Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Medical errors are those mistakes committed by healthcare professionals due to wrong execution of a planned healthcare action or execution of a wrong healthcare action plan whether or not it is harmful to the patient. Medical errors may cause patients to suffer and have huge financial costs for the healthcare system. Identifying and measuring medical errors and adverse events are essential for improving patient safety. The objectives of this research were to measure medical errors and adverse events rates, to identify their severity and also analyze their underlying causes in a general educational hospital in Tehran, Iran by using The Global Trigger Tool.
Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional, and retrospective approach was used in this study. The medical records of 377 hospitalized patients between April 2015 and March 2016 were examined using simple random sampling method. Patient’s records were reviewed by a nurse using The Global Trigger Tool. Then, a physician authenticated the findings of the adverse events and rated their severity. The causes of adverse events were identified using brain storming and Ishikawa Cause And Effect Diagram.

Background: Currently many hospitals around the country face increasing demands of their patients and readmission.The rate of readmission is a useful indicator for determining the performance of healthcare system and it shows the quality of services in the medical institutions. Readmissions have high economic, social and financial impact and studying the related factors seems to be high priority for healthcare systems.
Methods: This qualitative study performed by phenomenological method in three educational hospitals in Kerman from April to September of 2017. Data collection was performed through semi-structured interviews using targeted sampling among all patients who were hospitalized at internal medicine wards, nurses who were working in those wards, and in charge physicians. In total twenty patients, fifteen nurses, and five physicians were selected for interviews. The including criteria were for patients, the history of hospitalization at least once, during one month after the initial hospitalization, and for service providers, familiarity with the subject, work experience in the relevant department of at least three years for nurses and five years for physicians. A seven-step clustering method was used to analyze the data.
Results: The analysis of the interviews led to the identification of three main themes and 11 sub-themes. The main themes included patients' characteristics, manpower and clinical factors, hospital, and environmental factors. Some of the sub-codes included economic and living conditions, marriage status, insurance coverage, patients' beliefs and expectations, the presence or absence of underlying disease, education, lifestyle habits, dietary beliefs of hospitalized patients, lack of trust in medical staff, communication and cultural barriers, ignorance of service providers in treatment, lack of facilities, lack of motivation in medical staff, stressors and finally lack of hospital equipment.

Background: Patient satisfaction is considered as one of the most important elements of the evaluation of healthcare centers. In this research, the level of satisfaction of infertile patients was evaluated.
Methods: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study. The research population is infertile patients who referred to the infertility clinic (at least 4 visits) and hospitalized in four hospitals affiliated with the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The satisfaction questionnaire was valid researcher-made which included 56 questions in 9 areas, and were collected from May 2021 to September 2022. In order to comply with the ethical principles in research, hospitals were named 1-4.The results were analyzed using the chi-square test or Fisher's exact test for qualitative variables and analysis of variance for quantitative variables in SPSS software, version 24 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, US).
Results Three hundred–four infertile women in four hospitals were studied. The mean age of the participants was 33.8 years, with a standard deviation of 5.8 years. The average satisfaction with admission and discharge services, medical services, nutrition, accounting, and insurance services in the number-1 Hospital had the highest score, and the average satisfaction with nursing or midwifery services, diagnostic and therapeutic services (radiology/laboratory), hospital services, charter patient rights, management services, paid expenses in Hospital 4 received the most points. The mean score of satisfaction was the highest among those who visited the infertility clinic of Hospital 3 (161.54±21.41). Average satisfaction with admission and discharge services, medical services, nutrition, accounting, and insurance services in Hospital No. 1 had the highest score, and average satisfaction with nursing or midwifery services, medical diagnostic services (radiology/laboratory), hospital services, respecting the patient's rights, management services, paid expenses in hospital number 4 got the most points. The average of nursing or midwifery services, respecting the patient's rights, and hotelling in all hospitals received the highest score, respectively, and nutrition services and paid expenses received the lowest points (most dissatisfaction) (P<0.05).

Conclusion: The level of satisfaction of women referring to the infertility clinic in 35.9% of cases was considered to be at an appropriate and exceptional level, in 49.3% of cases it was at a partially appropriate level, and in 14.8% at an inappropriate level.

Methods: The systematic review study was conducted from 11 July 2023 to 04 February 2024 in Zahedan, Iran. To extract articles on fungal infections, the vocabulary of selected Medical Subjects Headings (Mesh), other specialized literature was determined and a search strategy was formulated in three databases, Web Science, Scopus, and PubMed, without any time limitation. In addition, the articles were analyzed according to the research objectives, types of fungal infections encountered in immunocompromised patients, their incidence in different immunocompromised patient groups, diagnostic and detection strategies, treatment methods and other background information. Results: A 15 number of related articles were included. The most common type of study was case report. From the lens of Aspergillus and mucormycosis fungal infections, they were given more attention, and in terms of the type of immunodeficiency, patients with a history of diabetes, including groups of diabetic patients, cancer groups, AIDS patients, and some groups with genetic disorders, were investigated in the studies. Appropriate treatment methods; particularly the use of corticosteroid drugs such as methylprednisolone as intravenous injection, systemic antifungal drugs such as liposomal amphotericin B, Antifungal treatment using high-dose amphotericin B, the use of prophylactic drugs, and isolation of the damaged tissue are recommended as the best treatment strategies. In order to prevent fungal infections in groups of Immunocompromised Patients, it is recommended to use simple hygiene Recommendations. Conclusion: Analyzing the conditions of cocvid-19 patients and recognizing effective treatment strategies is inevitable, especially in the post- COVID era. A review of the literature showed that prevention and control of fungal infections after covid-19 was critical among immunodeficiency patients and the use of the recommended treatment method for their lifecycle continuity should be more considered by health care providers, health system managers and health policy makers.

