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
Education is the most powerful and important weapon in fighting poverty and unemployment because it provides students with new skills that appropriate the new market requirements and fair distribution of natural resources. It also transfers knowledge, skills, and ethics over generations. Education aims to create effective leaders who go under training and rehabilitation process, create a new human and instill faith, generate the creativity and innovation, and keep abreast with scientific process, updating curriculum, and finally, applying the technical education
the mental image is so important in human life as one of the major standers for his trends and behavior, and as the human nature requires to interest in things based on how much it’s close to and how much it effects on his interest, So the neighborhood countries was one of the topics that occupied the attention of the Iraqi individual and pushed him to form perceptions of them based on the cultural heritage and the historical relations of Iraq with these countries as well as the actions of neighboring countries on Iraq and the resulting effects on the course of events. the mental image is so important in human life as one of the major standers for his trends and behavior, and as the human nature requires to interest in things bas
... Show MoreBackground: Acne vulgaris is one of the top three most commonly encountered dermatological problems worldwide in both primary and secondary care. Human keratinocytes express functional TLR2 heterodimers. An increased expression of TLR2 was detected in the epidermis of inflammatory acne lesions, as observed in normal skin; the expression level increased with the degree of differentiation of the keratinocytes. TLR2 expression is upregulated in inflammatory acne lesions and induced by C. acnes. The current study conducted to assess the oral isotretinion treatment effect on the acne vulgaris patients by evaluated the Toll Like Receptor 2 as a major immune system marker in Acne vulgaris immune re
... Show Moreأستهدفت الدراسة اختبار أثر التوجه السوقي والتزام العاملين على أداء المنظمة المسوقة لخدمات النقل الجوي. حيث تم اختيار شركة الخطوط الجوية الملكية الأردنية كمجال تطبيقي.وقد اعتمدت الدراسة في قياس المتغيرات على مقاييس مختبرة وقد تأكد صحتها وثباتها لقياس المتغيرات في البيئة الحالية. وقد بينت نتائج التحليل الإحصائي الذي استخدمت فيه أساليب إحصائية مختلفة بالاستعانة ببرنامج SPSS))
Abstract
The research aimed to prepare an audit program focusing on the activities of municipal institutions related to the environmental dimension as one of the dimensions of sustainable development, and applying the program for the purpose of preparing an oversight report related to assessing the impact of the activities of municipal institutions on the environmental reality as the main channel through which municipal institutions contribute to achieving the part related to it. Among the requirements of sustainable development, the proposed program was prepared and applied to the institutions affiliated to the Directorate of Mu
... Show MoreYoung people represent the power and cornerstone of societies and their superiority is linked to their well-being. Their empowerment is as essential as the heart to the body, if it is corrupt, then the whole body is corrupt, and vice versa. The exposure to extremism and pressure from their families leads to violent acts and crimes for obtaining money through unknown organized bodies. This will drive them to fail in their life in an attempt to fulfill their most basic needs, which they have been deprived of by their families, the government, and other institutions. Therefore, governments should provide job opportunities for young people and provide entertainment centers, sports clubs, and family education centers that raise awareness of s
... Show MoreThis study aimed to measure the innovative thinking and cognitive cessation among university students. The sample consisted of (400) male and female students at al Mustansiriya University for the academic year (2018/2019). The results of the study showed that there are differences in innovative thinking and cognitive inhibition according to the gender variable in favor of males. There is a positive relationship between innovative thinking and cognitive inhibition. In light of these findings, the researcher presented a set of conclusions and recommendations.
Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is an immunological disorder associated with chronic inflammatory process of several unspecific regions of gastrointestinal tract but frequently detected in the terminal Ilium and proximal colon or both. This disease frequently presented with various oral manifestations as a consequence of inflammatory process of the disease, nutritional deficiency or medications side effects. Several therapeutic approaches have been developed for CD management that are targeting the inflammatory process and directed at controlling the host immune response. Immunosuppressants such as Azathioprine and anti-TNF α agents as well as the combination of them have been widely used as an effective therapeutic modality with a bett
... Show MoreThe automatic estimation of speaker characteristics, such as height, age, and gender, has various applications in forensics, surveillance, customer service, and many human-robot interaction applications. These applications are often required to produce a response promptly. This work proposes a novel approach to speaker profiling by combining filter bank initializations, such as continuous wavelets and gammatone filter banks, with one-dimensional (1D) convolutional neural networks (CNN) and residual blocks. The proposed end-to-end model goes from the raw waveform to an estimated height, age, and gender of the speaker by learning speaker representation directly from the audio signal without relying on handcrafted and pre-computed acou
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