JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY HEALTH RESEARCH
Year:2015 | Volume:4 | Issue:1|Papers Count:9

Background: Lassa fever is an acute, virulent viral haemorrhagic illness with high morbidity and mortality rates. Its awareness remain low in sub urban or rural community. This study was carried out to assess the awareness of Lassa fever of a rural community in the south western part of Nigeria.Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study of 122 respondents prior to a sensitization seminar on Lassa fever was carried out at Ijebu- Owo, Owo in Ondo State. Interviewer guided questionnaire was used to collect information and analysed with SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics were done and frequencies and proportions were used to summarize variables of interest. Association between socio-demographic characteristics and awareness were explored using chi square. Level of significance was set at 5%.Results: The mean age of the respondents was 54.5±19.2 years. Of the 122 respondents, 50.8% were males, three out of four (73.8%) were married, and 87.7% had secondary education and below. Those who had previously heard about Lassa fever were 17.2%. In all 7 (46.7%) who had tertiary education had previously heard about Lassa fever compared to 14 (13.1%) respondents who had secondary education and below (p=0.001).Conclusion: The study showed that there was poor awareness of Lassa fever among members of the community. Thus efforts should be made to increase the awareness of the populace through health campaigns, and to reduce the spread of both the vector and the virus.

Introduction: Increasing women's employment and economic activity increases social welfare, productivity and enhance the quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of women's employment and social health of families in Regions 1, 2, 19 and 20 in Tehran.Materials & Methods: This study was descriptive and causal- comparative or retrospective. The sample was selected using a multistage cluster sampling and by helping formulation Cochran was 384. Standardized questionnaire (Keyes) was used to measure social health. For data analysis, descriptive statistical criteria (mean, median, mode and standard deviation) and inferential statistics such as (chi-square test, t, and analysis of variance) were used.Results: Findings showed a significant positive relationship between women's employment and social health of the family.There are significantly and positively relation between Component of social health (social acceptance, social adaptation, social prosperity) and women's employment.There isn’t relationship between Women's employment and social cohesion and social participation.Conclusion: Woman employment affects family social health. Managers must have attention to woman employment in their strategic plan to creating healthy social.

Introduction: Unintended or unplanned pregnancy has been a distressing reality among females in the reproductive age group particularly in developing countries. The current study aimed to determine the prevalence of unintended pregnancy among married women in an urban community in Kangavar city state, to determine the associated factors of unintended pregnancy and to verify the reasons behind unintended pregnancy as perceived by the married women in the area.Materials & Methods: This study was carried out on 248 mothers who referred to health centers of Kangavar, and were selected randomly. Data was collected by valid and reliable questionnaire. Results were analyzed by spss 17.Results: The prevalence of unwanted pregnancy was estimated to be 21.2 percent. About 21.2 of women stated that their pregnancy was unplanned; other two fifth mentioned that their pregnancy was mistimed and the other three-fifth reported unwanted pregnancy. There was a significant relationship between age and type of pregnancy (p<0.001), contraception methods and unintended pregnancy (p<0.001). Results also revealed a significant relationship between age of women and kind of contraception methods, which they had used (p<0.001). Conclusion: These results showed that extending of the education programs about contraceptive methods is necessary in order to prevent unintended pregnancies and its sequential outcomes

Introduction: Provision, maintaining and improving health status of one year old and younger children as a vulnerable group has been considered as an important issue pertaining to healthcare and medical services. Index of mortality of under one year old children is among most important healthcare indices; and is known as the most important index of healthcare status of any society as well as the quality of life in any region. The present study aimed for examining causes of mortality amongst one year or younger children who were covered by health centers in Yazd city during 2011 to 2013 period.Materials & Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted using control-test group method. All recorded cases of mortality for children in Yazd city during the first year of their life were included in statistical population, while for each case of mortality two cases of living children were examined as control group. The data were collected by direct visits on healthcare centers in the city and examining case files for children. Obtained data were analyzed using SPSS 20 software package.Results: 116 mortality cases were examined in total which included 41.4% boys and 58.6% girls. Some variables such as type of marriage between parents, mother and father’s education level, type of labor and number of previous pregnancies were significantly related to children’s mortality rate.Conclusion: suggest that paying specific attention to infants at the time of birth, improving knowledge level amongst mothers and families, providing standard level healthcare prior to pregnancy and after that, and also developing programs which aim for improving economic-social and cultural status amongst women and men would be effective on reducing children mortality rates.

Introduction: Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) has been increasing in the Middle East and North Africa. Hypertension is an important modifiable risk factor of IHD and plays an important role in the epidemic of IHD. Hypertension is responsible for about 45% of IHD mortality and affects more than one billion people around the world. This study aimed to quantify the population attributable fraction PAF of IHD due to hypertension in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Materials & Methods: Sex-specific prevalence of hypertension was obtained from national and international studies. Moreover, age-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of IHD and hypertension was extracted from the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS). HR and sex-specific prevalence of hypertension were used to calculate PAF of IHD due to hypertension in various countries of the region. Results: The sex-specific prevalence of hypertension was available for seventeen countries of the region. Hypertension ranged from 4.5% in Palestine to 47% in Algeria in females and from 2.2% in Palestine to 50.7% in Oman in males. The fraction of IHD attributable to hypertension ranged from 4.3% in Palestine to 32% in Algeria in females and from 2.2% in Palestine to 33.7% in Oman in males.Conclusion: Up to 33% IHD male’s mortality attributable to hypertension. It seems that hypertension is increasing in MENA and prevention programs are needed to control prevalence IHD.

