Journal of

 Background and Aim: Today, many families either have pets or work in animal husbandry units. It is very important to investigate the mental outcomes of animal care and also to study their keepers’ personality traits. This study aims to perform a comparative examination of owners’ mental health and character specifications or those of animal husbandry units’ personnel.

 Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, about 500 people were selected through available sampling technique. They had contact with animals or worked in a husbandry unit in the suburbs of Tehran. After referring to the veterinary clinic of Tehran University, they were studied using a general health questionnaire and an international personality question bank. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software as well as multivariate and follow-up tests.

Results: The results of the present study show that all general mental health sub-scales except for anxiety are different in these groups. However, no difference was observed regarding responsibility and extroversion. Meanwhile, the adaptability of dog owners was lower than that of sheep owners moreover, cattlemen were more irritable than sheep owners.

Conclusion : In sum, the mental health of pet owners of the present study is at a lower level compared to that of those in other countries. It seems that the difference is due to religious and cultural differences existing between the two.

Background and Aim: For more than forty years, telemental health services have been used as a successful mean in various fields such as treatment and preventive interventions. This study was aimed to determine the viewpoints of health information management (HIM), and mental health professionals about telemental health services for veterans with mental disorders.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2013. The study population consisted of two groups: the first group included mental health professionals working in psychiatric hospitals in Tehran and the second group comprised HIM professionals. The data were collected using a questionnaire that its validity was confirmed by experts and the reliability was estimated through test-retest method. The data analysis was performed using SPSS 17.0 and descriptive statistics.

Results: The findings showed that from the mental health experts' viewpoints, highest impact of the use of telemental health services related to medical travel costs with average 4.37 and the lowest impact replacement with the face to face treatment with average 2.68.

Conclusion: In general, the groups participating in this study stated that in situations where access to care was difficult, telemental health services could be used as a reliable alternative for the war disabled care needs. Therefore, it is suggested that Iranian foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs and the health system administrators take more serious measures for the implementation of telemedicine for veterans.