Modern Care Journal
Volume:20 Issue: 3, Jul 2023

Context: 

Saffron, as a medicinal plant, is widely used to treat various diseases, especially among women. Therefore, this study was conducted to review the studies on the impact of saffron on premenstrual syndrome (PMS), labor, childbirth, and menopause.

This systematic review, based on the PICO process, systematically searched PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane, Embase, Web of Science, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Research Gate, and Persian databases, such as Scientific Information Database (SID) and Magiran, until February 2023. The search was based on a search strategy. Strategy search included keywords saffron OR Crocus sativus Linn. OR safranal OR crocin using AND premenstrual syndrome, postpartum depression, pregnancy anxiety, pregnancy depression, menopause, perimenopause, labor pain, childbirth, active labor phase, delivery, episiotomy, and pregnancy. Of 164 articles, 20 randomized controlled trials with a score of 3 and above based on the Jadad scale entered the study.

The results showed that saffron has positive effectsonlabor and childbirth, including improvement of Bishop’s score, labor progress, reduction of fatigue and labor pain intensity, and episiotomy healing. Additionally, it can improve mood and psychological symptoms of menopause and PMS. The results of two studies showed that saffron has an effect on postpartum depression.

Saffron is suggested as a medicinal plant that can help improve women’s complications. However, due to the limited number of studies, it is recommended to carry out further studies without the limitations of previous studies before applying saffron in clinical medicine.

Heart disease causes functional disorders that can cause the sufferer to experience fatigue and dyspnea, leading to low quality of life. Various factors related to the quality of life of heart failure patients include occupation and ejection fraction. The number of heart failure patients treated at Aceh government hospital is still high in 2021, as well as the incidence of recurrent hospitalization.

This study aimed to determine the relationship between occupation, ejection fraction, and heart failure patients’ quality of life.

The study used a quantitative research approach with a cross-sectional design. The sample was 154 heart failure patients who visited the Cardiac Polyclinic of a provincial hospital in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Data on patient occupation, ejection fraction, and comorbidity factors were obtained from the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the respondents. Then, the patient’s quality of life was measured by the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure (MLHF) questionnaire. The chi-square test and logistic regression (with a significance level  = 0.05) were used in data analysis in this study.

The results of the study found a significant direct correlation between patient occupation (P = 0.001), ejection fraction (P = 0,001), and an inverse correlation of comorbidity factors (P = 0.001) with quality of life ( = 0.05). The multivariate analysis using logistic regression found that the dominant factor, ejection fraction, was associated with the quality of life of heart failure patients with OR: 12.033, followed by comorbidity factors (OR: 3.565) and occupation (OR: 1.819).

The quality of life of heart failure patients is strongly associated with the ejection fraction in heart failure patients; therefore, maintaining the ejection fraction is needed to improve the quality of life.

Nomophobia, short for no mobile phobia, is the fear of being without a smartphone. Nomophobia is common, especially in the young population, with an increase in the use of technology in society.

This study aimed to determine the nomophobia levels of nursing students and the relationship between nomophobia and personality traits.

This multicenter, descriptive, and relational study was carried out in three different universities. The students were reached via the Web-Anket application within June to July 2021. The nursing department students in Turkey (n = 818) constituted the research population. No sample selection was performed in the study, and all students who accepted to participate and met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. The study was conducted on 424 nursing students. The data were collected via an online personal information form,Nomophobia Questionnaire, and 10-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). Percentage, mean± standard deviation, analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation coefficient tests were used to analyze the data.

Themeanage of the participants was 20.5 ± 1.8 years. Moreover, 84.7% of the participants were female. Additionally, 93.2% of the subjects lived with their parents, and 63.0% reported that the monthly income of the family was equal to monthly expenditures. It was shown that 31.1% of the students had mild nomophobia; nevertheless, 52.6% and 16.3% of the students had moderate and severe nomophobia, respectively. The totalnomophobiascore was observed to be 74.17 ± 25.53. The TIPI subdimensions’ meanscores were 9.87 ± 2.29, 8.83 ± 2.33, 8.66 ± 2.82, 10.66 ± 2.65, and 9.34 ± 3.04 for openness to experience, agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and extroversion, respectively. This study revealed that students’ smartphone usage purposes and personality traits were related to their nomophobia levels.

