Journal of

Background and Aim : The Prevalence of AIDS is increasing in the World. To prevent, most scientists believe in public education. It seems that the quality of learning extensively depends on the quality of education. Since teaching method is one of the most important factors, we decided to compare the effect of three methods on the level of knowledge abut AIDS among high school students in Gorgan, northern Iran.

Materials and Methods: This pre-excremental study was carried out on 88 randomly selected junior high school students in Gorgan, Iran. The subjects were asked to fill out the questionnaire before and after the two-week treatment. The data were analyzes by t-test and Tooki Test.

Results: There was no significant different between control and pre and pamphlet group. While in both lecture group and combined group (lecture and pamphlet), the difference was significant .Using Tooki test, the difference between control and lecture group and between control and combined group was significant (P<0.05).

Conclusions: In order to increase the student's knowledge about AIDS, According lecture method accompanying with pamphlet is one of the best procedures.

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.

Backgrounds and Aim: Physical activity is one of lifestyle components. 2010 report of health people indicates that physical activity in young people is a high priority of health. A youth attends to maintenance self physical activity till adulthood, since lifestyle is forming mainly in this period. Insufficient physical activity and inactivity with unhealthy nutrition causes chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, ostheoporoses , etc.

Materials and Methods: This study was an interventional educational upon female school students in Tonkabon in 2008 in two groups, intervention and control (each group 300). Data gathering tools included demographic, knowledge/attitude and practice assessment questionnaires. First knowledge ,attitude and practice of whole students was assessed.Then the interventional educational programe: 8 hours education (weekly sessions, every session one hour), lecture, question and answer ,pamphelet, and movies about advantages and disadvantages of physical activity and the nessecity of continuing till the future was done. After two month of intervention ,two groups were compared in knowledge,attitude and practice.The data were analized with SPSS and STATA.

Results: After the intervention, there was a significant increase in mean of knowledge, attitude and practice, in intervention group compared to control group (p<0.05). Educational intervention caused 15 score on knowledge ,5 score on attitude and 1.6 score on practice improvement. Among effective factors variable Such as :mothers literacy and fathers job affected knowledge ,and level of literacy affected attitude , and mothers education affected practice of student.

Discussion and Conclusion: Physical activity is one of the lifestyle components and in young people is a high priority of health. This study shows that Educational intervention caused improvement on knowledge attitude, and practice.

Background and Aim: Elderly is a physiological phenomenon with many inevitable complications, which their effects significantly can be reduced by individual's life style. Therefore in this study we have evaluated the impact of subjects' knowledge on their lifestyle.

Materials and Methods: This study was a semi experimental and interventional one that has been conducted in Urmia University of Medical Science. Thus 200 women between 54 to 80 years old were enrolled in this study and their knowledge, attitude and behavior toward a healthy lifestyle was surveyed before and 6 months after giving them a proper education. Subsequently the required information gathered from questionnaires and the data analyzed by mcmanaman paired and t paired tests. In this study all data analyzed by SPSS software and the P value lessu than 0.05 recognized to be statistically significant.

Results: The scores of before and 6 months after subjects get the required education were 29.165.86 vs. 34.266.32 respectively (P<0.001). This significant difference demonstrates the positive impact of life style education on attitude, behavior and knowledge of individuals in respect to their lifestyle. These results were even more magnificent comparing the literate and illiterate subjects.

Conclusion: Based on our study we conclude that education has an important positive role in all elder groups improving their lifestyle.

Background and Aim: Theses are considered as one of the sources for research in the field of education. The aim of this study was to determine the popular topics during 1349-1389 (1970-2010) and to examine the amount of educational interference and the type of such interference in different theses.

Materials and Methods: This research study was done using the descriptive-analytic method and employing the content analysis technique. The choice of topics was based on the categories derived from the Medical Headings of the American National Library. All related theses (336 in this field) were reviewed and the data were analyzed by SPSS software.

Results: In this review, most finished theses belonged to Tehran University of Medical Sciences (62.5%), Tarbiat Modares University (25.3%), and Iran University of Medical Sciences (12.2%). MSc theses were mainly about diseases (23.8%) however, doctoral dissertations were mostly about the prevention of diseases(26.2%).

Conclusion: Although in the recent decade, there has been an increase in new topics and educational interference in theses, some important issues like the training of patients are still neglected. It seems that some strategies like preparing a suitable information bank of thesis in the field of health education can be a good guide for selecting new topics and ignoring old ones.