Introduction: Toxoplasmosis is Zoonoses among humans and animals with cosmopolitan distribution. Acquired form of the disease often has no symptoms or discomfort of swollen lymph nodes and associated Chorioretinitis. The congenital form of the disease is delivered via the placenta from mother to fetus. Congenital infection may cause abortion or damage to the central nervous system and eye disorders. The aim of this study was to determine toxoplasmosis Seroepidemiologyin serum of suspected patients referring to medical lab, in 2013. Materials & Methods: This study was cross- sectional. After physical examination, of the total cases 712 were diagnosed with suspected toxoplasmosis infection, and were referred for evaluation of serological diagnostic laboratories. Serum samples were collected from patients' in the laboratory using kits of anti-Toxoplasma gondii and Chorus Toxoplasma IgG, IgM antibodies were tested by ELISA method. Data on age, sex and time of the visit and laboratory test results were recorded in the Czech list, and then were analyzed using SPSS software.Results: From 712 sera tested, 649 (91.2%) were female while 63 ((8.8% were male. 171 (24.3%) of the antibody IgG and 25 ((3.5% in terms of IgM in serum were positive. In sex -wise distributed groups 159 female (93%)) and 12 male (7%) tested positive for IgG. and, 24 female (96%)) and 1 male (4%) were IgM positive. Most positive tests (9.5%) were observed in the group aged over 50 years. whereas The lowest percentage of positive tests were in the group with age less than 20 years (20%) and the highest was observed in patients above 60 years (8.47 percent).Conclusion: As a general conclusion, it can be stated that the frequency of specific IgM and IgG antibodies in toxoplasmosis, in the suspected-to-have toxoplasmosis and control groups were not statistically significant. Also, we can conclude that abortion is involved in the development of chronic toxoplasmosis.

Introduction: The Risk behaviors such as drug abuse are prevalent anxiously in youth. Thus investigation and recognition of risk behaviors are important. The aim of the present study was to investigate relationship between loneliness and the difficulty in emotional regulation with drug abuse.Materials & Methods: this research was descriptive- correlation. The sample was comprised of 452 students from Universities of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran. Participants were selected by cluster sampling. The instruments were the Loneliness Scale, the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale and the Drug Abuse. For statistical analysis, regression analysis methods were used.Results: The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between loneliness and the difficulty in emotion regulation with drug abuse. The Enter regression analysis for prediction of the drug abuse showed that the loneliness predicts .09 and the difficulty in emotional regulation predicts .08 of the drug abuse variances (P≤.05). Conclusion: Therefore, it is recommended to university and cultural instructional planners to pay attention to variables of loneliness and emotional regulation as drug abuse risk factors and introduce especial and preventive programs in this subject.

Introduction: According to some studies in the western countries, %12.7 of total female cancers and %9.8 of all deaths resulted from cancers. And dead’s in females are due to genital system carcinoma.Materials & Methods: The present analytic cross sectional study was done on the cancer registry data of Yazd province for the evaluation of trend of genital carcinoma occurrence amongst females from 2006 to 2010. The trend of cancer incidence was calculated according to age, year of occurrence, family history, income, and job and residence place. Data was analyzed using student T-test and chi-square test. Results: Higher percentages of cancer were seen amongst age above 50 years, married women and householders. Majority of those had education level of primary (%40.5) and moderate income level (%49.6). The highest incidence rate was related to year 2010 (%30) and uterus cancers including body & endometrial was more common than others (%42.7). The association between cancer incidence and age (p<.001) also disease occurrence and marital status (p=.03) were statistically significant. Cancers of uterus and cervix among subjects with age above 50 and cancer of ovary among females under 30 years was more common.Conclusion: our results showed that the incidence rate of genital carcinoma amongst Yazd females had an increasing trend from 2006 to 2010 and socio- economic factors had significant role in causing cancer. This is the same indicator coming from developing countries where community health is influencing from socio-economic and environmental changes.

With respect to the important role of clinical examination in breast lesion diagnosis, training of Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) to medical students is very crucial. Despite the various methods of physical examination, current methods like using patients especially about breast aren’t accepted because of various reasons. Review studies about the optimum method of CBE have not been performed yet. The objective of this study was to survey advantages and disadvantages of the existing methods and finally choose the best one. A computer search was performed in Google Scholar site by the following key words: education, clinical examination, and breast. 11 studies published in 2000-2011, were selected for survey of CBE method. There are 6 methods of clinical examination, including 1) naturally physical examination in small groups by exercising each other 2) Compact disk (CD) and multimedia 3) Use of live patients 4) Use of simulators 5) Electronic Palpation Imaging (EPI) and 6) Combination of the above methods. The combination approach makes active and deep learning easy. With respect to our investigation, formal education by using video and simulators as a combined method is suggested for CBE training.