JOURNAL OF HEALTH AND HYGIENE
Year:2014 | Volume:5 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

Background & Objectives: Unwanted pregnancy is a significant public health problem. One third of pregnancies occurred worldwide are unwanted. This study was conducted to assess the impact of health education based on Health Belief Model on preventive behavior of unwanted pregnancy among women in Chabahar city.Methods: For this quasi-experimental study, 94 married women aged 15-49 were selected through stratified random sampling method. Data were collected using a validated researcher made questionnaire based on Health Belief model. Reliability of the questionnaire in the aspect of knowledge, preventive behaviors, and the structure of the model were 0.87, 0.85, and 0.87, respectively. Education was delivered in two sessions through discussion and question/answer teaching methods using PowerPoint software. The differences between two groups were assessed by paired T-test, independent T-test, Pearson correlation, and chisquare tests using SPSS 19.Results: Chi-square analysis showed no significant differences in demographic information of case and control groups. Scores for knowledge, practice, and all structures of Health Belief Model in case group were increased significantly after intervention (p<0.001).Conclusion: Implemented health education program had a positive effect on knowledge, structures of Health Belief Model, and preventive behavior regarding unwanted pregnancy in case group and may play an effective role on decreasing unwanted pregnancies.

Background & Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the efficiency of Photocatalytic processes of UV/TiO2 and UV/H2O2/TiO2 on removal of tetracycline antibiotic from aqueous solution.Methods: All experiments were undertaken in lab scale and batch system. The effects of various parameters such as tetracycline (TC) initial concentrations, TiO2 and H2O2 concentrations, contact time, and pH were investigated. Sample volume for all the experiments was 250 ml. All the experiments were done in a 500 ml reactor at the temperature of 24±2 oC using a magnetic mixer at 150 rpm.Results: Results showed that pH plays an important role on removal of TC antibiotic by UV/TiO2 process. Removal efficiency was increased with increasing contact time and TiO2 concentration. However, increasing contact time to>90 minutes and TiO2 concentrations to above 1 g/L had no significant effect on removal efficiency. Maximum removal efficiency (i.e.91.4 %) was obtained at pH=5, TiO2 concentration of 1.0 g/L, TC initial concentration of 27 mg/L, and contact time of 90 minutes. Photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline well followed Pseudo-first order kinetics model (R2=0.99). Addition of 100 mg/l H2O2 at pH=5 and TiO2 concentration of 1.0 g/L resulted in complete removal of all the TC concentrations used in the study, after 30 min.Conclusion: The results of this study suggested that UV/H2O2/TiO2 photocatalytic process is an effective process and can be used to remove TC antibiotic from aqueous solution.

Background & Objectives: Zero-valent iron nanoparticles have been widely used as an effective agent in environmental remediation. The present study was designed to determine bactericidal effect of stabilized zero-valent iron nanoparticles on E.coli.Methods: Nano zero-valent iron (NZVI) particles were synthesized and characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) was used for stabilizing particles. Inactivation of E.coli was tested using different wt% (w/w) of CMC and different concentrations of stabilized nanoparticles for a period of 30 min. To compare antibacterial effects of stabilized and non-stablized NZVIPs, 0.1g/l of nanoparticles was mixed with E. coli suspension. For statistical purposes three-way ANOVA and Duncan's tests were used.Result: Increasing nanoparticle concentration and contact time increased E. coli inactivation efficiency. However bactericidal effect was decreased with increasing wt% of NZVI stabilizer. Significant differences were observed between concentrations of 1 and 2 g/l and 0.1 and 0.5 g/l for all levels of bacteria density and CMC except for 0.02 wt%. Efficiency of 100% was obtained at concentrations of 1 and 2 g/l. Significant differences were found between results of stabilized and non-stabilized nanoparticles. After contact time of 120min, inactivation efficiency of 100 and 78% were observed for non-stabilized and stabilized particles, respectively.Conclusions: CMC might prevent direct physical contact of bacteria with nanoparticle’s surface and reduce their interaction and consequently cause a reduction in toxicity of nanoparticles against bacteria.

Background & Objectives: Vancomycin, as b-lactam classes of antibiotics, is widely used for treating infectious diseases in hospitals. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a method for precise measurement of vancomycin in hospital sewage as an emerging pollutant that causes bacterial resistance.Methods: In this study, solid phase extraction was used for separation of vancomycin from hospital wastewater. Vancomycin recovery rate were investigated at pH 3 and 7. The extracted samples were passed through a C18 column at 20 oC using different ratios of mobile phase of acetate/acetonitrile buffer with flow rate of 0.8 ml min-1. The quantity of vancomycin in samples was detected by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) equipped with UV detector at 240 nm wave length.Results: The best condition for extraction was achieved at pH=7 with a recovery of 89%. Better results were obtained by mobile phase of acetate/acetonitrile buffer with volume ratio of 89: 11 at pH=4. The linearity coefficients (R2) of 0.97 and 0.96 were obtained for vancomycin concentration ranges of 1-45 and 50-120 mg l-1 at optimum condition, respectively. Limit of Detection (LOD) and Limit of Quantification (LOQ) were calculated as 3 and 10 mg l-1 respectively. Also, variations in precision of both hourly and daily measurements of standard solution were less than 10%.Conclusion: The results of this study might be applied as a specific method for extraction and analysis of vancomycin antibiotic in hospital sewage samples.

