JOURNAL OF RAFSANJAN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES AND HEALTH SERVICES
Year:2016 | Volume:15 | Issue:5|Papers Count:10

Background and Objectives: Particulate Matter of air is one of the main sources of air pollution in urban areas that is generated usually from various sources such as vehicle exhaust, industrial combustion processes or secondary conversion of gaseous pollutants. It may cause respiratory, cardiovascular, and mortality diseases. The aim of this study was health impact assessment of PM2.5 concentration in air of Mashhad city, Iran, in 2013.Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the effect of PM2.5 concentration on the health of the citizens of Mashhad was determined using Air Q 2-3-3. In this study, selected stations for measuring air pollution included Sadaf, Sajjad, Daneshgah and Khayam. The total number of data collected from the stations was 6995. Finally, using this model, the total number of deaths and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases attributable to PM2.5 were estimated.Findings: The results showed that the cold season had the highest rate of pollution and in some cases the amount of PM2.5 has been more than the standard level.The results also showed that the total number of deaths, death from cardiovascular disease and death from respiratory disease were 331, 263, and 32, respectively.Conclusion: It was concluded that for an accurate estimate of the relative risk, baseline incidence and attributable proportion, more comprehensive epidemiological studies should be done at the national level. In this case, more accurate values of theseindicators are obtained and mortality rate is calculated with a greater accuracy.

Background and Objectives: Rancimat is an automated technique to rapidly determine oxidative stability of fats and oils, which can also provide relatively good results regarding shelf-life prediction of the lipid system. In this research, the oxidative stability of different types of pistachio oil (wild and domesticated species) by using rancimat and the influences of chemical properties of pistachio oil on oxidative stability were determined.Materials and Methods: The present study is a laboratory study. Oils of five pistachio varieties (including Bane, Ahmadaghaie, Kalleghouchi, Akbari, and Fandoghi) were extracted by solvent. The fatty acid profile of the pistachio oil was determined by gas chromatography, and chemical methods were used to measure the amount of antioxidants and oil quality indicators. Oxidative stability was determined by Rancimat. The mean values were compared using MStatC 2.10 software and based on the Duncan’s test at the level of 5%.Results: Oleic Acid and Palmitic Acid were the most representatives of total fatty acid and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) in pistachio oil, respectively. The highest percentage of oleic acid was observed in Ahmadaghaie variety and the highest and lowest percentage of mono unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were observed in Bane Hull Oil (65%, 7.9%) and the lowest and highest percentage of MUFA and PUFA were observed in Bane Kernel Oil (53% 32.8%). The highest Oxidative Stability Index was found in Bane Hull Oil (BHO), Bane Kernel Oil (BKO) and Ahmadaghaie oil, respectively. Activation energy was evaluated in the range of 92 to 98.2 kj/mol. The results showed that shelf-life of BHO, BKO and Ahmadaghaieoil were 786, 386 and 280 days at 25oC ,respectively. Ahmadaghaie shelf-life was over 1.5 times more than those of the other commercial varieties.Conclusion: Fatty acid composition and amount of antioxidants were the most important factors on oxidative stability of the pistachio oil and the cause of higher shelf-life of oil of wild pistachio types rather than the other commercial varieties. Among the domesticated species of pistachio, Ahmadaghaie variety is suitable for oil extraction and high thermal processes such as roasting.

Background and Objectives: It seems that increased serum ferritin is a potential risk factor for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM). This study aimed to study serum ferritin levels among GDM and non-GDM women referred to the Niknafs hospital in Rafsanjan, in 2015Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 40 GDM and 40 non-GDM women were selected using simple non-probability sampling. Their demographic and clinical data including pre-pregnancy BMI, hemoglobin, fasting blood sugar and iron supplementation intake were recorded from their health dossier. Pre-operation weight was measured and weight gain during pregnancy was calculated. Fasting blood samples were collected and examined for the measurement of glucose، serum ferritin and haemoglobin. All data were analyzed using t-test and chi-square.Results: Findings showed that there was a statistical significant difference between the means of pre-pregnancy BMI and gestational age at delivery between the two groups (p<0.05). Although the difference between ferritin levels in two groups (GDM vs. non-GDM women was not statistically significant (P=0.729), but 95% of non-GDM women and only 75% of GDM women had normal ferritin levels i.e. 10-60 ng/dl (P=0.043). 70.6% of obese women were diagnosied GDM; while among the women with normal weight, 29.6 % suffered from GDM (P=0.02).Conclusion: This study showed that the serum ferritin level in the GDM women was haigher than their non-GDM counterparts، and obese pregnant women were affected more with GDM. It seems that an increase in serum ferritin in GDM women is more a sign of inflammation rather than an increase in the iron storage, since the iron intake in two groups has been equal.

