Journal of

Backgrounds and Aim: Self-care behaviors are an important aspect of Heart Failure (HF), management, Educating self-care behaviors to HF patients have to be a part of routine management of HF in hospitals and health care Centers. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of an educational intervention on self-care behaviors and its perceived benefits and barriers in patients with HF in Tehran.

Materials and Methods: This is was an interventional study. A Simple sampling was conducted on 180 outpatients (90 intervention group and 90 control group) with HF referring to Shaheed Rajaee Heart Hospital in Tehran to participate in this study. Before and 2 months after implementing the educational program through group discussion, face to face interview, educational movies and pamphlets, a self-prepared questionnaire was completed by the participants. Validity and reliability of the scales were approved. SPSS software was used for the purpose of data entry, manipulation, and analysis.

Results: After implementing the educational program, patients' self-care (74.5%) and perceived benefits (19.35%) were significantly increased (P<0.0001) and their perceived barriers (27.76%) were significantly decreased (P<0.0001). After intervention there was no significant difference in these variables in control group.

Discussion and Conclusion: In order to design effective educational programs, healthcare professionals and nurses should better understand self-care behaviors in HF patients and their determinants and develop educational interventions. Promoting perceived benefits and barriers of these behaviors are priorities of the program. Healthcare professionals and nurses applying such educational programs can have a more effective role in promoting self-care behaviors and consequently quality of life of HF patients.

Background and Aim: Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death and disabilities in the world. The purpose of the present study is to determine the perceived barriers and benefits of adopting health-promoting behaviors among individuals at risk of cardiovascular diseases referring to TUMS Teaching Hospitals in 2011.

Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study in which 325 patients at risk of cardiovascular diseases were randomly selected. The data were collected using a self-made questionnaire having three parts: 14 items for demographic and health-related variables, 12 items for perceived barriers, and another 12 items for benefits. For data analysis, SPSS 18 was used.

Results: The mean age of patients was 53.56±11.27 about 47.7% of patients(n=155) were female and 52.3% (n=170) were male. There was a meaningful relationship between the mean of perceived benefits on the one hand and occupation, physical activity, type and frequency of physical activity, smoking and awareness of cardiovascular diseases on the other(p0.001). Moreover, the mean of perceived barriers showed a meaningful relationship with occupation, smoking and awareness of cardiovascular diseases(p0.05).

Conclusion: The findings of the present study revealed that demographic and health-related variables could affect the perception of barriers and benefits of adopting certain behaviors for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, using interventional and educational approaches appropriate for target group features can help us take effective steps towards health promotion.

 Background and Aim: Nanomedicine is growing very fast. Transfer and commercialization of research results in Nanomedicine is a missing link between technology and market. This is affected by some factors which are barriers to commercialization. The aim of this study was to identify barriers to transfer and commercialize nanomedicine research results in Iran.

 Materials and Methods: The research method was qualitative method based on eight semi-structured in-depth interviews with nanomedicine and commercialization experts in year 2011 in Iran.

 Results: The proposed model of commercialization consisted of five distinct parts: transferor, transferee, transfer object, transfer mechanisms and environmental factors. In this study twenty six environmental factors in seven categories as Environmental Barriers to Transfer and Commercialization of Nanomedicine Research Results was identified.

 Conclusion: The most important barrier to nanomedicine commercialization in Iran are licensing system, lack of capital, and consumption culture.

Background and Aim: Nurses’ main tasks include the provision of healthcare services at the highest levels of quality and quantity standards, and based on the findings of scientific research. The aim of the present study is to identify and determine the barriers of evidence-based practice among nurses of Qazvin hospitals, in Iran, at 2013.

Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional research was a descriptive- analytic study conducted among 260 nurses practicing in six hospitals of Qazvin in 2013. The barriers scale questionnaire developed by Funk, et al. was used to examine the four dimensions of evidence-based practice (EBP) barriers including adopter, organization, innovation and communication characteristics. To analyze the data, descriptive and analytic statistics were used.

Results: The mean score of EBP barriers among subjects was 3.07 out of 4. Among the barriers, "organization" and "adopter" dimensions had the highest and lowest mean scores, respectively. There was no significant statistical relationship between gender and EBP performance, But a significant relationship was observed between organizational dimension with age, employment type and work experience.

Conclusion: Since “organization” was found to be the main  barrier to  the use of research in nursing performance, policy-makers and administrators should pay attention to the use of research in performance, the establishment of a research culture in organization, the creation of appropriate infrastructures, and the allocation of sufficient time to the nursing personnel to have access to evidences.