Introduction: Although it is discouraged, community pharmacy customers can obtain oral corticosteroids (OCSs) without prescriptions from some community pharmacies in Iraq. Medication abuse is defined as the use of medication for non-medical reasons. Objectives: The study aimed to determine demographics, beliefs, and perceptions associated with the abuse of oral corticosteroids for non-illness reasons among community pharmacy customers. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in fall 2018 in four provinces in Iraq. Customers of 19 community pharmacies asking for OCSs for themselves without a prescription were administered a paper survey. This study used the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to measure the relationship between the motivational factors and the abuse of OCSs. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationships between the use of OCSs for non-illness and six TRA factors: Normative belief, behavioral belief, evaluation of the behavior, motivation to comply, subjective norms and attitude toward behavior. Results: The study enrolled 141 participants (98 women and 43 men) taking asking for OCSs without prescription. Dexamethasone was the most commonly used OCSs (59.6%). Friends were the primary recommenders for corticosteroids abuse (28.4%). The main reasons for using OCSs were to increase appetite and gain weight (53.9 %). Approximately one-third (36.2 %) of the participants gained weight after using OCSs. The regression analysis of the TRA variables showed two factors were significantly related to the abuse of OCSs. Age had a significant inverse relationship with the abuse of OCSs and the "good appearance" belief had a significant positive association with OCS abuse. Conclusion: Some Iraqi community pharmacy customers use non-prescribed oral corticosteroids to increase appetite and gain weight. Improve body appearance represents the dominant incentive that urges people to use OCSs without prescription. Health officials and healthcare practitioners need to promote people's awareness about the risks of misusing OCSs through education programs and advertisements in public health settings, media, and social media. Article Type: Original Research
The water quality index is the most common mathematical way of monitoring water characteristics due to the reasons for the water parameters to identify the type of water and the validity of its use, whether for drinking, agricultural, or industrial purposes. The water arithmetic indicator method was used to evaluate the drinking water of the Al-Muthana project, where the design capacity was (40000) m3/day, and it consists of traditional units used to treat raw water. Based on the water parameters (Turb, TDS, TH, SO4, NO2, NO3, Cl, Mg, and Ca), the evaluation results were that the quality of drinking water is within the second category of the requirements of the WHO (86.658%) and the first category of the standard has not
... Show More This study includes Estimating scale parameter, location parameter and reliability function for Extreme Value (EXV) distribution by two methods, namely: -
- Maximum Likelihood Method (MLE).
- Probability Weighted Moments Method (PWM).
Used simulations to generate the required samples to estimate the parameters and reliability function of different sizes(n=10,25,50,100) , and give real values for the parameters are and , replicate the simulation experiments (RP=1000)
... Show MoreThe research aims to evaluate the suppliers at Diyala general electric industries company conducted in an environment of uncertainty and fuzzy where there is no particular system followed by the company, and also aims to use the problem of traveling salesman problem in the process of transporting raw materials from suppliers to the company in a fuzzy environment. Therefore, a system based on mathematical methods and quantity was developed to evaluate the suppliers. Fuzzy inference system (FIS) and fuzzy set theory were used to solve this problem through (Matlab) and the problem of the traveling salesman in two stages was also solved by the first stage of eliminating the fuzzing of the environment using the rank function method, w
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It is considered as one of the statistical methods used to describe and estimate the relationship between randomness (Y) and explanatory variables (X). The second is the homogeneity of the variance, in which the dependent variable is a binary response takes two values (One when a specific event occurred and zero when that event did not happen) such as (injured and uninjured, married and unmarried) and that a large number of explanatory variables led to the emergence of the problem of linear multiplicity that makes the estimates inaccurate, and the method of greatest possibility and the method of declination of the letter was used in estimating A double-response logistic regression model by adopting the Jackna
... Show MoreThe water quality index is the most common mathematical way of monitoring water characteristics due to the reasons for the water parameters to identify the type of water and the validity of its use, whether for drinking, agricultural, or industrial purposes. The water arithmetic indicator method was used to evaluate the drinking water of the Al-Muthana project, where the design capacity was (40000) m3/day, and it consists of traditional units used to treat raw water. Based on the water parameters (Turb, TDS, TH, SO4, NO2, NO3, Cl, Mg, and Ca), the evaluation results were that the quality of drinking water is within the second category of the requirements of the WHO (86.658%) and the first category of the standard has not been met du
... Show MoreThis study tries to clear the correlation and association between asthma, obesity and leptin levels. Also it will work to indicate the main risk factors which play role in the elevation of leptin level within asthmatic patients. This is a case control study conducted on (38) asthmatic patients and (20) healthy control who were closely similar by age, gender and BMI. The main statistical tests used were student t test, linear regression test and correlation test. Significance was set at P < 0.05. Sampling method used for this study was convenience sampling method. The main results of this study show a significant association and positive correlation between age (old age ≥ 40 ye
... Show MoreThe research aims to know The Effect Of Flexible Grouping Strategy and Three Step Interview strategy on achievement of the history material among student of the first literary class, The Researcher used the experimental design of the two experimental groups and the control group and with post test, researcher group (a) represent the experimental group taught according the Flexible Grouping Strategy , and Division (c) to represent the second experimental group which studied according Three Step Interview strategy and Division (b ) to represent the control group taught in the traditional method, the number of students (99) students of (33) female students in each division. T
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