Social Determinants of Health

Health is the result of dynamic and complicated relationships and deals with non-linear and non-predictable procedures. Nowadays, the health section cannot solely solve its challenges. Changing the load of diseases toward noncommunicable diseases all over the world including developing countries, and the fact that development of such diseases has complicated mechanisms and is dependent on several factors made us consider the importance of doing some health based interferences in other sections more than before (1,2).

Background: An increase in Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) frequency was observed over the past three decades in low- and middle income countries, especially in Iran. The purpose of the present study was to review and compare the frequencies of conventional and some non-conventional CVD risk factors between men and women in a tertiary level referral cardiovascular teaching hospital in a six month period in the North of Iran.

  Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using medical databases including conventional risk factors: opium consumption, physical inactivity, high salt diet, and serum vitamin D level. The chi-square and independent t tests were used to assess the differences between groups.

  Results: A total of 740 (55% women) who had available full medical history data were recruited in the study. Approximately 62% of the participants were older than 45 years with the mean age of 54 (14.2) years old. Percentages of hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and obesity in women were significantly higher than those of men (P<0.05). A total of 50% of all the participants were physically inactive. Men had higher frequency of opium and saltshaker use than women (P<0.05).

  Conclusion: The current study indicated that despite the importance of conventional CVD risk factors like diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity, educational programs should be considered to improve physical activity and reducing salt consumption and awareness about opium use complications.

Abstract

Background:Suicide is a major problem world-wide. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of suicide in East Azerbaijan province, Iran.

Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted from 2010 to 2011. We analysed some characteristics of the cases of suicide based on the health system database. Variables such as demographics, outcomes (fatal/nonfatal), and methods used were recorded. Data were analysed using Chi-square as well as T-test.

Results: A total of 3,768 reported cases of suicide were analysed. More cases were reported by married than single people. The incidence rate of suicide was 101.3 per 100,000. Most of the attempted suicides occurred in younger people. Attempted suicide in women (63.7%) was higher than men (36.3%). The most frequent method of suicide in both sexes was drug overdose. There was a statistically significant relationship between suicide’s outcome and gender, job, marital status and education (p<0.001). The case fatality rate among males was significantly higher than females (OR=3.7, 95% CI: 2.5–5.8). Hanging (72.3%) and drug overdose (0.9%) had the highest and lowest case fatality rate, respectively. Drug overdose was slightly more frequent among women than men (91.3% versus 84.2%). The rate of poisoning increased gradually until the age-group 45-54 years. Drug overdose was more prevalent among single than married people.

Conclusions: Due to the high incidence of completed suicide, it is recommended to establish counselling centres for mental ill-health, especially a suicide hotline with appropriate availability to all population.

Background: Along with the prospers of scientific production there is a need for measuring and evaluation of university’ s scientific productions by means of accepted international indices to make comparison between academic institutions. This study aims to evaluate the scientific production of faculty members affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMUS) in Web of Science from 2011 to 2014.

Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences from last updated list of faculty members based on human source management of the university was evaluated. The evaluation criteria was total number of the articles, total number of the articles between 2011-2014, total article’s citations, total article’s citations between 2011-2014 and H Index was extracted from the Web of Science webpage.

Results:

Totally 1300 faculty members had been evaluated in the study. Scientific productions had an increasing trend from 2011 to 2014. There had been 6445 articles and 41120 citations with a Mean (SD) of 4.96 (1.22) and 31.63 (122.5) respectively. Mean H Index of the university was 2.2. School of Pharmacy had the highest H Index score (4.9).

Conclusion:

There has been an increasing trend in scientific production of SBMUS in Web of Science data base. As Iran is between the first three high ranked countries in the Middle East in based scientometric indices, monitoring of scientific production by yearly intervals seems necessary.

Keywords: Cross-Sectional Studies; Faculty; Universities

Background: The present study was conducted to determine the inhibiting factors of research activities among the faculty members of Islamic Azad University.

  Methods: In the present cross-sectional study, conducted between 2009-2013, 300 faculty members of Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, were selected following stratified random sampling method. Data collection instrument was a questionnaire comprising 20 questions about their research activities and 22 questions about their unwillingness to perform research activities.

  Results: A total of 254 faculty members participated in the present study. About 15% of the participants were female. The findings of the current study showed that a) lack of physical space for work, study, and research, b) unfamiliarity with the searching methods on the Internet, and c) lack of sufficient familiarity with research methods and Statistics were the most important obstacles for the participant to carry out research projects.

  Conclusion: Supporting the researcher financially and spiritually, considering the priorities and research needs, honoring the social status of faculty members, creating a calm and active environment for them, and removing encumbering administrative rules and regulations can help faculty members become eager to join in scientific research projects.