Background and Aim: Nowadays, because of the intense competition between nutrition consultants and rapid changes in patients' demands for nutrition counseling, application of the concepts such as "Entrepreneurial Opportunities Recognition" in this field seems unavoidable. One of the most commonly used methods for recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities is "Strategic Analysis of External Environment". Present survey has been conducted in order to study the impact of nutrition consultants' educational level on their strategic analysis about entrepreneurial opportunities.

Materials and Methods: This analytical survey was implemented based on the data (nutrition consultants' educational levels and their responses regarding the supply and demand for nutrition counseling services) which was collected during a previous study entitled ((Analysis of supply and demand trends in the field of diabetes nutrition counseling: A basic step towards identifying the entrepreneurial opportunities for nutrition consultants)). Also, ((Spearman's correlation test)) and ((GLM multivariate test)) were performed for the analysis of aforementioned data.

Results: Both statistical tests showed that nutrition consultants' educational levels (including 1- Bachelor of Science and 2- Master of Science and PhD) had significant relationship with two-thirds of their comments.

Conclusion: Nutrition consultants' educational level has a relative impact on their strategic analysis about the entrepreneurial opportunities.

Background and Aim: Stewardship and delivery of health services are considered as the most important areas in the healthcare system of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1404. This study was conducted to investigate the main challenges in medical education stewardship because of its importance in the management and leadership of education from the viewpoint of education process providers.

Materials and Methods: This qualitative research was conducted using thematic and framework analyses to obtain the collective view of faculty members of Medical Sciences Universities in Iran. The data were collected applying deep semi-structured interviews. To increase the acceptability of the study, four criteria of Lincoln and Gupta were used. Codes, categories and themes were extracted by expert researchers of qualitative studies who had no conflict of interests with the topic.

Results: Of the 24 faculty members interviewed, 7 were females and 17 were males. They comprised 5 full professors, 8 associate professors, 9 assistant professors and 2 lecturers. The findings of the interviews were categorized in three main lines of stewardship in health system in the form of main and sub themes so that there were 2, 2 and 5 main themes in each line, respectively.

Conclusion : Since many of the challenges extracted from the present interviews are considered as essential interventions for achieving the stewardship functions of health system -- and, as a result, medical education -- , it is important to pay more attention to these challenges and at the same time conduct more complete studies to get more practicable solutions to these problems.

Background and Aim: Development of information and communication technology has led to enormous changes in different areas. Electronic medical records system is valuable to access patient data in hospitals. This study aimed to investigate and compare the educational hospitals of Uemia University of Medical Sciences in case of technical, organizational and legal to establish the system.

Materials and Methods: The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study population consisted of 98 senior and central managers. In this study population census was used and the entire population were considered as the sample. A questionnaire was used for data collection, which included two sections in order to determine the level of research community awareness and to analyze the standards related requirements for the implementation of the system. Validity and reliability were assessed and the data was analyzed by SPSS.

Results: Sample awareness in 5 hospitals of this study was moderate. In terms of requirements, there was a significant difference between the means of Electronic Medical Records in terms of three variables between hospitals "D" and the rest of the hospitals. And no significant difference was seen among other hospitals.

Conclusion : Three hospitals, "a", "c" and "b", among five studied hospitals are in preparation for the deployment of electronic medical records. Other two hospitals were not prepared. However, the implementation of electronic medical records, increases health care quality, patient safety and patient care and also decreases health costs. So it is suggested that hospitals do necessary efforts to establish EMR.

Background and Aim: Recognition of expectations and perceptions of customers is essential for quality improvement . The aim of this study was to determine the quality gap of educational services in the viewpoints of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) educational administrators, faculty members and medical students.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at TUMS in 2012 among educational administrators, faculty members and students of medicine. A total of 384 students, 384 faculty members and 83 administrators were selected randomly. The five-dimensional SERVQUAL questionnaire was applied for data collection. The educational services quality gap was determined based on the differences between administrators , faculty members and students΄ perceptions and expectations. Descriptive and analytic (one-way ANOVA) statistics were performed using SPSS v.18.

Results: The results show that there is a negative quality in all five dimensions of educational services quality. Among all three groups of students, faculty members and administrators, the maximum means of quality gap pertained the dimension of “responsiveness” (-1.42,-1.17,-1.09, respectively) the minimum figures, however, were related to “confidence” (-1.07,-0.87,-0.77, respectively).

Conclusion : In all aspects, students, faculty members and administrators’ expectations were higher than their perception of the current situation. To reduce the gap, it is recommended that attention be paid to all aspects of service quality, particularly to the responsiveness dimension. Also, better planning to serve employees and enhancing their communication skills are suggested as ways to reduce the educational services quality gap.

