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: Educational environment is one of the most important determinants of an effective curriculum. Students' perceptions of their educational environment have a significant impact on their behavior and academic progress. Objective: 1. To identify students’ perception to the educational environment.2. To identify any gender or class level differences in the students’ perception.Type of the study: This is a descriptive cross-sectional studyMethodology: The study was carried out on convenient sample of 150 students of 2nd and 5th grade. This study was done in Al Kindy Medical College, Baghdad, Iraq and conducted during the period from the 1st of October 2013 till the end of March 2014, by using DREEM questionnaire a validated uni
... Show MoreLower neck pain is one of the problems facing all ages, especially the elderly, as it revolves around the causes of this pain from many diverse factors. The aim of the research is to use special intense exercise accompanied by intermittent electrical stimulation to get rid of lower neck pain among professors of the College of Science - University of Baghdad for ages. (40-60) years and to identify the extent of the effect. The research assumed the presence of statistically significant differences. The research sample represented professors at the University of Baghdad - College of Science who suffer from continuous pain for the period between (10/15/2023) and (1/15/) 2024) and their number is (5), The researchers used the experimenta
... Show MoreFlow-production systems whose pieces are connected in a row may not have maintenance scheduling procedures fixed because problems occur at different times (electricity plants, cement plants, water desalination plants). Contemporary software and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are used to fulfill the research objectives by developing a predictive maintenance program. The data of the fifth thermal unit of the power station for the electricity of Al Dora/Baghdad are used in this study. Three stages of research were conducted. First, missing data without temporal sequences were processed. The data were filled using time series hour after hour and the times were filled as system working hours, making the volume of the data relativel
... Show MoreBackground: In recent years, the prevalence of obesity has climbed sharply. Still, only a few safe and effective medications are approved as weight-loss drugs. Objective: This study aims to assess the knowledge and practice of community pharmacists in Iraq regarding the use of Liraglutide and Semaglutide as weight-loss medications. Method: A cross-sectional survey was implemented using a validated questionnaire and a convenient sample of Iraqi community pharmacists from different governorates. The questionnaire was created after conducting a literature review of the most important articles about liraglutide and semaglutide. The questionnaire consists of three sections. The first part was used to collect demographic information. The
... Show MoreBackground: In recent years, the prevalence of obesity has climbed sharply. Still, only a few safe and effective medications are approved as weight-loss drugs. Objective: This study aims to assess the knowledge and practice of community pharmacists in Iraq regarding the use of Liraglutide and Semaglutide as weight-loss medications. Method: A cross-sectional survey was implemented using a validated questionnaire and a convenient sample of Iraqi community pharmacists from different governorates. The questionnaire was created after conducting a literature review of the most important articles about liraglutide and semaglutide. The questionnaire consists of three sections. The first part was used to collect demographic information. The second a
... Show MoreIn the spreading of the Internet, mobile smart devices, and interactive websites such as YouTube, the educational video becomes more widespread and deliberative among users. The reasons for its spread are the prevalence of technologies, cheap cost, and easy to use. However, these products often lack to the distinction in video production. By following videos of an educational channel on YouTube, some comments found to discuss the lack of the content presented to motivate the learners, which lead to reduce the viewers of the videos. Therefore, there is an important decision to find general standards for the design and production of educational videos. A list of standards has been drawn up to help those interested in producing educational
... Show MoreIn the spreading of the Internet, mobile smart devices, and interactive websites such as YouTube, the educational video becomes more widespread and deliberative among users. The reasons for its spread are the prevalence of technologies, cheap cost, and easy to use. However, these products often lack to the distinction in video production. By following videos of an educational channel on YouTube, some comments found to discuss the lack of the content presented to motivate the learners, which lead to reduce the viewers of the videos. Therefore, there is an important decision to find general standards for the design and production of educational videos. A list of standards has been drawn up to help those interested in producing educational
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to prove some results for equivalence of moduli of smoothnes in approximation theory , we used a"non uniform" modulus of smoothness and the weighted Ditzian –Totik moduli of smoothness in by spline functions ,several results are obtained .For example , it shown that ,for any the inequality , is satisfied ,finally, similar result for chebyshev partition and weighted Ditzian –Totik moduli of smoothness are also obtained.
