Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume:3 Issue: 2, Feb 2013

Context:

The Medical Records Department (MRD) is an important source for evaluating and planning of healthcare services; therefore, hospital managers should improve their performance not only in the short-term but also in the long-term plans. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a tool in the management system that enables organizations to correct operational functions and provides feedback around both the internal processes and the external outcomes, in order to improve strategic performance and outcomes continuously.

The main goal of this study was to assess the MRD performance with BSC approach in a hospital.

This research was an analytical cross-sectional study in which data was collected by questionnaires, forms and observation. The population was the staff of the MRD in a hospital in Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. Statistical Analysis Used: To analyze data, first, objectives of the MRD, according to the mission and perspectives of the hospital, were redefined and, second, indicators were measured. Subsequently, findings from the performance were compared with the expected score. In order to achieve the final target, the programs, activities, and plans were reformed.

The MRD was successful in absorbing customer satisfaction. From a customer perspective, score in customer satisfaction of admission and statistics sections were 82% and 83%, respectively.

The comprehensive nature of the strategy map makes the MRD especially useful as a consensus building and communication tool in the hospital.

The core part of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the ability to critically appraise published articles on a given subject. Medical students, especially within the developing world, usually do not learn how to critically appraise a published article since this is not part of their designed curriculum. This paper is reporting an innovative approach on how to teach critical appraisal skills to medical students, from an Iranian Medical School.

Breastfeeding depends on social and cultural conditions of societies. Behavior,Attitude, Subjective Norms, Enabling Factors (BASNEF) model is one of the comprehensive models of behavior study, especially in developing countries. This study was performed to investigate the status of breastfeeding during the first two years of infants' life and its risk factors through BASNEF model structures.

In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study, 406 mothers with 6-24-month-old babies were selected by multistage cluster sampling method. The data were collected using a questionnaire with five sections based on the BASNEF model structures. Demographic characteristics of the studied population were also recorded and analyzed using Chi-square tests and analysis of variance in SPSS 18 statistical software.

The prevalence of breastfeeding was 86.4% (351 mothers). Three hundred and thirty three mothers (82%) had good knowledge and there was a significant relationship between knowledge and breastfeeding behavior of mothers ( P < 0.05). Two hundred and eighty five mothers (70.2%) had good and very good attitude in this regard. There was no significant relationship between attitude and breastfeeding behavior of mothers ( P > 0.05). There was a significant relationship between breastfeeding behavior of mothers and subjective norms of husbands, mother and mother-in-law ( P < 0.05); however, no significant relationship was found with regard to enabling factors ( P > 0.05). Moreover, no significant relationship was observed between type of children nutrition and variables of delivery mode, maternal age and number of children ( P > 0.05).

In addition to knowledge of nursing mothers, supports and encouragement of husbands, mothers and mother-in-laws, as subjective norms of behavior, have a positive impact on the breastfeeding behavior of mothers. Thus, breastfeeding programs should pay more attention to the role of these mentioned factors.

Teachers are one of the most influential groups in elevating social health, and their teaching nutritional points to the students can both affect students' awareness and the transferring of such nutritional education to the families. This study was undertaken tosurvey the influence of nutrition and nutritional health education on the awareness of female elementary school teachers.

Fifty-seven female elementary school teachers were chosen from the Ferdows City for this quasi-experimental study. Prior to the outset of the educational workshop, they were asked to fill out a questionnaire about nutrition and nutritional health, which was followed by the two-day workshop. After two months, they were given a second questionnaire. The results were analyzed by paired t-test, ANOVA, and McNemar. In all the tests, a significance level a = 0.05 was considered.

Findings of the study showed that the mean score of awareness before interference was 10.98%, which reached up to 18.2% after the interference ( P < 0.001). With regard to theimportance of breakfast intake, the teachers' awareness increased from 57.9 to 98.2% from before to after intervention, respectively.

Applying interventional methods of education in teacher training centers in conjunction with medical and educational centers, with regard to nutrition and nutritional health, can elevate the health of students.

Health promoting lifestyle (HPL) focuses on life promotion through lifestyle which consists of six aspects of "physical activity", "nutrition", "health responsibility", "spiritual growth", "interpersonal relations" and "stress management". This lifestyle promotes health and welfare and induces satisfaction, self-persuasion and self-improvement. Considering the importance of the way a new behavior affects "life quality" as a motivational factor for starting and continuing that behavior, this study aimed to determine the relationship between health-promoting lifestyle and its aspects.

This cross-sectional study was performed on undergraduate students at School of Health, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, using a census method. Health promoting lifestyle was measured by Health Promotion Lifestyle Profile two and life quality was assessed by the Persian version of QLQ-C30 questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive and inferential statistical tests in SPSS.

Mean age of the participants was 21.12 years old. From among six aspects of health promoting behaviors, spiritual growth and responsibility with the means of 22.01 ± 2.224 and 20 ± 2.31 had the highest and physical activity with the mean of 17.58 ± 2.9 had the lowest scores, respectively. General life quality of 40.7% students was good and only 19.8% of them had an average global life quality. The highest and lowest frequencies of health-related life quality belonged to very good (58.6%) and excellent (9%) health, respectively. Except for stress management (P = 0.05) and gender of the students, there were no significant relationships between other HPL aspects and gender. There was no statistically significant relationship between global life quality of students and nutrition, physical activity, self-health responsibility and stress management while there was a significant relationship between global life quality and spiritual growth of the students. Health-related life quality and stress management were significantly related to each other; however, no statistically significant relationship was observed between health-related life quality and nutrition, physical activity, interpersonal relations and spiritual growth.

There is a significant relationship between adopting health promoting lifestyle and aspects of spiritual growth and stress management on the one hand and general quality of life on the other, at least among students.

Considering the effect of socio-economic factors on the emergence of chronic diseases and the importance of this aspect of diseases for policy makers and authorities of health care organizations, this study tried to investigate the role of these factors in type 2 diabetes and its consequences, which can be used in health policy making for preventing from this disease.

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 384 diabetic patients who were admitted to a diabetes center in the city of Isfahan. The participants were selected using simple random sampling. A questionnaire with 42 questions was used for gathering the data which were analyzed using chi-square and Fisher's statistical tests.

The studied population consisted of 52.1% male and 47.9% female participants. There was a statistically significant relationship between diabetes complications, age group, educational level, job status, relationship with family members, number of family visits and the reassurance provided by the family, type of leisure time activities, health status, years with diabetes, smoking, type of treatment, fried food consumption and income (P < 0.001), sense of security and communication in living environment (P < 0.002) and daily intake of vegetables ( P < 0.02).

It seems that the application of supportive resources and secondary strategies is an essential issue in the patients with chronic diseases, particularly diabetes. Empowering strategies can induce basic changes in order to increase positive expectations, hope, self-esteem and self- confidence in patients; this is the exact strategy which must be used to efficiently control diabetes and its different types of complications among patients.