Background and Aim: In order to develop teaching competencies and prepare PhD candidates for future roles as faculty members of medical schools, the present study conducted to determine PhD candidates` educational needs and their skills concerning teaching competencies.

Materials and Methods: The present study was a descriptive- analytical and cross-sectional study that was conducted in year 2011. The Study population was PhD candidates who studied in Health School of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. In the present study a “Teaching Competencies Assessment” questionnaire was used that included 2 part s the demographic information and 16- items of educational competencies and needs. The validity and reliability of th e questionnaire was approved by alpha Cronbach’s coefficient (educational need 94% & educational skill 87%). Data analysis was conducted using SPSS.

Results: The result of the present study showed that teaching skills of PhD candidates were at “familiar without implementation capability” level. The lowest candidate s` skill was “Student Assessment” field. The candidates had educational needs in all 16 areas of teaching skill fields (3.85:5). “Lecture Presentation” (4.1:5), “logical structure of Presentation” (4.02:5) and “Motivating methods” (4.01:5) fields were the highest educational needs of PhD candidates.

Conclusion: The results of the present study confirmed the need for systematic planning in order to develop teaching competencies and prepare PhD candidates for teaching role in future.

Background and Aim: Employee involvement and organizational adaptability are two key factors towards success in almost all organizations. Hospital managers must pay special attention to these two variables and always try to improve them. The present research, therefore, studies the relationship between employee involvement (empowerment, team orientation, and capability development) and organizational adaptability (creating change, customer focus, and organizational learning) in the educational hospitals of Kerman.

Materials and Methods: The population of this quantitative study includes all staff members of Kerman’s educational hospitals, estimated about 1370 individuals. A sample of 302 subjects was systematically selected based on Krejcie and Morgan’s table of sample size. The data collection tool was a questionnaire and the data were analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and Schefe post hoc test.

Results: According to the findings, employee involvement and organizational adaptability -- and their related indices -- were at an acceptable level and were almost equal to those of international organizations. Moreover, there was a positive and significant relationship between these two main variables and their related indices.

Conclusion: The results of this study can help hospital managers to verify the present situation of organizational adaptability and organizational involvement and their relationship. These findings could help hospitals to predict change priorities and select better strategies.

Background and Aim: InterProfessional Education (IPE) and collaboration is an inseparable part of professional team work to render efficient patient care. In addition, the readiness of medical students to take part in InterProfessional (IP) activities and considering IPE in undergraduate medical curriculum positively affects the IPE. This descriptive cross-sectional study aims to adapt the RIPLS for these contexts.

Materials and Methods: Permission to translate the questionnaire was secured from its developers (Parsell and Bligh). The questionnaire was translated to Persian and its face and content validity was confirmed by an expert panel (N=10). The adapted version was distributed among a random group of senior medical students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (N=40). Finally, Test- retest was performed and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was applied to assess reliability and internal consistency of the instrument. The Cronbach’s alpha’s cut-off point was 0.7 in this study.

Results: Experts confirmed face and content validity of the questionnaire, and it was internally consistent. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.92. The intra-class correlation (ICC) was above 0.7 in each subscale.

Conclusion: This study indicates that Farsi version of RIPLS questionnaire is valid and reliable and it can be used to assess interprofessional readiness in Iranian contexts.

Background and Aim: Today, regarding the role of accurate final information, and decision-making, designing and implementation of a sound costing system that can detect, identify and calculate the exact cost of the delivered services is of great importance. The aim of this study is to estimate the final cost of student education in the School of Allied Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, through Activity-Based Costing method in 2013.

Materials and Methods: This research was a descriptive and applied study. The study population included School of Allied Medicine. The consumed costs in financial year 2012-2013 was investigated with costs classification, and finalized costs by activity based costing method. After identification of calculated costs and changed to allocation costs, The accumulated costs according to shared basic principle was given to all of delivered services. Finally, the finalized costs for student education based on the number and kind of courses collected and calculated by Excel software 2010.

Results: The results indicated that the final cost for student education in PhD-level was 118,312,679 Rials, which was the highest amount, and was 76,714,824 Rials in MSc. level, and the lowest amount was related to BSc. student as 42,312,537 Rials.

Conclusion: Paying attention to activity-based costing system with complete flexibility reveals the drawbacks of the traditional programs used by universities. The reason for higher costs in higher levels is due to the fewer number of students, particular facilities in these level and their own special expenses