Health Science Monitor
Volume:2 Issue: 2, Spring 2023

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), mainly its final stage, known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is one of the major challenges for the healthcare system in Iran, and deserves more reflections. Against this background, the present study aimed to elucidate the epidemiology of ESRD among the patients, undergoing permanent treatment, admitted to the hemodialysis (HD) wards of the selected hospitals in Urmia, Iran.

In this descriptive-analytical study, using the census method for sampling, we investigated patients experiencing permanent treatment and admitted to the HD wards of the selected hospitals in Urmia, Iran, from October 2020 to March 2021. The criteria for entering the study are the availability of medical record and ESRD cases. On the other hand, the cases receiving intermittent HD were excluded. Furthermore, a checklist was utilized to collect the required data.

The ESRD patients' mean age was 60.63. Also, 59.6% of the cases were male, and the rest (40.4%) was female. Besides, 54.7% of these patients had degrees below high school diplomas, and 72.8% was living in urban areas. The most frequently occurring blood type was O, and the majority of the patients were the Rhesus positive. The average level of serum creatinine was also 20.7 mg/dL. Moreover, the most common underlying diseases were hypertension (HTN) and diabetes mellitus (DM), respectively.

The study findings revealed that monitoring and controlling chronic diseases, such as HTN and DM, as well as raising more awareness among the patients with low literacy, could significantly contribute to managing CKD and its progress.

Dear Editor-in-Chief On January 28, the city of Khoy (the northwest of Iran) was struck by a strong earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 on the Richter scale at 21:44:44 and a depth of 7 km, X: 45.01 and Y: 38.05 (1). This earthquake occurred 117 kilometers from Urmia, the capital of the West Azerbaijan Province. Over 370,000 people were affected by this earthquake, which resulted in three deaths and more than 1,750 injuries. More than 70 villages in the area and the cities of Khoy and Firouraq were damaged to varying degrees (2). A few days before the earthquake, a rumor circulated on the internet that there would be a strong earthquake on Saturday January 29th, followed by a magnitude 9 earthquake on February 16th. After the earthquake, many of affected people left their homes in the early hours and went to the cities of Salmas, Urmia, and Tabriz. In the quake-hit area, people took shelter in makeshift camps or tents near the destroyed homes. Humanitarian aid arrived from all over the country and neighboring provinces to the affected area. Government organizations, military, religious bodies, associations, unions, and non-governmental organizations provided the basic needs and equipment needed by the people of the earthquake-affected area. However, the distribution of food and equipment among people affected by the earthquake was inappropriate. For instance, some donors were providing aid directly, essential drugs were not adequately supplied. Despite the large amount of aid sent, a distribution aid was concentrated in some areas and neglected in other areas, and some people did not yet manage to receive essential items such as food, blankets, tent heating equipment (3). In Urmia, adequate services were provided in the camps established in the mosques. Health teams had a daily presence in the mosques, providing free medical and health services. The mosques were run by the Basij (volunteer mobilization force), or Mosque Council, with most help coming from donors and official and unofficial communications from the council. One notable thing was that earthquake victims tended to receive more than actually need medical and pharmaceutical services, as well as other services. Some people were unwilling to leave their homes and settled in the makeshift camps for reasons such as fear of possible theft of their property from damaged houses. Due to rumors of a stronger earthquake on February 16th, those shelter in nearby cities did not want to return to the disaster area. Iran is located on the earthquake fault line (4), and several faults in the northwest of the country activated in the past and caused devastating earthquakes such as the earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.4 on the Richter scale that occurred in the cities of Khoy and Salmas in 1900 and 1930 (5,6). Therefore, the occurrence of similar or stronger earthquakes in this area can be expected in the region in future (6,7). In general, observations show that the scale of destruction and damage does not exceed national and even provincial capabilities. However, one thing that is evident, despite the formation of numerous crisis preparedness committees before the earthquake, the lack of complete coordination in the calculation, as well as supply and distribution of the real basic needs among stakeholders in the crisis management scene is one of the main challenges. Considering the occurrence of similar problems during similar natural disasters in the northwest region, it is suggested that policy makers focus more on the community context in disaster management. A model that can align the participation of government organizations, unions, and social groups can lead to more coordination in the proper distribution of aid and meeting the needs of the victims in the early days.