Results: In this study, the results showed that out of 1901 studied patients, 1101(57.9) were male and the rest were female 801(42.1), And the average age of the patients was 61.67±17.13 years, and 1160(60.9) patients did not have drug interactions and 724(39.01) had drug interactions, and the most common type of drug interaction was the moderate type, which was present in 75.1% of cases; And the final clinical outcome of the patients was 1088(57.2) discharge, 296(15.5) personal consent discharge and 506(26.6) death. Also, the most common drug interactions were serotide/salbutamol, azithromycin/ondansetron, and aspirin/nitroglycerin, respectively. And there was no significant relationship between the occurrence of drug interactions and the gender of patients (P=0.27) and finally, the average age of patients with drug interactions was 17.7±61.2 years and in patients without drug interactions was 16.7±61.9 years. Conclusion: The overall incidence of drug interactions in the studied patients was equal to 39.01, and the most common drug interactions in patients were of moderate and mild type; and there was no statistically significant relationship between the age of the patients and the gender of the patients and the incidence of drug interactions.

 

Background: Although the respiratory system is the main element involved in the disease of COVID-19, nevertheless, there are reports of the involvement of other organs and their lesser symptoms. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with COVID-19.
Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on all patients diagnosed with COVID-19 hospitalized in Imam Khomeini Hospital from April to September 2021 by census method. The data was collected using a checklist that included demographic information. After the data was collected, it was entered into SPSS software, version 18 (IBM SPSS, Armonk, NY, USA) and analyzed with the help of descriptive statistics.

Results: In this study, the results showed that out of 2580 hospitalized patients, 54% were women and 46% were men. And the average age of the patients was 58.67±17.68. The highest frequency of people was in the age range of 40-59 years (925 people). 64% of patients had at least one gastrointestinal symptom, Each of the symptoms had a different prevalence, Anorexia 40% with a preference for men (57%) and the highest frequency in the age range of 40-59 years (430 people), gastrointestinal bleeding 10% with a preference for men (80%), And the highest frequency in the age range of 60-79 years (112 people), abdominal pain 8% with preference for women (65%) with preference for frequency in the age range of 40-59 years (65 people), vomiting 3% with preference for women (51%) with abundance in the age range of 80-99 years (58 people), diarrhea 1.5% with preference in men (51%) with abundance in the age range of 60-79 years (18 people) and constipation in 0.2% with preference Women (67%), all of whom were over 60 years old. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the COVID-19 disease can not only involve the respiratory system but also the digestive system in the course or beginning of the disease.

Background: Diabetic retinopathy is one of the main causes of blindness in the world and one of the causes of disability in diabetic patients. However, no study has been conducted in Iran to Comparison of Quality of Life between Diabetic Patients With and Without Retinopathy.
Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 183 diabetic patients referred to the Jahrom Honari Clinic from October to February 2023. The patients were divided into two groups: diabetic patients without retinopathy complications and diabetic patients with retinopathy complications. The data collection tool included two demographic information questionnaires and a quality of life questionnaire (DQOL-BCI). The data of the two groups and subgroups were compared and analyzed using SPSS version 21 software and descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistical tests (chi-square, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient) at a significance level of P<0.05.
Results: The majority of diabetic patients participating in the study in the group with retinopathy (70.3%) and the group without retinopathy (75%) were male. The groups of Diabetic Patients With and Without Retinopathy did not differ significantly from each other in terms of demographic variables and were similar. There was a significant difference between Diabetic Patients With and Without Retinopathy in terms of average quality of life (P>0.001). The mean quality of life in the group of diabetic patients with retinopathy (41.19±7.97) was higher than that of the group of diabetic patients without retinopathy (37.22±7.37). There was no significant difference between the mean quality of life and demographic variables in diabetic patients without retinopathy and diabetic patients with retinopathy (P<0.001).
Conclusion: That patients with retinopathy had a higher quality of life than the group without retinopathy. These results were obtained while none of the demographic variables such as age, gender, marital status, and education level had a significant relationship with the quality of life of these patients.

Background: This study aimed to evaluate serum amylase levels in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and investigate its association with disease prognosis. Elevated serum amylase levels have been reported in some COVID-19 patients, particularly in severe cases. This increase may indicate pancreatic involvement (pancreatitis) due to viral infection. This cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the role of serum amylase levels as a prognostic marker in COVID-19 patients.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 at Baharloo Hospital, Tehran, over a one-year period (July 2021–July 2022). The results showed that 20% of patients (30 out of 150) had elevated serum amylase levels. Patients with high amylase levels had significantly longer hospital stays (mean 14 days vs. 8 days) and higher mortality rates (15% vs. 5%). Additionally, these patients were more likely to require intensive care (25% vs. 10%). Statistical analysis revealed that elevated serum amylase levels were independently associated with poorer clinical outcomes.
Results: These results have important clinical implications for patient management. Routine measurement of serum amylase at admission could help identify high-risk patients who may benefit from closer monitoring and early intervention. Further research is needed to determine whether specific treatments for pancreatic involvement could improve outcomes in these patients.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that measuring serum amylase levels at admission can serve as a simple and accessible marker for identifying high-risk patients. Elevated amylase in COVID-19 patients is an important biological indicator of multi-organ involvement (pancreas and kidney) and severe inflammation, which is associated with worse prognosis and higher mortality. Monitoring this marker may aid clinical decision-making and improve patient outcomes