Background & Objectives: Amputation as a major challenge in medicine has been heartbreaking for the patients and their companies and imposes high cost for the society and health system. The aim of this study was to determine frequency of types and causes of organ amputation in Fatemi Hospital in 2010.Methods: This retrospective descriptive-analytical study was done on 153 individuals who hospitalized due to organ amputation in Fatemi Hospital. Information on different variables and types of amputations and their causes were collected and analyzed by statistical tests using SPSS.18 software.Results: 110 (72%) patients were male with the rest being female. The mean age of patients was 39.6 years and the age of about 50% of the cases ranged from 15 to 45 years. Literacy level of 75% of the patients was diploma and lower. Finger amputation (119 cases) was the most prevalent type of amputation (77.8%). Etiologically, trauma with 127 cases (83%) was the dominant cause of amputation. About 50% of the traumatic amputations were associated with occupational trauma that most of them occurred due to working with agricultural machineries.Conclusion: These results indicate high rate of trauma and low level of safety conditions in working environments in Ardabil province, which requires necessary measures to be taken in this field.

Background & Objectives: Increasing population growth increases the demand for agricultural products and food. Nowadays, number of accidental or intentional poisoning among pesticide users is high due to lack of adequate familiarity with agricultural pest control and pesticide storage principles. The aim of this study was epidemiologic evaluation of poisoning due to pesticides in patients referred to Ardabil city hospitals in 2011.Methods: This descriptive study has been conducted on 245 patients hospitalized in Ardabil city hospitals. Information on age, gender, residence place, job, marriage status, pesticide type, cause of poisoning, poisoning season, mental and physical diseases history, and clinical symptoms was collected through a checklist and analyzed by descriptive statistical methods such as table, graph and mean±SD using SPSS.16.Results: 162 patients (66.1%) were female with the rest being male. The mean age of cases was 30.52 years and the most prevalent age group was 20-30 years with 89 cases (36.3%). The highest number of patients was admitted in summer season with 112 cases (39.7%) and the poisoning in 91 cases (77.95%) was intentional.29.4, 42, 51.8, 86.9, 29, and 7.8% of cases were admitted with respiratory, neurological, ocular, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and renal symptoms. Aluminium phosphide with 86 cases (35.1%) was the dominant type of pesticide.Conclusion: Regarding to pesticide poisoning mortality, financial burden, and morality; it is necessary to take educational measures to protect people against poisoning.

Background & Objectives: Hepatitis B is a viral disease that often appears with the symptoms of liver inflammation. About 35 percent of the population had contact with Hepatitis B viruses. Given the lack of comprehensive information on prevalence of the disease among pregnant women as well as the concern on virus transmission from infected mothers to fetus during the pregnancy; this research aimed to determine HBsAg prevalence and characterize its associated factors in pregnant mothers referred to Ardabil district health centers.Methods: In a cross sectional study all the 9321 pregnant women referred to Ardabil urban and rural Health Centers, Health Posts, and Health Houses were investigated in 2009. Experimental examinations of serum samples were performed using Elisa serology method and other information required were gathered by reviewing pregnant women health care records and analyzed using SPSS software.Results: Serum samples of 159 pregnant women (1.7%) were positive for HBsAg. The highest percent of research units (89.3%) were in age group of 18-35. The average number of pregnancy was 1.87±1.103. Significant differences were observed between hepatitis B prevalence and maternal education level, spouse job, age of pregnancy, and place of residence.Conclusion: Ardebil city is among the areas with intermediate prevalence of positive hepatitis B surface antigen and living in rural area is a main risk factor associated with the prevalence of positive cases in the region.

Background & Objectives: Menopausal period is one of the most critical stages of women’s lives. One of the aims of health for all in the 21st century is quality of life improvement. The quality of life changes significantly following menopausal status which is very important from the public health view. Due to importance of health promotion and improving women's quality of life following menopausal, present study was conducted to assess quality of life among postmenopausal women in Kerman.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 384 healthy postmenopausal women aged 48-64 years in Kerman. Convenience sampling technique was applied. WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire, which was previously validated for Iran, was used to determine quality of life.Results: The results showed that overall quality of life was medium in %68 of the cases. The mean quality of life was 10.22±4.05 in physical, 9.48±3.7 in psychological, 4.33±2.02 in social, and 12.73±5.05in environmental domain.Conclusion: This study showed that menopause causes changes in the quality life of women so that most of women had medium quality of life at physical, psychological, social and environmental domains. Therefore, designing and implementing appropriate educational programs are necessary to promote the quality of life in menopausal women.