Lots of suicides leading to death in Iran are related to self-immolation. This study aimed to evaluate the cause and burn patterns in self-immolated patients referred to Shahid Motahari Trauma and Burn Hospital in Tehran, Iran.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 282 patients who were hospitalized, due to self-immolation, in the above-mentioned hospital between 2014 and 2020. During the study, information such as patients’ demographic data, burn percentage, burn grade, and organs involved due to self-immolation, duration of hospitalization, and infection and mortality rates following self-immolation were recorded.

The mean age of self-immolated people was 35.5 ± 12.5 years, and the majority were male (58.2%) and married (61.7%) with non-university education (89.7%) and poor financial status (90.4%). Most of the patients (94%) had used caustic agents. The cause of self-immolation in 84% of people was family disputes and in 13.4% mental illnesses, and 51.1% finally died. The gender of the patients had a statistically significant relationship only with marital status (P = 0.001) and whole-body burns (P = 0.01).

According to our findings, self-immolation is prevalent in men, especially in upper limbs, and the most common cause of self-immolation is family disputes. Self-immolation mostly results in grade 3 burns in both genders. In the hospital, infection after burn is of great importance; therefore, prevention and control measures of nosocomial infection are necessary.

Diagnosis and treatment of patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are very important. Hence, it is necessary to predict and diagnose these patients based on individual, demographic and clinical characteristics before starting treatment. This study aimed to predict MDR-TB in TB patients using the perceptron artificial neural networks (ANNs) model.

This retrospective cohort study was conducted on 1,050 TB patients who have been treated in Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Tehran, Iran from 2005 to 2015. Data on personal and demographic information, as well as medical data such as drug therapy, final outcome of treatment, and the diagnosis of MDR-TB, were collected from the patients' medical records.

The results of this study indicated that the predictive power of MDR-TB for both training and testing groups was 85% and 80%, respectively. Also, the variables of marital status, education, drug use, being imprisoned, extrapulmonary TB, history of comorbidities, AIDS, patients' age, and family size were identified as very effective factors. However, variables of residence, smoking history, contact with a TB person, pulmonary TB, drug side effects, nationality, and diabetes were found as effective factors in predicting the development of MDR-TB.

Application of the perceptron ANNs model in the study of MDR-TB is able to create new horizons in the diagnosis of these patients due to high predictive accuracy.

Family-centered care demands family to be accepted as the primary core of all cares neglected in practice. The purpose of the study was to plan and put into effect a family-centered interventional training program for the empowerment of mothers while examining its effectiveness on the expressive language skill of children with hearing impairment.

The sampling method in this process was a randomized controlled trial of the available type. The samples were selected from the people who referred to the centers providing speech therapy services to hearing impaired children in Shiraz (Iran). By selecting random blocks, 35 people were placed in each intervention and control groups. Family-centered intervention was scheduled into 6 sessions, each session lasting 80 minutes. Meantime, we used a researcher-made questionnaire and Newsha developmental scale to assess mothers' empowerment and children's speech development, respectively.

Data gathered from 35 intervention and 33 control group members were carefully examined. Repeated measurement test used for the assessment of primary and interactional effects of “time” and “group” showed the effect of time (i.e. pretest, posttest, and follow-up) on the variables of “awareness”, which was significantly large. As for the "self-efficacy" variable, the triple time stages have also proved effective. Time and interaction both manifested a meaningful effect on "child's expressive language skills" (P<0.001). However, "self-esteem" skills and "perceived support" did not show significant differences between time and group effects (P>0.001).

The study wraps up by affirming the role of family-centered intervention programs in expanding the ability of mothers with hearing-impaired children and, consequently, upgrading the expressive language skill of the child.