Background and Objectives: Leishmaniasis has created global health problems in the developing countries with high endemicity such as Iran. Drug side effects and resistance and the lack of effective and safe vaccine have caused the new effective compounds from medicinal plants such as purslane to be attended. Therefore، the aim of this study was to introduce purslane as a traditional medicinal plant, which can be taken into consideration as a valuable source of new pharmaceutical agents against cutaneous leishmaniasis.Material and Methods: This is a laboratory study conducted in Isfahan in the spring of 2015. In the first place, the methanol extract was prepared by soaking method and its combination was determined by mass chromatography gas method. L. major promastigotes were cultured in Schneider culture media and in the stationary phase in RPMI-1640 medium, respectively. Then, using colorimetric MTT (methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium), the biological activity of alcoholic extract of purslane against L. major promastigotes was assessed in comparison to meglumine. The data were analyzed by the Tukey test and t-test using software SPSS16. Microscopic study results were presented as images and tables.Resalts: IC50 for alcoholic extract of purslane against standard L. major promastigotes after 24, 48 and 72 hours were 690, 270 and 140 micrograms per mililiter and against clinical isolates of promastigotes of 1160, 385 and 140 micrograms per milliliter, respectively. IC50 for Glucantime equaled to 27, 12 and 8 micrograms per ml and 26, 19 and 11 micrograms per milliliter, respectively. There was a significant difference between the IC50 extract and glucantime drug after 24, 48 and 72 hours (p<0.05). There was observed cell shrinkage، roundness، compressed cytoplasm and smallness in the treated cells. Presence of alkaloids and flavonoids were detected in the alcoholic extract.Conclusion: In regard to alcoholic extract of purslane had considerable anti-leishmanial effect in vitro, conducting more experiments to investigate its effect on the parasite in animal model also seems to be necessary.

Background and Objectives: Continuous assessment of grade levels, particularly in medical universities is of great importance. One of the most important tests that could indicate students’ progress is medical comprehensive examination of basic sciences. This study aimed to evaluate the results of the comprehensive basic sciences examination in the medical students of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences (RUMS).Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014. The study population included all medical students from 2004 until 2009 participated in the comprehensive examination of basic sciences. The required information was collected through census and using electronic records or folders related to the comprehensive exam results and checklists. Collected data were then analyzed using SPSS version 15.0. Pearson’s correlation coefficient, independent two-sample t test، one-way ANOVA, and multiple linear regression model were utilized for data analysis. The significance level was set to 0.05 in statistical tests.Result: During the 6 years of study, 199 medical students participated in the comprehensive examination of basic sciences. The highest average score was related to the students entered to the university in 2004 (129.17±20.63). Younger students (≤ 20 years), girlS, basic sciences period of 2.5 yearS, and students with entrance number of less than 40 people were more successful in the exam (P=0.029, P=0.036, P=0.017, and P=0.001, respectively.Discussion: According to the average score achieved by the medical students of RUMS and by comparing it to the other universitieS, the need to enhance the level of students’ knowledge in this field should be emphasized.

