Journal of Research and Health
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:9

Health, as a public good, and equity in health, as a moral concept are considered as human right. Equity in health is defined as lack of systematic discrepancies in health or social determinants of health among different groups of a community. Social justice is considered as a matter of life and death. It is believe that inappropriate distribution of health services is one of the major determinants of individuals’ health situation. But, living in poor and unequal status, which is the results of a combination of unsuitable social policies, unfair economic position, and poor politics, could also effect on the individuals health condition. To meet the equity in health, health systems should determine social determinant of health. In fact, the equity would be afforded by action on the social determinants of health. Besides, there are three principles of action consisting of “improve people’s daily living conditions”, “tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources”, and “measure and understand the problem and assess the impact of action” which help to achieve the goal. In addition, participation of other organizations with health systems should also be attracted.

According to World Health Organization reports, the root of applied researches problems in developing countries are running the researches based on academic researchers’ interests as well as decision-making in executive systems based on their managers’ experiences. The problems will be eliminated by stakeholders’ participation. In 2001, the Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach was proposed to engage the stakeholders in Iran’s research projects. This approach not only would enable the community, but also could change the researchers’ view on the researches process. It also helps the researchers to apply the researches findings. So, the Population Lab strategy, as a relevant infrastructure to establish CBPR approach, was selected. The strategy was started by 13 Universities of Medical Sciences in Iran. After three years; a qualitative research was done to evaluate the stakeholders’ challenges and obstacles to participate with the population labs. We formed 5 discussion groups and accomplished Focus Group Discussions (FGD) in the groups around five main axes. We collected the stakeholders’ opinions during the FGDs until data saturation were obtained. According to the data analysis, the most important challenges were distrust, lack of commitment and determination among policy-makers and decision-makers to engage the stakeholders. Besides, the stakeholders’ mistrust in their role recognition in partnership was one of the main challenges. Since one of the main principles of sustainable and comprehensive development is to employ local methods, it seems lack of a localized model of stakeholders’ participation reduced participation of stakeholders in participatory researches.

Life skills and its training to individuals is one of the major factors for mental health development in community. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practice of the first three life skills priorities among third grade high school girls in terms of planning for the students’ educational programs. In a descriptive study, we first selected 200 respondents among the students, their parents and their schools’ experts in education for the life skills’ priority setting. Using multistage cluster sampling, we selected 180 the students to investigate their knowledge, attitude and practice. We used a priority-setting questionnaire which was designed by the researchers. We requested the respondents to prioritize 10 life skills. We also used three validate and reliable questionnaires to assess the students’ knowledge, attitude and practice. In the respondents’ opinions, self-awareness, effective communication with others and decision making skills were the first three life skills priority. The knowledge, attitude, and performance of the students was 58.9% (moderate level), 86.1% (desirable level), and 75.5% (moderate level), respectively. According to the results, although attitude of most of the students towards the prioritized life skills was good, their knowledge and practice of these skills was moderate. So, it seems revising the life skills’ content and training in high schools could be very important.

It is believed that one of the most important criteria of health care’s quality is care satisfaction. It seems mothers’ satisfaction concerning childbirth care process would be a determinant factor in family and community mental health. The aim of this study is to compare mothers’ satisfaction of ethical dimension of care provided in labor, delivery and postpartum phases. This is a descriptive-comparative study which was conducted on 270 women’s labor in educational (Alzahra, Talegani) and non-educational (29-Bahman) hospitals in Tabriz, Iran. To gather the data, we used a mothers’ satisfaction questionnaire which measures their satisfaction about maternal cares during the hospitalization period. Using descriptive and analytic statistics, we analyzed the data via SPSS software. In the educational hospitals, the respondents’ satisfaction during labor, delivery, and postpartum phases were 52.5%, 73.5%, and 73.0%, and in the non-educational hospital it were 67.1%, 80.0%, and 81.4%, respectively. Data analysis also showed the significant differences between educational and non-educational hospitals (P<0.001). Besides, the mothers’ satisfactions from ethical dimension of the care provided in labor phase was low, both in the hospital types. It indicates to apply appropriate activities for improving the ethical supports during the phase that may be achieved by the health care teams’ members.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in women worldwide. This study was conducted to explore perception of care among Syrian women with breast cancer. In a qualitative research, we purposively selected 17 participants consisting of women with breast cancer (N=11) and their husbands (N=3) as well as2 nurses and a physician in Nuclear Medicine Center in Latakia city between June and September 2010. Using semi-structured interviews, we collected the data. Analysis the transcripts was guided by qualitative content analysis. We found three care categories consisting of "care in a painful environment", "inadequate education", and "need for a lot of special care". According to our findings, understanding the women’s experiences concerning the care would be a way for recognizing and resolving potential stressor factors of the care process. It seems solving these factors could improve the women’s quality of life.

