Health Education and Health Promotion
Year:2019 | Volume:7 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the implementation of mindfulness training on depression, anxiety, and stress in high school students in Ahvaz in the academic year of 2017-2018. Materials & Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test posttest design with control group. The statistical population included all of high school female students in the academic year of 2017-2018. The sample size consisted of 40 students, who were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling and randomly divided into experimental (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. For the experimental group, 8 sessions (each session 90 minutes) of the mindfulness program were performed, but no experimental test was performed for the control group and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) was used for collecting data. To test the hypotheses, covariance analysis and multivariate analysis of variance was performed, using SPSS 21 software. In addition, Levin test was used to test the equivalency of variances. After completion of educational programs, post-test was performed on both groups. Findings: The results of data analysis indicated that the effect of mindfulness training on decreasing depression, anxiety, and stress has been shown and there was a significant relationship between mindfulness education and anxiety reduction, depression, and stress (p<0. 01). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it is worthwhile for educators to teach students how to train their mind-learning skills to be able to manage their self-control coping processes and reduce the amount of anxiety disorder in psychological conditions.

Aims: One of the most important factors in public health is oral and dental health. Determining the level of knowledge and attitude and the applicable criteria are effective factors in reducing dental problems. This study was conducted to determine the effective factors on oral hygiene based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) in students of Paramedicine, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. Materials & Methods: This is a descriptive-analytical. The present study was conducted on 300 students that were selected by using a multi-stage random sampling method. The data collection tool was based on a standard questionnaire of health belief model. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software, descriptive statistics, and Pearson coefficient tests, variance analysis, Turkey test, and linear regression logistic regression was taken as a significant level of 0. 05. Findings: The mean of health behaviors among students was moderate (52. 38± 5. 95). The regression analysis showed that constructs perceived barriers, self-efficacy and perceived benefits predict tooth decay prevention behaviors (p≤ 0. 05). Pearson's test showed a positive and significant relationship between perceived barriers and behavior (r=-0. 471, p=0. 00). Conclusion: In order to promote health behaviors among the student’ s perceived barrier self-efficacy and perceived benefits, as the most important predictors of student behavior for holding educational courses should be used.

Dear editor, One of the key concepts in behavioral science is the quality of life (QOL). Health-related quality of life is an important subject in breast cancer [1]. Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed disease in women, which is considered as the second cause of death. . .

Aims: Health‐ promoting behaviors have a major role in healthcare. The present study was conducted to assess health‐ promoting behaviors and its related factors in Iranian female household heads based on Pender's model. Materials & Methods: The present cross‐ sectional study recruited 106 female household heads selected according to census sampling from Gonabad Health Centers, eastern Iran, from January to August in 2015. Data were collected using the Health‐ Promoting Lifestyle Profile‐ II (HPLP‐ II) and a researchermade cognitive and emotional factors questionnaire based on Pender's model. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16, using descriptive and analytical tests, including ANOVA and independent student t‐ test. Findings: Participants' statistical mean age was 40. 16± 7. 21 years, and most of them (61 women, 57. 5%) were widowed and the rest were divorced. The statistical mean score of health‐ promoting behaviors was 123. 16± 20. 42, in moderate level, and showed significant relationships with cognitive and emotional factors of self‐ efficacy, barriers, and interpersonal relationships (p<0. 05). Among health‐ promoting behaviors, spiritual growth had the highest Statistical mean score (24. 91± 5. 3), and physical activity (12. 83± 3. 5) and stress management (17. 83± 3. 9) the lowest mean score. Conclusion: Health‐ promoting behaviors in Iranian female household heads need improvement. The results can be used by these women and the healthcare system to identify related factors and develop interventions for modifying health‐ promoting lifestyles.

