Journal of Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmaceutical Management
Volume:4 Issue: 3, Summer-Autumn 2018

Depression is one of the most important causes of pathogenesis and disability in individuals. Through the timely diagnosis of this disorder, it can be prevented from progressing, and finally, ensure the mental health of students and the community. The issues, such as non-familiarity with the university environment or culture of the area, being nonindigenous and away from family, lack of interest in the field of study, and incompatibility with other people, can result in mental illnesses, such as depression and a decline in the students’ academic performance. This study was performed to measure the rate of depression in the pharmacy students in the first two years of study and its influencing factors.

This longitudinal-descriptive study was done to measure the rate of depression in pharmacy students of the Ahvaz Jondishapur University of Medical Sciences from 2015 to 2017. To the end, the students first were evaluated using the Beck questionnaire, and then they answered the same questionnaire in 2017. The obtained data were evaluated using SPSS ر .21 software and the t-test.

In this study, 37 students were studied for two years. In the first year, the average score of depression was 6.21±7.02 and in the third year, it was 8.83±11.49. Despite an increase in the depression score, it was not in the depression range. Also, the results of the t-test showed that the students in the third year showed no significant difference compared with the first year of the university in terms of depression score (P=0.242).

Because of the high prevalence of depression in non-native students, the officials of this university have to pay more attention to the non-native students and adapt the dormitories environment appropriately for them. They also can provide cultural programs to change the students’ morale. In addition to these activities, holding workshops on psychology, proper training, and motivating students to pass lessons difficult to learn by university counselors can be effective in reducing the prevalence of depression.

Complementary and alternative medicine is defined as “diagnosis, prevention, and treatment, which complements mainstream medicine by contributing to a common whole, by satisfying a demand not met by belief or by diversifying the conceptual frameworks of medicine”. Alternative medicine may include acupuncture, homeopathy, phytotherapy, leech therapy, and other methods. According to the public popularity of these methods, we conducted this study to investigate the views of the public about these treatments.

To perform this study, we designed a questionnaire scoring on a 10 five-point Likert scale. The goal of the study was explained to patients before filling out the questionnaire.

In this research, 100 cases with an average age of 30±8.47 years were studied. One percent of the studied population was uneducated, 41% had a diploma, and 58% had a university degree. Respectively, 28%, 10%, 40%, 15% of the participants expressed their confidence in Iranian traditional medicine as follows: very high, high, medium, and low, and 7% did not believe in alternative medicine. Also, 24% of respondents had used at least one of the methods of alternative medicine, like leech therapy. In addition, 33% usually and 42% sometimes used herbal tea for relieving their physical and mental illness without consulting the physician, and 25% never used it without consulting. According to the opinion of respondents, 69% believed that both modern and traditional medicine is effective, 10% expressed that modern medicine is more effective than traditional medicine, 9% were not familiar with traditional medicine, and 7% stated that traditional medicine is more effective than modern medicine.

According to the results, most of the participants believed in alternative methods, especially along with modern medicine. For this reason, accurate and scientific education about alternative methods seems necessary for the healthcare team and the public

The present study was conducted to evaluate the use of vancomycin according to the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee guidelines in the Imam Khomeini hospital of Urmia.

This retrospective study was conducted in Urmia Imam Khomeini Hospital (intensive care unit, surgery, internal medicine, and dialysis wards). In the retrospective phase, the demographic and clinical data related to all patients who were treated with vancomycin in April, May, and June 2015 were collected according to a HICPAC-based questionnaire. The level of compliance of vancomycin with the recommendations mentioned was determined. Non-compliance with the instructions was identified as the goal of the next interventions.

The results of our study showed that the highest starting doses were among the patients with pneumonia. We did not measure the serum level of vancomycin in none of the patients studied. The duration of treatment for patients was 4.45±4.91 days. Also, our results showed that 68.5% of patients had no antibiogram before the treatment.

The obtained findings showed that the necessity of an antibiogram and patient’s weight measurement and avoiding the simultaneous use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and measuring the serum level of vancomycin in order to promote patients’ treatment and promote the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics Vancomycin should be taken into consideration.

Poisoning and drug overdoses are considered a health problem in modern countries. In this study, we assessed the pattern of poisoning and drug overdoses at Imam Khomeini hospital in Sari city, the northern region of Iran.

To assess the pattern and circumstances of poisoning, the patients’ information who were referred to the emergency unit with acute toxic poisoning over four years were randomly obtained retrospectively from their medical records.

A total of 1,646 patients were analyzed. The highest rate of poisonings was related to suicidal intentions and mostly occurred at age of 18 to 35 years and in females. Medications were the principal groups of poisons involved (53.15%), including benzodiazepines as the most common agents (30.3%), followed by multiple medications (25.5%) and opioids (10%). Organophosphate compounds (3%), aluminum and zinc phosphide (2.7%), and rodenticide (1.7%) were also among the commonly used poisons; however, they were the main leading cause of overdose deaths. Thirty patients (1.8%) died in total, and death was caused most commonly by zinc and aluminum phosphide (8 cases), followed by opioids (6 cases) and rodenticide (4 cases).

The high prevalence of intentional overdoses and mortality among young adults requires considerable attention, and further surveys are needed to address the fundamental underlying causes. More restrictive regulations and increasing public awareness regarding the role of centers providing information about poisoning available in the region can assist to prevent the development of this public health problem.

Management science is seeking ways to realize organizational goals, strategies, and expectations, which are the criteria for a company’s successful performance. One of the most important aspects of management in an organization is the evaluation and measurement of business performance. Measuring business performance is crucial and according to some experts, “you cannot manage what you do not measure”. Having a systematic view of business performance in pharmaceutical companies is of great significance.

According to the studies and interviews with pharmaceutical experts, we developed a conceptual model and examined the factors affecting pharmaceutical companies’ innovative strategies. A descriptive method, specifically the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted. The statistical population of the study consisted of pharmaceutical companies’ experts selected by cluster sampling. Also, according to the Morgan Table, the number of statistical population and sample members were 70 and 59, respectively.

The obtained results indicated that the key processes and product innovative strategies improved business performance. Financial management, as the moderator variable, affected the relationship between product and process innovation and business performance improvement. Intellectual capital, as the other moderator variable, affected the relationship between product and process innovation and business performance improvement.

The findings of this study showed that factors, like financial management, product innovation strategy, process innovation strategy, and intellectual capital development significantly affect business performance improvement. Generally, a review of previous literature showed that the present study confirms their results to some extent and by including some factors, which had not been considered before, it is a more novel comprehensive research on this issue.