant relationships between marital dissatisfaction and variables of insecure style, ambivalent style, difficulty in identifying emotions, and externally oriented thinking, but there was not any significant relationship between marital dissatisfaction and difficulty in emotional expression

The complexity of clinical decisions in health care organizations (HCOs) increases the information-processing demands, and the benefits of a Health Information Technology (HIT)-based Knowledge Management (KM). Therefore, since 1995, the health sector of Iran has gradually introduced and utilized hospital information systems, the internet, and office automation in HCOs to increase the efficiency of health care services. Studies show that the status of information management and knowledge in HCOs of Iran is inappropriate.

The current study evaluated whether the current status of HIT and its application in the HCOs are in line with KM goals.

The study was performed on 550 staff members of hospitals affiliated to Semnan university of medical sciences in 2014. A researcher made questionnaire was developed. All medical and non-medical staff members were included in this study.

According to the obtained results 15% of the subjects highly used clinical information systems for information exchange inside their institution, 35.5% somewhat used electronic reports, and in some subjects significant relationship was found between demographic background and attitude (P < 0.05).

It was concluded that HCOs need an HIT clearly designed with KM and they have to recognize where knowledge is resided, when designing strategies to warrant that knowledge is being created and transferred in the best way and to the right persons. Otherwise, the HCOs do not use an efficiency-oriented HIT

Medical management, a main asset in strategic decision-making, must be based on the use of information and communication technology, till provides strategic services. However, it is not clear how much information technology is helpful in hospitals for their strategies; this is a gap in health care organizations.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of information technology (IT) on organizational strategy in hospitals.

This study was performed on 325 administrative and medical staff in hospitals affiliated to Semnan university of medical sciences in Iran in 2014. Data were collected by anonymous self-administered, valid, and reliable questionnaires and analyzed by Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

About 44.4% of participants reported that IT has been somewhat effective in management decisions, 43.7% reported that information technology has somewhat improved provided services and efficiency of departments. Also, 24.5% of them reported that IT has been very much helpful in costs reduction of departments. Significant relationship was found between education level of the study subjects and their attitudes (P = 0.03).

The results showed that the use of information technology in hospitals had several effects on some aspects of organizational strategy such as organizational knowledge, medical economics, and organizational decisions. In order to set up the governance of information technology in health system, it is necessary to involve managers and personnel alike in redesigning information systems and revising operational processes in hospitals.

For many years, the standard protocol for implant placement was the delayed method which is to wait until the bone is matured after tooth extraction.

  The increasing demand for shorter rehabilitation times have led to the introduction of immediate implant placement. Although this method offers many advantages like minimal number of surgical procedures, less morbidity and shorter rehabilitation time, it is associated with some complications such as complicated extractions, localized bone defects surrounding the implant, and improper implant position because of the socket anatomy.

Immediate implants were most frequently used for incisor and premolar sites and there is very little data available on immediate implantation in the molar area. In this research, we reviewed all the existing papers on immediate implantation of maxillary molars with special focus on success and survival rate. The success and survival rate of immediate implantation into fresh extraction socket of maxillary molars was more than 90%, which was similar to conventional type delayed implants.

It was observed that the success and survival rate of maxillary molar immediate implant was relatively high and similar to those of conventional delayed implants.

Some occupations have risk factors for chronic low back pain; clinical staff of hospitals are good examples for encountering many risk factors yet office staff encounter a few or may be at risk of unknown factors for occupational low back pain.

The objective of this study was to compare chronic low back pain frequency and risk factors between clinical and office staff.

A cross-sectional study on clinical and office staff at hospitals was done by completing a questionnaire with interviews and a checklist. Data were analyzed with the SPSS software version 16 using chi-2, T-test and regression with significance level of P < 0.05.

No significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of chronic low back pain; frequency of low back pain in clinical staff was 18% (18 individuals) and in office staff this was 17% (17 individuals) (P < 0.05). Chronic low back pain in the clinical group might be related to flexion and extension, twisting, pulling or pushing, carrying, handling of patients, and sitting (P value < 0.001), and in office staff it might be related to flexion and extension, twisting and long durations of time spent driving (P value < 0.001).

Frequency of low back pain was not significantly different between clinical and office staff. Chronic low back pain in clinical staff was related to work while in office staff it was related to some occupational and non-occupational risk factors.