Considering the importance of academic fields, especially healthcare fields, knowing students’ attitude towards their field of study and future careers is highly important. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine the attitude of Urmia University of Medical Sciences students towards their field of study and future career.

In the present cross-sectional study, 200 students of Urmia University of Medical Sciences (Urmia, Iran) were participated by convenience sampling method. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire that included two parts. The first part entailed the demographic information and second part some questions to measure the attitude towards the field of study and future career. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 16 software.

 The mean score of attitude of 80 students towards their field of study and future career was 52.01 ± 7.63, while that of 70 cases was 49.65 ± 10.47. The majority of the students had an average attitude towards their field of study (72.5%) and future career (54.0%). Students of some fields, such as medicine, pharmacy, nursing, operating room, and emergency medicine, had a more positive attitude towards their field of study and future career than other fields. Only 5.5% and 29.5% of students had a good/positive attitude towards their field of study and future career, respectively.

 The weak attitude of students of some fields, including public health, environmental health, radiology, anesthesia, and laboratory sciences, towards their field of study and future career shows the need for an appropriate planning to improve and strengthen educational programs and increase the career capacities of the mentioned fields.

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disease of stratified squamous epithelium. Numerous treatment approaches have been introduced for the treatment of OLP, but there is no substantial evidence to support the effectiveness of these methods. Green tea is a popular drink widely used to relief and treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The present pilot study aimed to investigate the effect of green tea tablets on OLP.

In this pilot clinical trial study, we recruited 10 patients (48.1 ± 12.44 years old) with erosive and atrophic OLP from Western Azerbaijan, Urmia, in Iran. All patients received a green tea tablet (450 mg) daily for one month. The patients were monitored and followed up for pain severity scale with a visual analog scale (VAS), lesion size, and number of lesions. Finally, the collected data were examined using statistical software.

The mean of VAS score before intervention was 4.1 ± 2.02, whereas it was 2.2 ± 2.25 at the end of the intervention. Statistical analysis indicated the decreased VAS score after 30 days of tablet consumption (p < 0.001). Moreover, lesion number and size were markedly decreased in patients after 30 days of tablet consumption. However, no complete recovery was observed in patients after 30 days.

Our study indicates that using green tea tablets could be an effective and complementary therapy for patients with erosive, inflammatory, and atrophic lesions. However, further studies are required to investigate green tea tablets efficiency in long-term usage.

The patients’ companions need to take precautionary measures in the hospital for taking care of their patients. The relevant studies have not focused on the precautionary measures of the patients’ companions. Considering this issue, this study aimed to determine the companions' knowledge, attitude, and practice which enabled them to take the safety precautions against Covid-19 in infectious wards.

This study was a descriptive-analytical study. The researchers used convenience sampling to select 284 companions of the patients with Covid-19 in teaching hospitals in Kashan (Iran) from June to September 2021 as the participants of the study. The data collection instrument was a self-report researcher-developed questionnaire which examined the companions’ knowledge, attitude, and practice which enabled them to take care of their patients. Data analysis was performed using SPSS v16 software. The Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman's correlation tests were used to analyze the obtained data.

The results of the study showed that the companions’ level of knowledge (11.27±5.01) was weak. Nonetheless, their attitude (99.84±16.50) and practice (94.69±12.32) were moderate and acceptable. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between the companions’ familial relationship with the patient, history of participation in the Covid-19 training classes, education, and occupation and their knowledge, attitude, and practice (p < 0.05). Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between the companions’ history of being in the hospital as a companion of Covid-19 patients and the mean values of their attitude and practice (p < 0.05). Finally, on the basis of the results, there was a significant relationship between the mean values of the companions' practice and their knowledge and attitude (p < 0.05).

Companions are not provided with satisfactory education regarding precautionary measures in the hospital wards. Therefore, there is a need for the protocols which inform them about the precautionary measures in hospitals.