Background & Aim: Pain control in newborns is one of the important tasks, which produced many controversies in pediatric medicine. Nowadays, it is proposed the usage of non-pharmacologic pain control methods. This study has been done to investigate the effect of breast feeding on pain control in newborns.

Methods & Materials: A clinical trial was designed to evaluate analgesic effect of breast-feeding during injection of hepatitis B vaccine. 130 newborns had been referred for hepatitis B vaccination, were selected from Mirza Kochak Khan Hospital, Tehran, Iran. After describing the procedure was described the testimonial was took from parents. They were divided randomly in tow groups. In cases group, feeding was begun two minutes before injection and continued for 45 seconds. In the control group injection was made without breast feeding. Pain assessment was performed with Douler Aigue Nouveaune (DAN) scale.

Results: In the case group 35.4% of newborns got 4 points and no one got more than 7 points according to DAN scale. In contrast the control group 32.4% got 8 points or more and no one got less than 3 points. The mean of pain severity in case group was 3.5 and in control group was 6.7 and it show significant difference according to Mann-Whitney U test (p<0.0001).

Conclusion: This study shows that breast-feeding can significantly reduce pain in newborns. Therefore, we suggest this simple method generally for all painful procedure to prevent the development of possible permanent psychological effects in newborns.

  Background & Aim: Medication adherence affects the outcome of treatment in patients with epilepsy. Non adherence to the antiepileptic drugs in patients may result in exacerbation of seizure frequencies, higher health-care system costs and higher risk of morbidity and mortality . This study aimed to assess the medication adherence and its related factors in patients with epilepsy .

  Methods & Materials: In this cross-sectional study, we recruited 120 patients with epilepsy from the Iran Epilepsy Association using purposive sampling method. Data were gathered using a demographic checklist and the Morisky’s modified medication adherence questionnaire. Data were analyzed in the SPSS-16 . 

  Results: A total of 87.5%, 10.8% and 1.7% of the patients showed high, medium and low adherences, respectively. Being seizure-free for a period of time was the most cited reason of non-adherence (8.3%). There was a statistically significant relationship between the number of drugs and seizures with the medication adherence (P<0.05). The older people had more adherences to their medications. The patients, who had higher adherences, had experienced fewer seizures in the previous three months .

  Conclusion: The results showed high rates of medication adherences among the patients. Planning and implementing educational programs on medication regimens, emphasizing on necessity of continues use of antiepileptic drugs despite absence of seizures, can be useful in increasing the medication adherence .