Payavard Salamat
Year:2014 | Volume:7 | Issue:5|Papers Count:8

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: Collaboration within and between healthcare teams facilitates effective healthcare provision. Fundamental strategies in effective healthcare services focus on collaboration and teamwork. This study was an attempt to assess reliability and validity of Team STEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ) in Iranian context.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in Iran in 2012. Delphi method was applied and the questionnaire was submitted to 11 experts in 2 rounds to determine its face and content validity. Besides, it was translated and back translated to determine external validity. To estimate the reliability of the instrument, test-retest method was used. A sample of 67 medical and nursing senior students was stratified from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). TTAQ is a questionnaire having 30 questions in 5 themes. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS13.Results: The content, face and external validity of the tool were approved by Iranian experts. Meanwhile, applying Cronbach's alpha, total reliability was estimated to be 0.80, moreover, the ICC turned out to be 0.8.Conclusion: Since the validity and reliability of this instrument are confirmed in an Iranian context, it can be used to measure attitude regarding teamwork in this context.

Background and Aim: Defensive medicine is a potential social problem which can bring about consequences for public health regarding the quality of personal care and wastage of limited health resources. In this study, the frequency of positive and negative defensive medicine behaviors was examined among general practitioners of Kerman city.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among general practitioners in the city of Kerman. As data collection instrument, a questionnaire was given to a sample of 100 subjects. The obtained data were entered into SPSS 20 and analyzed using such descriptive statistics as frequency percentage and mean, and applying analytical tests such as chi-square and t-test.Results: In this research, 100 general practitioners were studied. The frequency of positive and negative defensive medicine behavior was 99% and 47%, respectively. Besides, the positive defensive medicine behavior in men was more than that in women (100% vs.97.2%), on the contrary, the negative defensive medicine behavior in women was more than that in men (52.8% vs.43.8%). Explaining in more detail about taking medicines properly and on time and avoiding the prescription of risky behaviors which might be useful to patients had the highest frequency among positive and negative defensive medicine behaviors, respectively.Conclusion: The present study showed that the frequency of defensive medicine was high in the studied population and that the application of factors related to this phenomenon by the participants of the present study was prevalent.

Background and Aim: Early diagnosis of pregnancy is very important to prevent fetal damage due to specific drug consumption and high-risk behaviors. The objective of this study was to compare the sensitivity and specificity of quantitative agglutination pregnancy tests in urine and rapid b hCG immunoenzymatic assay test in serum as a gold standard.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed among 390 women who referred to healthcare centers where their urine samples were tested with latex agglutination (direct agglutination and agglutination inhibition) and the results were compared with rapid b hCG immunoenzymatic assay test in serum as a gold standard.Results: The sensitivity of direct agglutination (82.05%) was more than that of agglutination inhibition (81.2%), but the specificity of the tests were equal (99.27%).The agreement coefficients between direct agglutination and agglutination inhibition on the one hand and rapid b HCG immunoenzymatic assay on the other were 0.859 and 0.853, respectively.Conclusion: The possibility of negative results in direct agglutination is more than that of agglutination inhibition, but the specificity of both qualitative tests is equal. Besides, both tests may have an equal possibility of false positive results. Since the occurrence of false negative results in qualitative tests is higher than that in serum gold standard, the negative results of such tests should be confirmed with more sensitive methods such as rapid b hCG immunoenzymatic assay.

Background and Aim: In several KT plans the researcher self evaluation is basis of researchers KT activities measurement so the aim of this study was the validity of researchers self assessment about their own activities in KT.Materials and Methods: The valid and reliable questionnaire was filled by 40 Golestan University of Medical Sciences researchers. In this questionnaire researchers were asked to give a score from 0 to 10 for their own activities in KT in a finished special project. Statistical analysis was performed using pair T test and Pearson correlation coefficient. The linear regression was used for assessing the effect of influential factors on KT self evaluation and activity scores.Results: The mean score of researchers KT activity and self evaluation was 3.52 and 5.47 respectively which this difference was statistically significant (P<0.01). The correlation coefficient between researchers' activity and self evaluation score was 0.73 which is an indicator of good correlation. The influential factors on researchers' KT self evaluation score in regression model was male gender, having administrative responsibility and percent of total time allocated to research and the influential factors on researchers' KT activities score in regression model was male gender, type of research (clinical sciences research compared to basic sciences) and percent of total time allocated to research.Conclusion: The results of this study shows that researchers overestimate their own activities in KT so adopting strategies like education about KT concepts and activities for increasing researchers knowledge and perception can fill research and action gap.

Background and Aim: Today, healthcare system is exposed to inappropriate human resources distribution challenges in all over the world. So far there is not an appropriate policy for human resources distribution in Iran. This deficiency may cause several problems for providing healthcare services. This research was aimed to determine the situation of human resources distribution among Tehran University Of Medical Sciences (TUMS) Hospitals.Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional definitive study induced in four general and special TUMS hospitals. The research tool was a checklist that determine the number of nurses, paraclinic and supportive employees and finally the decrease and increased of the human resources among the departments of the hospitals regarding Iranian Ministry of Health (MOH) issues. The data was collected and analyzed by SPSS software and determined the differences between current situation in accordance to MOH issues.Results: We observed the deficiency of human resources among all studied hospitals. Also the distribution of human resources among most of the hospitals departments was not coordinated with MOH issues.Conclusion: It seems the distribution of human resources among Iranian healthcare system is not followed by a special model. Therefore, we suggest the model of health human resources planning should be determined and related by information, providers, services, education and policy as healthcare system factors and overlapping of these factors.

Background and Aim: If the evaluation is done from the perspective of users, Successful development of measures and features related to use and implementation of hospital information system and identify areas that need further consideration is to be provided. The main purpose of this study was assessment the views of physicians and nurses of hospital information system, identify the effective criteria for the use of it and their satisfaction.Materials and Methods: Present research is a descriptive cross-sectional study and was applied in public- education hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2012-2013. The main tool was a questionnaire prepared by reviewing relevant literature in databases Iranmedex, Magiran, SID, PubMed, Science direct, Google scholar, and surveys by experts. In order to determine the validity, a questionnaire was distributed among 5 experts in the area of information technology. After completion of the questionnaires, results were analyzed using software SPSS17.Results: Information systems in half of the hospitals surveyed from the perspective of research community have an average of 30-60 percent capabilities in order management. Also users in all surveyed hospitals with more than 43% agree the ease of using hospital systems.Conclusion: User satisfaction is a guarantee for the implementation of information system. To improve the situation and move towards the ideal condition we suggest users needs in hospital information systems should be considered. Also design and system should be Compatible with the skills and knowledge of users as possible.

Background and Aim: Open access to scientific information is a new paradigm in scientific communication that facilitates access to research. This study was carried out to identify Tehran University of medical science faculties members’ familiarities with Open access and to survey their attitude about it.Materials and Methods: A descriptive survey method was applied. The study population consisted of 163 members of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.Data gathering tool was questionnaires that its validity and reliability was confirmed. Data was collected and analyzed by SPSS software and descriptive statistic methods.Results: Results show that more than 50 percent of population have modest familiarites with Open acces. Furthermore, the faculties's members familiarites with Open access technique was moderate. More than 70 percent (114 person) of them have positive attitude toward Open access and it's techniques.Conclusion: Faculties members’ familiarity with Open access relatively is low but when they received information about the concept, rules and aim of this paradigm, their attitudes positively changed. Therefore, open access should be considered as a perfect method in scientific communication.