Application of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument, Short Form (WHOQOL-BREF) to patients with cataract / 한국역학회지

OBJECTIVES: Cataract is a prevalent disease in the elderly, and negatively influences patients' quality of life. This study was conducted to study the application of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument, Short Form (WHOQOL-BREF) to patients with cataract. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 300 patients with cataract were studied in Neyshabur, Iran from July to October 2014. The Iranian version of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was used to measure their quality of life. Cronbach's alpha coefficient, Pearson's correlation coefficient, the paired t-test, the independent t-test, and a linear regression model were used to analyze the data in SPSS version 16.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 68.11±11.98 years, and most were female (53%). The overall observed Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the WHOQOL-BREF was 0.889, ranging from 0.714 to 0.810 in its four domains. The total mean score of the respondents on the WHOQOL-BREF was 13.19. The highest and lowest mean scores were observed in the social relationship domain (14.11) and the physical health domain (12.29), respectively. A backward multiple linear regression model found that duration of disease and marital status were associated with total WHOQOL scores, while age, duration of disease, marital status, and income level were associated with domains one through four, respectively (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The reliability analysis conducted in this study indicated that the WHOQOL-BREF scale exhibited an acceptable degree of internal consistency in the measurement of the quality of life of patients with cataract. It was also found that the patients with cataract who were surveyed reported a relatively moderate quality of life.

[Epidemiology of gastrointestinal cancers [stomach, esophageal and colorectal] in Neyshabu City during 2006-2012]

Introduction and Aims: gastrointestinal cancers [GI] are considered as the most common cancer among men and are the second in women. The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in crude and age specific incidence rates of gastrointestinal cancers in Neyshabur during 2006-2012

Materials and Methods: in this study the recorded data of Neyshabur's patients with cancer in the hospitals of Mashhad and Neyshabur were analyzed using Excel and SPSS v.16. Crude and age specific incidence rates were also estimated

Results: three hundred and thirty-five [42.8%] out of all 783 patients with cancer, were GI cancers. Gastric cancer showed the highest prevalence [41.8%] with the rate of 63.3 and 36.7 percent in men and women respectively. The results indicated the incidence of gastric cancer had a falling tendency

Conclusion: about half of all the cancers in Neyshabur are of the GI type and their incidence rate up to 2012 showed a decreasing trend so that, this rate is higher in men and older age groups. This decline may be due to numerous reasons such as control of risk factors, failure to identify eligible patients, referring to medical centers outside the province, or an increase in mortality and etc. that needs further investigation