Journal of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences
Volume:18 Issue: 10, 2015

Infections due to resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains are progressively increased annually. So، finding new antibiotic resources is of great importance. Medicinal plants as a natural source of antibiotics are considered a good option. Teucrium polium، a native plant in Khouzestan، has been used for a long time in folk medicine. The aim of the present study was to investigate the antibacterial potential of this plant against methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains. Methanolic extract was prepared from the flowers of T. polium، and its antibacterial activity was evaluated against 50 MRSA isolates by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. These isolates were also screened for mec and pvl genes. From 50 isolates، 20 isolates were selected and subjected to antibacterial analysis. From these، 14 isolates were positive for mecA gene، 2 of them were positive for pvl gene and 4 of them didn''t have mec or pvl genes. None of MRSA isolates were positive for both genes. The results showed that the methanolic extract of T. polium has considerable inhibitory effect against MRSA، even at the lowest concentration. mecA and pvl negative strains were more sensitive to methanolic extract، but the presence of mecA did not have any significant effect on their resistance. Based on these findings and with regard to the increasing trend in hospitalacquired S. aureus infections، it can be suggested that T. polium is an effective medicinal plant for treatment of infections caused by this bacterium and can be used as a natural source to produce new antibiotics.

Movie therapy is one of the approaches to increase the mental health and to decrease anxiety and depression. This study was performed to determine the impact of movie therapy on women’s self-esteem. In this quasiexperimental study, sample included the women aged 20 to 50 who had visited the non-governmental social service clinics of Tehran in 2013. The participants of this study were 30 women that were assigned into two groups of intervention and control. The instrument for data collection was 10-itemRosenberg self-esteem scale which was completed before and after watching eight movies with psychological content of challenge and promotion of self-esteem aspects by intervention and control groups. The obtained data were fed into SPSS-18 software and analyzed via descriptive statistics, ANCOVA and independent t-test. The mean score of self-esteem in intervention group increased from 7.07±1.88 before to 15.8±1.29 after intervention; whereas, this declined from 6.54±1.12 to 5.76±1.52 in control group, indicating a significant difference in intervention group (P=0.0001). the findings of this study showed that watching the selected movies with content of challenge and promotion of self-esteem aspects can be effective in increasing vulnerable women’s self-esteem as an easy and independent psycho-educational approach.

Sleep disorder and reduction of sleep quality are the most common psychiatric disorders which comorbid with headache. The present study was designed to assess the correlation between pain level and sleep quality of patients with headache. In this analytical cross-sectional study, the sample included 170 patients with headache (108 males and 62 females) that referred to Songhor hospital and clinics in 2012. Sleep quality was assessed by Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and pain level was evaluated by quality of life questionnaire (SF-36). Data were analyzed by Spss-18 software. The findings showed a significantly positive correlation between pain level and sleep delay (r=0.169, P=0.028), and pain level and sleep disorder (r=0.463, P=0.001) in patients with headache. Also, there was a significantly negative correlation between pain level subjective quality of sleep (r=-0.343, P=0.001), and pain level and sedative drug consumption (r=-0.305, P=0.001). However, there was no significant correlation between pain level and sleep duration, efficient sleep, and and daily performance disturbances. This study showed that here was a correlation between pain level and sleep quality. It seems that the pain level of patients with headache is one of the effective factors reducing sleep quality and causing sleep disorders in patients with headache.

Industrialization and urbanization have had a devastating impact on public health. Asthma is considered as one of the major challenges of public health. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between air pollution and the number of asthma patients admitted to hospitals in Kermanshah, Iran.

In this cross-sectional and ecological study, the data on the number of asthma patients, the concentration levels of air pollutants and weather conditions were collected from the city of Kermanshah. To determine the association between asthma patients admitted to hospitals and air pollutants, Poisson regression was used (P<0.05).

according to the statistical analysis, air pollutants had significant correlation with each other. Based on the results of multiple Poisson regression, among air pollutants CO and O3 were significantly correlated with the number of asthma patients referred to hospitals, with relative risk of 1.18 and 1.016, respectively, and based on the results of single Poisson regression, among air pollutants NOx, NO, NO2 and CO were significantly correlated with the number of asthma patients referred to hospitals with relative risk of 1.011, 1.012, 1.054 and 1.247, respectively.

according to the results of the present study, there was a significant association between air pollutants (mainly carbon monoxide and ozone) and the total number of asthma patients referred to the hospitals in Kermanshah.

The premenstrual syndrome is a common problem in women. Because of contradictory findings about the prevalence and role of age and marital status, this syndrome was compared between single and married women. This analytical-descriptive research was carried out upon 230 single and married women in the city of Eyvan-e-Gharb. The premenstrual syndrome questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha reliability=0.88) was used to collect the data. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Scheffe’s post hoc tests (P<0.05) There was a significant difference between the two age groups of single girls (15-28 and 21-28 years old) and the married women (31-38 years old) in terms of the intensity of symptoms. Also, a significant difference was reported between the 15-18 year-old age group and 21-28 year-old girls and 31-38 year-old women. Further, there was a significant difference between the 21-28 year-old girls and 31-38 year-old women. Prevalence and type of physical and psychological symptoms of premenstrual syndrome were different in each group. The 21-28 year-old girls, with the mean of 26.87, were reported to have the highest level of premenstrual syndrome symptoms. The 31-38 year-old women, with the mean of 26.8, were ranked second, and the 15-18 year-old girls, with the mean of 20.54, indicated the minimum level of prevalence. The findings of the current study showed that premenstrual syndrome is a common problem among the girls and women of different age groups, but is lower in 15-18 years age group. It occurs as both physical psychological symptoms in females and disturbs their compatibility.

Health promoting behaviors in the elderly can potentially improve their health and reduce health care costs. This study was aimed to investigate the relationship of social participation with general health among the elderly people.

The research population in this correlational study included all elderly people (aged 60 and older) in district 5 of Tehran. A total of 80 persons were selected by convenience sampling method. In order to collect data, a researcher-made social participation questionnaire and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) were used. Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficient, U-Mann-Whitney test and simple linear regression were applied to analyze the data.

The findings showed no statistically significant correlation between social participation and general health and its dimensions (P>0.05). Among demographic variables, only age was negatively correlated with social participation (P<0/05).

Absence of relationship between social participation and health may be attributed to the effect of peripheral factors like social, economical and political situation during which the research was performed. A similar study in a more stable time or other places may contribute to the generalizability of the findings.

Cognitive disorders are prevalent in the elderly. In recent years numerous studies have been conducted on the cognitive performance changes related to aging. Bilingualism affects cognitive processing during lifetime. Due to the large number of bilingual and elderly people in Iran, it is necessary to carry out studies on the cognitive performance of the elderly bilingual people. In this study, AMTs scale was used to compare the cognitive skills of the elderly bilingual and monolingual people. The results indicated elderly bilingual people had better cognitive performance than monolingual ones.