Aims: Down syndrome (DS), as the most common cause of mental retardation causes many health problems for families. This study aimed to investigate the experiences of life problems for parents with a DS child. Participants & Methods: This qualitative research was conducted using the conventional content analysis method on 21 Iranian parents with a DS child of over one year of age. Data were collected using online asynchronous interviews in 2017. Snowball sampling was continued until the data saturation was reached. Data collection and analysis were conducted simultaneously by qualitative content analysis. Findings: Participants included 21 parents of children with DS in the age range of 28-49 years old. The analysis of qualitative data led to the extraction of three main themes, including "continuation of a difficult life", "inappropriate atmosphere of the community for acceptance of a child with DS", and "perceived future concerns". Conclusion: The findings showed that parents of children with DS had major common concerns about taking care of their children. It is necessary for health policymaker and healthcare providers to pay more attention to the implementation of medical care and education programs for children with DS. Also, informing the community about DS helps to raise awareness and appropriate social interactions among the families and community members.

Aims: Locus of control (LOC) refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Health Locus of Control (HLOC) refers to beliefs that related to how one’ s health is affected by oneself, others, or fate; and also it is one of the most broadly measured factors of health beliefs for the scheduling of health education programs. The aim of this study was to assess HLOC among Students at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: This cross‑ sectional study was conducted in 297 students in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran selected by simple random sampling method in 2018. Data collection was done by the demographic questionnaire and Form “ B” of Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) scale. Statistical analysis includes (ANOVA, t-test, Pearson test) was performed using SPSS version 20 and p<0. 05 was considered statistically significant. Findings: The mean± SD of three dimensions of HLOC were 26. 41± 3. 98, 16. 64± 4. 36 and 21. 67± 4. 37 for internal, chance and powerful others respectively. There was a significant relationship between internal and powerful others locus of control dimensions with sex (p=0. 035, p=0. 041). Further, there was not a significant relationship between HLOC dimensions with students’ age, major, parent’ s education and occupation. Conclusion: Since the most scores were relating to an internal locus of control dimension and fewer scores were relating to the chance locus of control dimension, it can be concluded that personal behavioral factors have more influence on students' health and their beliefs about chance, luck or fate has less influence on their health.

Aims The aim of this study was to determine the examination of relaxation training based on the PRECEDE-PROCEED model in anxiety reduction on nursing staffs. Materials and Methods Intervention studies were examined in Alzahra hospital on 64 members of the nursing staffs based on Spielberger anxiety questioner with higher anxiety score in 2016. We used Spielberger (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) questionnaire for the measurement of the anxiety and for assaying predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors, a questionnaire designed based on the PRECEDE-PROCEED model. Participants were divided randomly into 2 intervention and control groups. The educational training was carried out in 4 sessions for 45-60 minute in the intervention group. Questionnaire completion was done before, immediately and 4 months after the training. Data were analyzed in SPSS 22 (p˂ 0. 05). Findings The results of this study showed that the mean of anxiety score before of training in two groups did not significantly (p=0. 12), but after of training, the anxiety score was decreased significantly in the intervention group (p˂ 0. 01). Also, after training, the amount of predisposing factors, enabling factors, and reinforcing factors increased significantly in the intervention group in comparison to control group (p<0. 01). Conclusion Findings of this research confirm the effect of health education based on PRECEDE-PROCEED on taking health behaviors and promote people health. Intervention based on this model improved the quality of life in the nursing staff in our study.

Aims Health literacy (HL) is the main factor shows health literate level of people in a certain society, Discovering and understanding affective factors on HL level could lead experts to improve these factors in the target community, This study aimed to Health Literacy classification of population and find a major component with data mining approaches, Instruments and Methods In this paper, we have acquired more details about major factors on the health literacy level of target society by assessing evolutionary methods, We benefit of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and KNN and fuzzy KNN algorithm for classification and use wrapper technique for feature selection by our model, Feature selection are done as weighted features and selects the most effective features of health literacy, Our proposed model evaluates a data set of Health Literacy by two classifiers with/without fuzzy logic, Applied data set is a real data gathered from a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study on adult population include 2133 record with 74 attributes in 2016 at South Khorasan province, We have gained effective factors on HL level of the population according to regions and total population without using any statistical analysis tools with the lowest human interference by an evolutionary method, Findings Proposed model have found effective factors on the health literacy level of population in South Khorasan province, Results are obtained 92, 02% accuracy for the total population and 97, 99% for regions population, Conclusion Simulations demonstrate the evolutionary method is a suitable way for extracting results from health data sets and also shows the superiority of the proposed method,