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
This review highlighted the biochemical hypolipidemic action of some herbs and medical plants and could submit a good survery regarding intended plants and herbs as well promote and indicate the biochemical functions and importance of natural plants in medicince as a biochemical alternatives with no reverse or side effects. The present study have highlighted the biochemical hypolipidemic action of some herbs and medical plants: Daudelion Taraxacum officinale, Basil Ocimum sanctum L., dill Anethum graveolens , Celery Apium gravedense. , Fenugreek Trigonella Foenum-graccum , Grapes Vitis vinifera , olive tree Olea europea L., Green tea Comellia sinenis , Blue berry Vaccinium angnstifolium juice and Clove Eugenia caryophyllus.
Abstract
This research aims to evaluate the application of the inspectors general of global indicators offices according to the axles (leadership, strategy and planning, employees, partners and resources, process management) and through the assumption main research which states that (there is an application for global indicators to evaluate performance in the offices of the ministries under study) which are subdivided into five sub-hypotheses according to the classification and division of the five axes of the checklist.
The researchers have taken refuge in the process of assessing the performance of the check list which included global i
... Show MoreBackground: Although they are not life threatening, dental caries and periodontal disease are the most predominant and widely spread oral diseases throughout the world. Another most common dental problem seen in children is dental trauma. The aims of the study included the investigation of the prevalence and severity of dental caries, gingivitis and dental plaque in relation to gender, furthermore, the prevalence and severity of the traumatized anterior teeth were assessed. Materials and Methods: This oral health survey was conducted among primary school children aged 9 years old in Al-Diwaniyah city in Iraq. The total sample composed of 600 child (320 males and 280 females) selected randomly from different school in Al-Diwaniyah city. Dia
... Show MoreBackground: Orofacial cleft is the most common craniofacial birth defect and the fourth most common congenital malformation in humans that have an effect on oral health in addition to nutrient intake affected in those children. This research aims to investigate gingival condition, dental caries experience and nutritional status among children with orofacial cleft and compare them with normal children. Materials and methods: The study group included 36 children with an age ranged (4-9) years of orofacial cleft. The control group included 37 children matched the control group in age and gender. Gingival condition measured by Gingival Index (Löe and Silness, 1963), while dental caries status was measured by (D1-4MFs/d1-4mfs) index according
... Show MoreBackground: Water-pipe can be defined as a single or multi stemmed device that used to vaporize and smoke flavored tobacco whose smoke is passed via water vase before inhalation. Water-pipe smokers are at risk of exposure to many toxic chemicals that are not filtered by water, as well as risk of infectious diseases when the mouth piece of the water-pipe is shared. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of water pipe on the oral health. Materials and Methods: Sixty persons were included in this study aged between 22 and 23 years. Forty persons were coffee shop workers for at least five years, half of them were water-pipe smokers (active smokers) and the other weren’t smokers (passive smoker), the last group was the co
... Show MoreThe construction industry plays a crucial role in the countries' economy, especially in the developed country. This point encourages the concerned institution to use new techniques and integrate many techniques and methods to maximize the benefits. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the use of risk management, value management, and building information modeling in the Iraqi construction industry. The evaluation process aims at two objectives. The direct objective was to evaluate the knowledge in risk management (RM), value management (VM), and building information modeling (BIM). The indirect objective was to support the participants with information related to the main items mentioned. The questionnaire
... Show MoreThis paper is concerned with introducing and studying the o-space by using out degree system (resp. i-space by using in degree system) which are the core concept in this paper. In addition, the m-lower approximations, the m-upper approximations and ospace and i-space. Furthermore, we introduce near supraopen (near supraclosed) d. g.'s. Finally, the supra-lower approximation, supraupper approximation, supra-accuracy are defined and some of its properties are investigated.
This paper presents a hybrid approach for solving null values problem; it hybridizes rough set theory with intelligent swarm algorithm. The proposed approach is a supervised learning model. A large set of complete data called learning data is used to find the decision rule sets that then have been used in solving the incomplete data problem. The intelligent swarm algorithm is used for feature selection which represents bees algorithm as heuristic search algorithm combined with rough set theory as evaluation function. Also another feature selection algorithm called ID3 is presented, it works as statistical algorithm instead of intelligent algorithm. A comparison between those two approaches is made in their performance for null values estima
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