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
Background: Axillary lymph node (ALN) enlargement with diffuse cortical thickening and conserved echogenic hilum may represent a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Sonographic strain elastography may help the characterization of borderline ALN.
Aim: To evaluate the strain elastography of borderline ALN and to calculate a cutoff value of strain ratio (SR) that can identify suspicious ALN with the highest sensitivity and specificity to reduce unnecessary invasive procedures.
Subjects and Methods: A prospective study included 45 patients who attended the Breast clinic in Oncology Teaching Hospital with borderline axillary lymphadenopathy (intact hilum and diffusely thic
... Show MoreObjectives: The study aims to assess some of the contributing factors to abdominal postoperative wound infection and
to find out the relationship between postoperative wound infections and some socio-demographic characteristics such as
age, gender, level of education, occupation and residential area.
Methodology: A descriptive study was carried out in Sulaimani Teaching Hospital (Kurdistan Region). The study has
started from January 15th up to October 31th, 2009. To achieve the study objectives, a purposive "non probability"
sample of (100) patients who have abdominal postoperative wound infection, Adult female and male patients who were
admitted to Sulaimani Teaching Hospital was selected.
The data were collected th
This paper proposes a new approach to model and analyze erect posture, based on a spherical inverted pendulum which is used to mimic the body posture. The pendulum oscillates in two directions, [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], from which the mathematical model was derived and two torque components in oscillation directions were introduced. They are estimated using stabilometric data acquired by a foot pressure mapping system. The model was quantitatively investigated using data from 19 participants, who were first were classified into three groups, according to the foot arch-index. Stabilometric data were then collected and fed into the model to estimate the torque’s components. The components were statistically proce
... Show MoreStudent performance may influence by several factors in all his study levels such as primary school, intermediate school and even in his college; some of these factors are psychological factors, social factors, and the factors which correlate with student environment.
In this paper we study some of these factors to discover their influence by using canonical correlation analysis to analyze the data. Many conclusions are discovered to help who focuses student performance or to make it pest in future.
The research deals with a very important issue that affects women, an important segment of the society. This is because women are the basis of the family and the pillar of the society. Thus, the aim of the research is to examine the level and dimensions of the emotional and existential psychological crisis at the sample of the study. It further aims to investigate the statistical significant difference at the level of (0.05) regarding the feeling of the existential psychological crisis among battered and non-battered women. To reveal the objectives of the study, the researcher applied the existential psychological crisis scale to a sample of (72) women, divided into two groups: (35) battered women, who have been chosen purposefully. Thos
... Show MoreThe current study is aimed to identify personality types of the lecturers of Baghdad University as well as identify the prevailing types among the lecturers. In addition, the study aimed to identify the significant difference among personality types (The Enneagram) according to the variables of academic title and scientific major . One hundred and ninety four lecturers were involved in this study. In order to achieve the study's aims, the scale of (Baron& Wagele 1994) was used to measure the nine personality types (The Enneagram) that was translated by( Anwar Omar Ibrahim 2012). Some statistical analysis were used and the result demonstrated that Romantic types was found to be the most prevailing types among the lecturers of Baghdad
... Show MoreBackground: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a relatively common chronic inflammatory muco-cutaneous disease classified among the potentially malignant lesions of oral mucosa. The aim of this study is to investigate and compare the expression of p53 and PCNA proteins in oral lichen planus and epithelial dysplasia cases. Materials and methods:Formalin-fixed and paraffin- embedded blocks of 21 lichen planusand 21 oral dysplasia cases were referred to immunohistochemical (IHC) analysis for anti p53 and anti PCNA monoclonal antibodies. Results: The results showed that positive nuclear staining for p53 was found in 11/21 (52.4%) cases of lichen planus and 17/21 (80.9%) cases of dysplasia. Positivity for PCNA was observed in 18/21(85.7%) of oral li
... Show MoreThe research aimed to identify the level of reality of administrative values of sports activities in the Faculties of the university of Baghdad from the point of view of the leaders and those related to the divisions and units of student's activities and the case study method was adopted from the descriptive approach.