Mahboubeh Askari, Esmaeil Jahanbakhsh, Asghar Mohamadi,
Volume 18, Issue 2 (9-2020)
Abstract
Background and Aim: Individualism is a mental and behavioral tendency that leads to individual autonomy in such a way that the individual's goals and desires are more important to him than the goals and desires of others; such a person considers himself responsible for his successes and failures. The main purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between lifestyle and individualism in women in Shiraz, Iran.
Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional correlational study conducted in Shiraz, Iran 2019 on a sample of 564 single women aged 25 to 49 years selected by a combination of appropriate and purposive stratified sampling methods. The data were collected using the horizontal and vertical individualism questionnaire of Triandis et al. and analyzed using the SPSS software version 25 at both the descriptive and analytical levels, the statistical test being the Pearson correlation coefficient test.
Results: The rate of individualism of the respondents was about 69%. Investigating the dimensions of individualism showed that the respondents' tendency to individualism in the dimension of prioritizing the individual activities of the individuals (78.15%) was higher than those of the other two dimensions. The lifestyle score of the respondents was 63.4%. Based on the Pearson correlation coefficient, there was a significant inverse relationship between the women's lifestyle in Shiraz and their individualism, which means that a better lifestyle can lead to a decrease in the women's individualism.
Conclusion: Based on the findings, there is an inverse relationship between lifestyle and the degree of individualism of women in Shiraz, Iran. Therefore, improving the lifestyle by focusing on the family and paying attention to its supportive dimensions can have a positive effect on reducing the individualism of this group.
Afsaneh Mosleh, Najmolmolook Amini, Masumeh Sehati, Maryam Soroush, Houra Askarian,
Volume 23, Issue 2 (9-2025)
Abstract
Background and Aim: Rationalizing drug use is a priority in drug policy-making. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the evaluation of prescriptions using drug prescribing indicators. Improving prescribing patterns leads to closer alignment with WHO indicators and, consequently, promotes rational drug use.
Materials and Methods: In this study, ten prescriptions were randomly selected from each pharmacy on a monthly basis. WHO prescribing indicators, including the average number of drug items per prescription and the percentage of prescriptions containing at least one antibiotic, one injectable drug, and one injectable corticosteroid, were calculated. The sample size of the prescriptions evaluated over eight consecutive years, stratified by network/center, was 4,800 in Shahr-e Rey, 14,520 in Eslamshahr, and 5,880 in the South Tehran Health Center.
Results: The average number of drug items per prescription ranged from a minimum of 2.5 to a maximum of 3.99, showing a considerable difference from the WHO-recommended average of 1.7. The percentage of prescriptions containing at least one antibiotic fluctuated from 33.36% to 63.93%, which was substantially higher than the WHO-recommended average of 20.3%.
Additionally, the percentage of prescriptions containing at least one injectable drug ranged from 23.7% to 44.9%, differing markedly from the WHO-recommended average of 18.75%.
Conclusions: Rationalizing drug use should be prioritized in drug policies. Adopting a principled prescription-writing model based on WHO indicators can serve as an appropriate criterion for evaluating physicians’ prescriptions at the primary health care (PHC) level.
