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: The applicability of any technology to enter a certain field is determined by defining the advantages and disadvantages of the system in that field. The aim of this study is to show the advantages and limitations of using speech recognition systems in health care and providing practical solutions to improve the acceptability of the system in that field.

 Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive research with a review method that employs library resources and online databases such as Proquest, Pubmed, Science Direct, Ovid and Scientific Information databases using key words like speech recognition software, health care, benefits, barriers, and solutions.

 Results: Speech recognition system has many advantages like increased accuracy of medical documentation, and reduced documentation time. It is a tool for data entry into electronic health records. However, there are several limitations in applying the system in Iran, such as the lack of definition of database system and the high cost of hardware and software.

 Conclusion: Considering the study results in relation to the benefits and limitations of systems in healthcare area, solutions such as production of a national integrated database for the exchange of health information, improving database to increase the accuracy of word recognition, and training the users of the system can reduce the limitations of the system to some extent. Also, in the country’s movement towards the implementation of electronic health records and the users’ need to enter data into the computer, the software is a good alternative to keyboard and mouse input.

Background and Aim: Cosmetic surgery rhinoplasty, has dramatically been increased during the last two decades. This study aims to explore its effects on the quality of life of individuals gone under the surgery.

Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive and analytical study which was performed as a cross-sectional study. From all plastic surgery clinics in Teheran, 25 clinics were selected randomly as the site of study. In the next step 110 patients undergone rhinoplasty were selected randomly from these clinics. Collected data was analyzed by Spss17.

Results: Findings revealed that, the mean score of quality of life before and after surgery was statistically significant. While mean score of general benefits increased the score of social support and physical health was decreased after the surgery. The most motivating factors for surgery were external factors. In addition there was a positive correlation between quality of life and the time of interview. Also the mean cost of surgery was increased.

Conclusion: Overall quality of life among study population was decreased. It could be because of unnecessary surgeries, medical errors, and etc. The reduction for social support may be resulted from unacceptable consequences of rhinoplasty particularly in terms of appearance. Physical health of respondents was negatively affected by rhinoplastiy surgery. Malfunctions of upper respiratory system after rhinoplastiy surgery is known as the main reason for it. Correlations between the times of surgery and interview suggest a long term assessment of impacts of such surgeries.