Journal of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences
Year:2006 | Volume:8 | Issue:Supplement 1|Papers Count:13

Background and aim: The main aim of participatory research is to strengthen local capacities so that people can utilize and analyze data to solve their problems. Research development and health promotion center of Farokhshahr was established for capacity building of society so that people be able to recognize their problems and finally try to solve them. In this center, participatory research is a basic element, which consisted of community mobilization, need assessment, priority setting, interventions and evaluation. In this study need assessment was investigated in this city.Methods: This research was a participatory research. Population of the study was all 40000 population of Farrokhshahr city. Sample consisted of 40 groups with 6-12 people in each group. These 400 people of sample size were randomly selected from the population. Rapid appraisal method was used for process of need assessment. This method is based on observation, interview and society profile. Promotion of people education and capacity building is one of the advantages of this method. Finally, the data were collected from the society profile, focus group discussion and observation.Results: The data collected from focus group discussion, society problem and observation resulted in recognition of 40 needs and problems. These needs were classified in nine groups.Conclusion: The results indicated that need assessment using participatory community based research not only identified society needs and problems but also caused capacity building in the society.

Background and aim: Participatory research is doing research for getting suitable answers to main problems of community by contribution of stockholders. In other words, a research is called participatory when it is with a community not on a community. In this kind of researches, people and researchers work together. In this study we examined attitude of biological sciences researchers of Arak about participatory researches.Methods: This was a cross sectional descriptive study on 116 randomly selected academic researchers from medical sciences, basic sciences, Islamic Azad University, and agricultural research center. The questionnaire was designed by flowchart code–sheet, question bank and pilot study. Then its sensitivity and reliability were determined by Likert method. Results: Average of attitude degree about the participatory researches with people was 67.96 (from 95). Furthermore about the capability of people was 11.12 from 15 (10.77-11.44), about solving the society's problems was 11.70 from 15 (10.49-12.02), about reliability of participatory researches was 10.99 from 15 (10.49-11.49), about the time was 7.49 from 10 (7.21-7.77), about publication was 7.10 from 47 (7.17-7.77), about to validity was 7.37 from 10 (7.09-7.65) about contribution was 6.24 from 10 (5.96-6.52) and about income was 5.55 from 10 (5.27-5.84).Conclusion: Based on the results, the most positive attitudes were about the effectiveness of the participatory researches, about solving society's problems, and about capability of people for doing such researches respectively. The most negative attitudes were about contribution and income. Therefore, these negative attitudes should be resolved by appropriate measures.

Background and aim: In recent years the number of cesarean section have been increased sharply worldwide especially in Iran. At Shahrekord hospital district, 49% of deliveries are subjected to cesarean in 2001. An inclination to use participatory research to overcome health problems is now getting attention all over the world. In this research, the role of participatory people in decreasing cesarean frequency has been investigated.Methods: For this purpose, 171 pregnant women randomly selected from all pregnant women in Shahrekord. A participator team including housewives, teachers, sales, health communicators’ physicians, midwifes and nurses were responsible for educating the selected women about the indication of cesarean section and benefits of vaginal birth. The contexts of the educated women were evaluated by a questionnaire from before and after education.Results: In this research, about 70% of the women were satisfied with the education program. Also, frequency of cesarean which were 63% before intervention and after education decreased to 51% as a result of the education. Conclusion: The result of this study indicated that in health subjects such a cesarean which is related to society and human culture, participatory interventions could yield satisfactory results.

Background and aim: Rubbish is called to the solid waste matters, semi solid and fluids that apparently is unusable and is removed. Rubbish is divided into 3 groups, home rubbish, hospital and industrial ones. The majority of the civil waste matters are made of home rubbish. Rubbish solving management includes three parts, collecting, transporting and repelling. Nowadays, rubbish solving management is one of the important hygienic problems in urban communities. On view of the management of home rubbish, a survey was performed by the people-group of Semnan population lab in 2004. Unfortunately, none of the stages of collecting, transporting, and repelling were according to the hygienic standards. The previous findings have indicated that these multi-dimensional problems will not be solved without an active contribution of the all involved population. As population lab has a suitable structure in performing of the community-based contribution research, it has been performed many attempts to improving the conditions of the rubbish through negotiating with the officials in Semnan.Methods: To do the people' interventions in the field of improving the rubbish condition in Semnan city, and by holding the people-group sessions and focus-group discussion, the intervention needs were identified. And also by people's contribution, some environmental evidences such as films, photos related to the problems of collecting, transporting and repelling of rubbish were provided. By considering these problems, some interventions on the basis of the dialogue and interaction with officials and also training.the personnel of civil services were carried out. In the first axis, some sessions were held with the presence of manager, from the concerned organizations community volunteers and health experts. Then, the problems were discussed continuously to obtain an ideal result. In the second axis, the civil services personnel were trained practically by health providers to collect the rubbish correctly.Results: Before interventions, collecting, transporting and repelling of rubbish in Semnan city according to hygienic point of view had some problems. After interventions; finding showed that problems of transporting and repelling of rubbish were improved.Conclusion: Results indicate that dialogue and interaction between people and civil officials have had positive results in improving of the civil health conditions and also on the well health of the community.