Assertiveness is one of the social skills which are extensively applied in everyday interactions. It is also one of the factors associated with the human skill “to say no” against hazardous behaviors, including smoking, drug abuse, and sexual affairs. Assertiveness also takes an added emphasis regarding high schoolchildren due to such actualities as peer pressure and the adolescents’ particular age conditions. This study was done to investigate the effect of teaching courageousness based on PRECEDE Model on high schoolchildren assertiveness in Gonabad. An experimental study was conducted across Gonabad high school sin the 2008-2009 curricular years. We applied multistage random cluster sampling to select 140 students (treatment group=70, control group=70) who were sitting in second grade of the high schools. Using a six-part questionnaire (proportional to PRECEDE model), we collected the data. After doing pre-test, educational intervention was performed in treatment group, based on the model. Post-test was conducted 8 weeks after the intervention. We used SPSS software to analyze the data. Prior to the intervention, knowledge, attitude, and assertiveness of the students was moderate while their “saying no” skill was lower than the average. After the intervention, a significant increase (P<0.001) emerged in the mean score of the respondent’s knowledge, attitude, skill, and assertiveness. In terms of sex, the male students showed higher level of assertiveness which was statistically significant. There were no significant associations in the other factors between the girls and the sons. The results showed that teaching courageousness based on PRECEDE model may positively effect on the students’ knowledge, attitude, and assertiveness as well as the reinforcing and enabling factors. It seems the model could be employed alongside other methods to enhance high schoolchildren’s assertiveness.

The main purpose of this research was the effect of couple psychotherapy on quality of life recovery in traumatic couple of infidelity. This was a one-group pre-experimental research with pre-test and post-test. We selected 10 couples affected by infidelity. They attended individual psychotherapy sessions, after initial interview. There were two questionnaires consisting of a questionnaire of evaluation of infidelity Vaughan which was translated by the researchers. The second one was a quality of life questionnaire with 20 questions and 4 subscales. Reliability of the latter questionnaire was 0.78. To analyze the data, we applied descriptive and analytic statistics. Our results showed a significant difference between the respondents quality of life's before and after the intervention (P<0.001). It seems the psychotherapy sessions may improve the quality of life of the couples affected by marital infidelity.

Hypertension is one of the most important preventable causes of premature morbidity and mortality in developed and developing countries. Raising family knowledge and involvement of family members in care delivery can help to promote positive hypertensive patient behaviors, such as appointment keeping, compliance with therapy, and better hypertension control. The present study seeks to assess the effect of group discussion with male high school students on their parents' hypertension control. This study is a quasi-experimental research. We selected 61 high school students who had parents with hypertension and divided them in intervention and control groups. We provided the intervention group with group discussion in several sessions. For four months, the blood pressure of the parents in intervention and control groups was measured weakly. Results of the data analysis demonstrated that systolic and diastolic blood pressures of parents in intervention and control groups reduced. Our findings also emphasized that rate of controlled hypertension in intervention and control group was42.5% and 16.7%, respectively (P<0.026). Consequently, education inform of group discussion with male high school students effectively leads to decrease and control of hypertension of their parents.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is one of the most important indicators of growth, especially in childhood that can influenced by many socio-economic variables. Using a stratified sampling, we entered 375 primary schoolchildren in the study. Our required information were collected through validate and reliable questionnaire. We also measured the students’ height and weight. The data were analyzed by SPSS software. Comparing the respondents’ BMI with the standard percentile, all the samples were in the standard range. There were significant associations between BMI and age of the children, mothers’ educational level and job, and family income (P<0.001). The socio-economic variables may correlate with the children’s BMI via its impact on life style of the family.