Background & Objectives: Anxiety, depression, and sexual problems are common in old age. Approximately one-third of the elderly with physical health problems experience anxiety and depression,however, anxiety is a widespread problem in older people’, s lives and is more common than depression. Moreover, the simultaneous development of anxiety is associated with health problems. This is because it is correlated with increased dysfunction, more healthcare visits, and decreased health-related quality of life. The Elderly are more prone to anxiety, depression, and sexual dysfunction, i. e., associated with reduced quality of life and adversely impacts the elderly’, s biopsychological function. The sexual problems of the elderly are usually hidden from the views of the physician or healthcare provider. This issue negatively impacts the mental health of the elderly. Thus, the elderly are exposed to potential threats, such as increased chronic diseases, loneliness, isolation, and the lack of social support. With the increase in the elderly population, the prevalence of mental disabilities increases, which is critical for healthcare and social systems. The elderly population of Iran is increasing. Few studies have been conducted in this regard. Thus, our study aimed to determine and compare depression, anxiety, and sexual inefficiency among the male and female elderly. Methods: The present descriptive-analytical study was performed on 100 elderly, including 53 women and 47 men referring to Taleghani Hospital in Tehran City, Iran. Samples were randomly selected by the convenience sampling method from the clients and evaluated through questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. Older people over 60 years living in Tehran who were willing to participate in the study were included. Elderly with chronic illnesses, mild to severe mental conditions, those using drugs that affect sexual potency, and those who did not want to continue research were excluded. The Hospital Anxiety assessed depression and anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and sexual inactivity were asked by the Arizona Scale Sexual Experience (ASEX). The obtained data were analyzed using mean comparison of t-tests, correlation, and Chi-squared test at the confidence level of 95% and the significance level below 5 in SPSS. Results: The gender-wise differences in the elderly revealed that sexual dysfunction was significantly higher in the female group than in men (p=0. 001). Moreover, women were significantly more anxious than men (p=0. 001). There was no significant difference between the two groups concerning depression (p<0. 001). The study data indicated that between sexual dysfunction and depression in men (p<0. 001, r=0. 42), male anxiety (p<0. 001, r=0. 53), and between sexual dysfunction and depression in women (p<0. 001, r=0. 66), female anxiety (p<0. 001, r=0. 48), there was a significant linear correlation between male and female elderly. There was also a significant linear correlation between sexual dysfunction and depression (p<0. 001, r=0. 49) and between sexual dysfunction and anxiety (p<0. 001, r=0. 42) in the elderly. With increasing sexual dysfunction, depression and anxiety are elevated among the elderly. Conclusion: The present study data indicated that anxiety, depression, and sexual problems in the elderly are high. Older women have more sexual dysfunction and anxiety than older men. Furthermore, sexual dysfunction directly increases depression and anxiety in older men and women. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to the diagnosis and treatment of these critical characteristics among the elderly and gender. Accordingly, it certainly improves the mental health status and quality of life in the elderly.

Contact dermatitis is an inflammatory skin disease due to contact with different substances and caused by two mechanisms: allergy and irritation. Contact dermatitis is a common skin disease and the most common occupational dermatosis. Differentiating between allergic and irritant contact dermatitis is essential in the identification of etiologic factor(s) and hence, its control and prognosis. This differentiation can be done only by patch test. Unfortunately, this simple, safe and useful test is always neglected. We review the basics of patch test, the method of performance, reading and interpretation of its results, possible side effects and results of studies done with patch test in different countries.

Producion of efficient antimicrobial drugs against to common human pathogens is one of the most important challenges in the field of medical microbiology. Continuous screening of clinical isolates and survey of antimicrobial resistance pattern is critical.Today, disk diffusion and dilution methods are known as the common antimicrobial susceptibility testing methods. Disk diffusion method does not render dependable results in determination of antimicrobial susceptibility pattern because this method is semi quantitative. MIC determination by microdilution and macrodilution techniques and recent method “E-test”, have given interpretable results to researchers. Microdilution and macrodilution methods are also time consuming, expensive and error- prone methods. Whereas E-test method is one of the means by which we will be able to determine susceptibility pattern of known species in low cost and short time. In this survey, constructing and printing of E-test, coating of antibiotic on O.H.P film and quality control of constructed E-tests were performed according to M7 A7 CLSI Standard. In this study quality of required materials for E-test Production were suitable. Evaluation of constructed strips was performed using standard strain of staphylococcus aureus and reproducibly of results was appreciated.

