Journal of School of Public Health and

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Background and Aim: Puberty is a critical period in a woman's life. An important step in strategies designed to promote family and community health is determination of girls' health priorities and needs assessment at puberty. This study aims to illustrate the efficiency of need assessment approach in exploring and comparing the viewpoints of mothers, teachers and adolescent girls on girls' pubertal health in the context of the school. The findings would help plan better programs aiming at changing the heatlh behaviour of girls.
Materials and Methods: In this qualitative study 12 guidance school girls, 12 mothers and 7 teachers from District 6, Tehran were selected to participate in focus group discussions to prepare a semi-structured questionnaire. The content analysis method was used to analyze the results of discussions with the participants and complete the final questionnaire.
Results: The findings reveal the efficiency of the need assessment approach as follows: a wide discrepancy in viewpoints of the three study groups was identified in terms of pubertal health priorities, health needs of the girls, and pubertal health educational priorities. In addition, the results show a lack of a notion of comprehensive sex health education in the school.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that the need assessment approach is a useful way to plan and implement appropriate health education programs for adolescent girls.

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Background and aim: Oral and dental diseases limit an individual&aposs activities at the school, work place and home, leading to a loss of millions of work and school hours all over the world. The period of adolescence is critical as regards shaping of healthy behaviors related to oral and dental diseases. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe school pupils&apos viewpoints on factors influencing development of dental caries.  

Materials and Methods: A qualitative study with a content analysis approach was conducted to collect the perspectives of 18 Iranian students in 8 guidance schools selected by purposive sampling. Structured and semi-structured interviews were held to collect data. An informed consent was obtained and the interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data was analyzed through an inductive approach of content analysis. In order to support the validity and rigor of the data, different criteria such as acceptability, confirmability and transferability were utilized.

Results: Data analysis could identify four major factors influencing dental caries development: "family interactions in dental health", "role of school in caring for teeth", "role of dentists in caring for teeth" and "effect of education in caring for teeth". The factors influencing caring for teeth and mouth had a greater significance.

Conclusion: The students&apos experiences, as observed in this study, can help in developing mutual trust between students and dentists, delivering better services in schools by relevant organizations, and designing more effective oral health interventions, with due consideration of vital role of the parents.

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  Background and Aim: Women perceive menopause differently. Beside biological changes, women experience menopause based on the cultural scenarios. The qualitative research presented here is about how Iranian women perceive menopause within cultural scenarios.

  Materials and Methods : Data was collected during 4 focus group sessions and 6 individual in-depth interviews of women aged 40 years and older. Informants were selected from the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The sessions were facilitated by using a semi-structured inventory focus group. Content analysis was adopted using combined free and analytical coding to reduce data, to extract meanings, to categorize domains and to obtain themes .

  Results: We categorized our findings into four main domains: gender role, the changes in socialization, social interactions and supporting resources. Descriptions of the later domain are going to be reported in subsequent manuscript.

  Conclusion: The women's understandings of menopause are shaped based on the specific cultural scenarios. Menopause recognized as a factor which changes women’s life line. Meanings as 'Loosing femininity' and 'changes in women's roles in the community' describe women's gender role, social interactions and changes in the socialization throughout the menopause years. The women’s misconceptions, accumulated myths, and ignorance about femininity were evidenced based on narratives. The majority of women raised ‘role change’ as an important determinant in social interactions. Gender role changes as well as women's socialization patterns have forced women to accept loosing femininity as a reality. Developing comprehensive and culturally sensitive health services to address women's needs in the climacteric years is suggested .

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  Background: Sexually transmitted infections are one of the most prevalent infections all over the world that impose significant morbidity on people. There are an increasing number of sexually transmitted infections in Islamic Republic of Iran during recent years. So developing and implementing programs for STIs prevention and control is considered as a health priority. While the role of gender based power in sexual relationships has in recent years been acknowledged, the understanding has largely lacked practical considerations in the STIs/HIV/AIDS prevention fields. This study aims to explore gender sensitive STIs/HIV/AIDS prevention services concepts and dimensions.

  Method : This study employed content analyzes research design. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 37 expert reproductive health managers and providers that selected purposively and then continued by snow ball method. Data collected by using semi-structured interview guide. The interviews were transcribed and typed. Data was analyzed according to content analysis.

  Results: 2 categories emerged as the result of data content analysis: 1) gender sensitive structure including employers, facilities and management dimensions 2) gender sensitive process including care and educational processes.

  Conclusion: providing gender sensitive STIs/HIV/AIDS prevention services need gender sensitive management, facilities and providers and gender sensitive care and educational design.

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  Background and Aim: Health-risk behaviors are socially constructed and influenced by the given culture. Therefore, the health-risk behaviors are prioritized differently in diverse cultures. In this study, we aimed to explore the priority of health risk behaviors among high school students in Tehran.

  Materials and Methods : In this qualitative study using rapid assessment approach, we interviewed 130 individuals who voluntarily participated in the focus group discussions (FGDs, n=17). They were students (n=9 FGDs), the parents (n=5 FGDs), and the teachers (n=3 FGDs). Four of the principals were individually interviewed. Interviews focused on (1) perceptions about and description of healthy or unhealthy behaviors (2) priority of health risk behaviors in adolescents (3) perceptions and beliefs about the formation of the risk behaviors among adolescents. All sessions were embarked on the public schools located in the area five in West Tehran. After obtaining a written consent form from the participants, primary investigators and three of the trained facilitators (male and female) conducted the sessions. We employed content analysis to extract the major themes and sub-themes. The rigor of the data was obtained.

  Results : Addiction, risky sexual behavior, and social misconduct ion (aggression) were identified as the main concerns for the boys. Risky sexual behavior, early marriage, eating unhealthy habits, physical motionless, and fear of the future (job, education, marriage) were identified as the main health-risk behaviors for the girls.

  Conclusion : According to our findings, health risk behaviors are classified differently for boys and girls. However, sexual risk behaviors are common findings for both groups. The adolescents' risky behaviors are formed throughout their socialization and seriously influenced by the given culture. Understanding of gender schema was identified as an important factor in the way participants do priority health-risk behaviors of young people. Comprehensive and holistic health education and promotion programs targeting adolescents as well as training programs for parents are suggested.