Background and Objectives: Diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease that due to its nature, it needs the cooperation of patient in the treatment process. This disease has been developed with industrialization and urbanization. Patient empowerment program is an effective program to improve the function of patients with diabetes. The purpose of this study, was the evaluation of empowerment-based interventions in patients with diabetes.Materials and Methods: We conducted a comprehensive overview in internatioanl and Iranian databases including Science Direct, PubMed, Cochrane library, Scopus, Iranmedex, and Google Scholar with the keywords of "empowerment","empowerment approach", "empowerment program", "patient empowerment", "empowerment and diabetes" and "diabetic patients" from 2000 to 2014. After considering inclusion and exclusion criteria 16, articles were selectedResults: The results indicated that there was a lack of existence of a theoretical framework of empowerment, lack of attention to all dimensions of empowerment and the impact of demographic variables on empowerment of patientS, and lack of programme follow- up.Conclusion: Due to the limitations specified in empowerment interventions, it is suggested that interventions in diabetic patients should pay attention to all dimensions of empowerment.

Background and Objectives: Freshwater snails play the role of the main intermediate host in the life cycles of trematodes and some nematodes. ThereforE, they are of medical and veterinary importance. In IraN, a lot of studies have been conducted on freshwater snails and their parasitic infections. FurthermorE, there is no reliable and compiled reference associated with malacology studies. SO, it seemed necessary for a review work on the basis of available documents pertaining to Iranian freshwater snails and their parasitic infections to be carried out.Materials and Methods: For this purpose, based on the systematic review studies, all studied documents on malacology fields including journal published articles, congress articles, theses, and conducted research projects in Iran were collected from the trusty databases such as Scopus, Science Direct, PubMed, Google Scholar, SID, Iran Doc, and Magiran by using specific key words. Afterward, the unrelated documents were removed, whereas the respective ones were selected and the required information was extracted from them.Findings: At the first stage of the study, a total of 220 documents with various study fields on malacology were collected. After screening the collected documents, overall, 31 published articles and 3 theses considered to be parallel to our work, were selected in order to analyze. The results indicated that the malacology studies have been only implemented in 10 provinces of Iran. In view of the diversity specification, so far, 41 species belonging to 22 genera of freshwater snails have been identified in Iran. The most identified species pertained to Lymana (7 species), Bithinia (4 species), Melanopsis (4 species), and Planorbis (3 species), respectively. The most studies, whether for determining the Iranian freshwater snail species diversity or identifying the parasitic agents as well as deterimining the prevalence rate of parasitic infections, were on microscopic basis. The prevalence rate of parasitic infections between the snails varied in the range from 0.33% to 74.56%. The highest infection rate was related to Lymnaea auricularia snails with Ecinostomcercaria and Furcocercaria from West Azerbaijan province, whereas the lowest infection rate was related to the species of Lymnaea, Planorbis and Physa with the Cercarial Dermatitis agents from Mazandaran province.Conclusion: In terms of diversity، the species of freshwater snails are rich in Iran and it is supposed that there are yet numerous unknown species. Most parts of Iran are intact due to no malacology studies. So, more studies must be implemented over there. MainlY, parasitic infections have been reported on family and genus levels. It is essential to identify the parasites on species levels by using more exact methods.

Background and Objectives: From health perspective, swimming pools must have appropriate physical, chemical, and microbial properties and must be desirably maintained. In this research, physicochemical parameters, microbial, and fungal contamination of swimming pools have been examined in Kerman.Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in 2014-2015. Fifteen hundred samples were collected in four seasons. Microbial, and fungal contamination and temperature, free residual chlorine, turbidity, oxidation and revival parameters were measured. MINI TAB software was used for statistical analysis. After performing descriptive analysis of data, chi-square test, Pearson correlation and ANOVA were used to determine the relationship between the variables.Results: Of 1500 samples, 14.13% were contaminated with fungi saprophytes, 6.87% with pathogenic fungi, 13.40% with coliform bacteria, 4.66% with fecal coliform, 2.07% with heterotrophic bacteria, and 1.20% were infected with other bacteria. A significant correlation was found between the contamination and the seasons. From the physiochemical parameters perspective, 90% of samples lacked the required temperature standards and 45% lacked the standard of free residual chlorine. Water turbidity was 90% more than the standard.Conclusions: The prevalence of contamination in Kerman pools in 2014-2015 was far less than before. It is recommended to continuously disinfect the surrounding environment including the pools platforms. The overuse of chlorine will had a negative impact on the other parameters.