The present study investigated varieties of C-test as measures of General Language proficiency (GLP). C-test was first introduced into language testing as a modification of close procedure. The original C-test was developed by mutilating the second half of every other word, beginning from word two ID sentence two of [l passage. Through various studies, C-test proved an integrative and a highly reliable and valid measure of (GLP. The present study was also aimed at further confirming those findings by investigating not only the original C-test but other varietis of C-test. To this end ten C-test versions were developed, by applying different deletion techniques and deletion rates, and were administered among nearly 500 senior EFL students, in the way that each form was given to almost 50 subjects. All the subjects had already taken a TOEFL. and a close test prior to the administration of the C-tests. The results of data analyses showed that C:-test may measure different things one of which might be general language proficiency and as such, not all varieties of C-test measure this construct to the same extent.

Background: Streptococcal pharyngitis is the most common type of acute bacterial pharyngitis that may have different complications if remained untreated. On the other hand, antibiotics may impose side effects if prescribed for healthy subjects, thus, the appropriate diagnosis of affected individuals is of utmost importance. Previous studies have indicated the accuracy of Rapid test for streptococcal pharyngitis, so the present study was conducted to determine the accuracy of Rapid test among a group of Iranians.Materials and methods: For this clinical trail, 320 consecutive cases of sore throat were enrolled. Rapid test was performed for all cases; however, culture was our gold standard for diagnosis. Finally, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated.Results: The study population included 150 males and 170 females with the mean age of 21 ± 7 years. The positive and negative predictive values of Rapid test were 66% and 98.5%, respectively.Conclusion: With respect to the known complications of acute pharyngitis, we strongly recommend Rapis test for all patients with sore throat.

Background: Various environmental factors can induce or exaggerate hand eczema. Objective: Evaluation of patch test results in hand eczema patients. Patients and Methods: In this descriptive study 100 patients with hand eczema referred to Loghman Hakim & Booali Hospital in Tehran underwent patch testing with 23 allergens obtained from Hennal Company. Results: 240 positive reactions observed in 86 patients. The most common positive reactions were related to nickel sulfate (30 patients, 13.5%) and potassium dichromate (28 patients, 11.7%). In positive group 28 patients were male and 58 were female. In negative group 3 patients were male and 11 were female (P>0.05). The mean age was 31.7±11.9 years and 24.8± 9.2 years for positive group and negative group, respectively (P<0.05). In positive patch test group 49 patients had subacute and 37 patients had chronic eczema. In negative patch test 11 patients had subacute eczema and 3 patients had chronic eczema (P>0.05). Conclusion: Performing patch test, the allergens involved in hand eczema can be detected. Detecting type of allergens, patients will be able to avoid those materials which can lead to improvement of disease.        

Background: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most important etiologic agents causing severe infection in human. Extravagant use of vancomycin as first line treatment of infections caused by this organism, has led to production of vancomycin resistant staphylococci and enterococci, as an important health problem. The recommendations of international societies to control nosocomial infections , regarding making policies for vancomycin usage in health and treatment centers in order to prevent development and spread of vancomycin resistant Enterococcus and staphylococcus aureus. The goal of this study is determining sensitivity of S. aureus isolated from clinical specimens hospitalized patients using E-test in order to find suitable primary therapeutic method.Methods: This study is Analytic descriptive, and 14 different antibiotics were evaluated using E-test method at Al_Zahra hospital in Isfahan. Quality control was implemented using staphylococcus ATCC 29213. Data were analyzed by SPSS -13 software and WHOnet-5 after editing and entering into computer. Findings: This study was done on 72 patients, 25 of whom were women and the rest were men. There was no meaningful relation between patients sex and the place of isolation of organisms , but regarding ward of hospitalization and resistance rate , highest resistance was observed in ICU and surgical wards (P<0.05). Highest sensitivity is to vancomycin (93.5%) and then to Rifampin (87%) and amikacin (71.4%). Highest resistance is against doxycycline and oxacillin (75%) and then cotrimoxazole and ofloxacin with 69% resistance stand at next level. Conclusion: Because of inadvertent use of antibiotics , specially in hospitals?ICU and surgical wards, the resistance of potentially dangerous and lethal bacteria like staphylococcus aureus is high and presently only a few drugs like vancomycin exist that can cover this Bacterium.