More than half of the nursing students had a moderate level of nomophobia. There is a relationship between the purpose of smartphone use and students’ personality traits with their nomophobia levels.

This research aimed to define the status of young university students in Turkey with the COVID-19 vaccine and their ideas about it.

This descriptive and quantitative study was conducted on 602 undergraduate students of a state university in the central Anatolian region of Turkey in the spring semester of the 2021 - 2022 academic year. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews with the students using a questionnaire prepared by the researchers based on the literature. The chi-square test, percentage, and number were used to analyze the data.

Of the research participants, 89.7% were COVID-19-vaccinated. Also, 86.7% of vaccinated students had the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, 72.96% had two vaccine doses, and 59.5% had doubts about the vaccine.

Opinions about vaccines are affected by some sociodemographic characteristics and expert information.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, the mental state of the faculty members of medical universities responsible for educating students in various fields of medicine needs to gain attention.

This study aimed to analyze the psychological state of the Birjand University of Medical Sciences faculty members following the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this study, 122 faculty members of Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Iran, completed an online questionnaire containing demographic information along with two standard scales of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress-21 (DASS-21) and Connor- Davidson Resilience Scale-25 (CDRISC-25). The data were analyzed using an independent t-test and ANOVA.

The prevalence of moderate to very severe depression, anxiety, and stress in the target group was 32%, 50%, and 41.8%, respectively. The lecturer rank members showed significantly lower resilience (P = 0.03). However, individuals with administrative positions had substantially higher resilience and lower depression and stress levels (P < 0.001). The resilience level was significantly higher in the participants with 10 - 20 years of work (P = 0.02). Master graduate members showed more depression and anxiety (P < 0.001). There was a significant negative relationship between resilience and stress, depression, and anxiety (P < 0.001).

The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress in the target group was considerable. Strengthening resilience according to its protective role could be an effective solution.

Faulty emotional strategies are one of the most crucial indicators of dangerous behavior.

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) on emotional processing defects and impulsivity of soldiers aged 18 to 20 years with high-risk behaviors.

Themethod of the present study was quasi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design. The statistical population of this study included all soldiers aged 18 to 20 years referred to Valiasr Medical Center in Tehran in 2020. The research sample included 30 soldiers with high-risk behaviors who were selected purposefully and randomly assigned to two groups (15 people in the experimental group and 15 people in the control group). To collect data, the high-risk behaviors Scale (IARS), Barrett’s Impulsiveness scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used. The experimental group underwent ten sessions of DBT, and the control group did not receive any treatment. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance and SPSS-23 software. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.

The results of this study showed that the intervention and control groups had statistically significant differences in terms of emotional processing (P < 0.01) and impulsivity (P < 0.05) after the intervention of dialectical behavior therapy.

Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that dialectical behavioral therapy can be used along with other treatments to reduce the problems of soldiers with high-risk behaviors.

Several epidemiological studies have investigated the association between vitamin D deficiency and abnormal liver enzyme levels and type 2 diabetes (T2D) with inconsistent conclusions.

The current research aims to evaluate the effect of eight weeks of vitamin D consumption alongside exercise in water on liver enzymes and the mental health of women with type 2 diabetes.

Forty women with type 2 diabetes aged 40 to 60 were divided into four groups of 10 subjects: (1) exercise in water and vitamin D supplementation, (2) exercise in water, (3) vitamin D supplementation, and (4) control group. The water exercise group performed three exercise sessions per week for eight weeks (Borg scale of 14), and vitamin D supplementation groups consumed 50,000 (IU) vitamin D every week. Liver enzymes and mental health (Beck’s stress and anxiety (BAI) questionnaire (21 questions, alpha Cronbach 0.92) and depression (BDI-II) questionnaires (21 questions, alpha Cronbach 0.87)) were administered before and after eight weeks of training. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics by SPSS software version 21. Kolmogorov- Smirnov test and one-way analysis of variance and paired t-test were used to analyze the data at a significance level of 0.05.

Aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase decreased significantly after eight weeks in the vitamin D + water exercise and water exercise groups (P < 0.05). Moreover, depression and stress scores significantly decreased after the intervention in the vitamin D + water exercise and water exercise groups (P < 0.05).

The findings demonstrated that exercise in water plus vitamin D consumption improved anthropometric indices and liver enzymes and alleviated depression and stress in patients with type 2 diabetes. These two interventions can be combined to reduce type 2 diabetes complications.