Background and aim: Participatory community based research is a scientific research method which has recently been considered in health sciences. This type of investigation is based on community needs. In other words, results of the research must give a response to society requirements and health problems. In this study institution of Farrokhshahr development team as a way for capacity building of people to recognize and obviate their needs has been evaluated.Method: This is a participatanory community based research, which was performed in Farrokhshahr city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province of Iran. The population of this city is about 40000. The process consisted of 5 steps: 1– people mobilization, 2– need assessment, 3– priority setting, 4– interventional programs and 5– evaluation of the program. The study was performed by Farokhshahr development team, city authorities and local confidantes. The study was supervised by Shahrekord university of medical sciences, deputy for research affairs. Community mobilization was started by composition of development team which consisted of 10 committee. Need assessment was begun when the team subjected to capacity building by carrying on different workshops. This team collected community profile by corporation of other institutions. Need assessment was performed using rapid appraisal. Finally priority setting was performed using two dimensional matrix and some other tools.Results: Farrokhshahr development team was established with 4000 members who were organized in ten different committees as following: woman, elderly, health, social security, civilization and educational committees. Also, two workshops were held to build capacities in team members in order to perform need assessment and priority setting in Farrokhshahr. Need assessment led to recognition of 40 different problems. Finally, priority setting was performed using two dimensional matrix, which led to 20 priorities.Conclusion: Results of this investigation revealed that people needs in every society are different according to socio–economical condition of their society. Therefore, it is recommended that need assessments be performed with participation of the society.

Background and aim: Unemployment as a social problem is the priority for the residents of zone17 of Tehran. The aim of this intervention was to empower breadwinner women, to organize self-help groups and to support them as a short-term strategy for vulnerable women in the community of zone 17 of Tehran city.Method: Community based participatory method was used. Target population consisted of 30 breadwinner women and women headed household in zone 17. They were identified by Emdad Committee, Social Services and Social Welfare organizations. Results: Women headed household and related governmental and non-governmental organizations as providers of opportunities for target group were identified. Continuing participation and encouragement of stakeholders in empowering process were ensured. Conclusion: Engaging and collaborating among self-help groups and supportive organizations could solve the social problems.

Background and aim: Priority setting is an important process for research management in all sections, especially in health section. Priority setting would be more valuable for limited founds allocation. Priority setting will help all countries in planning research programs of health section, collection and allocation of research resources and strengthening native research capacities. Besides the researchers, the stakeholders, who should participate in priority setting, will be affected from the research results. In this study, the priority setting following needs assessment in Farrokhshahr city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province of Iran has been performed.Methods: This was a community based participatory research which was performed by Farrokhshahr development team and supervised by Shahrekord university of medical sciences deputy for research affairs. At the first, data collected from need assessment survey using rapid appraisal method was classified. Then considering factors such as living conditions, environmental factors, institutions’ structures and recognizing facilitating factors priority setting was carried out. Two dimensional matrix, priority diagram and table of analyzing problems were used for priority setting.Results: In this study 40 problems of Farrokhshahr community in 9 categories consisted of elderly, young, security, sport, women, health and psychological problems were subjected to priority setting using two-dimensional matrix. In this process, 20 priorities with the most frequency in two-dimensional matrix were achieved. Then every priority was analyzed to recognize the measures to overcome the problem.Conclusion: Considering limited resources in the developing countries, priority setting with participation of people is a solution and this process cause’s capacity building in the community.

Background and aim: Because of availability of raw materials, freshness, preservative free and low price, native foods are the best kind of foods in different areas of Iran. In addition native foods can carry cultural customs and play an important role in communication among generations. This cross sectional study was performed to recognize and renew native foods of Gonabad city.Methods: Recognizing native foods was done by interview, literature review and studying native food resources in that area. Interview tags, check lists, data recording, writing and video recording were used for data collection.Results: This study showed that, there were more than 97 types of native foods in that society. The majority of food groups that had been used to prepare native foods were as follows: breads and cereals (71%), fruits and vegetable (48%) and dairy products (32%). Fifty-two percent of the native foods were served as lunch, 23% as dinner and 13% as breakfast. Seventy-seven percent of native foods were served as meals, 11% for ceremonies and celebrations, 9% for treatment and 3% for gestation and child-birth. These native foods were used by other foods like dairy products and raw vegetables (69%), drinking water (45%), pickles (36%), soft beverage (24.5%) and salted products (5%). The most important reasons that people don't use native foods nowadays are as follows: they aren’t customary foods (82%), they don’t know how to prepare them (78%) or raw materials are not available (37%).Conclusion: The results of this study showed that we can increase people choices of foods by recognizing and renewing native foods. By increasing the use of native foods we can balance the nutrition patterns and improve health of the society.