Study of psychological coping strategies of fars province farmers in drought

Understanding the farmers' reactions and their psychological and intellectual reflections in drought could provide a basis for effective strategies and decisions making in order to minimize losses in agricultural productions and income. The present paper aims to determine the psychological coping strategies of farmers against drought in Fars province. By using of multistage cluster sampling and theoretical and field methods, about 360 farmers of 6 townships were surveyed in 3 different regions considering the severity of drought such as average, high and very high. According to the results, the eight priorities of psychological coping strategies are respectively as follows: 'positive evaluation', 'self management', 'drawing social supports', 'staying away from others', 'problem solving', 'responsibility', 'direct contact' and 'denial'. [3.30, 2.67, 2.53, 2.06, 1.83, 1.59, 1.59, 0.99]. The research achievements show that some resources, including physical, peripheral, personal and energizing are at risk during drought regarding the farmers' viewpoint. Farmers in sever drought regions feel that their resources are at high risk than others while farmers in other regions feel low risk

[Comparing the effects of IV and intranasal midazolam administration on pain, anxiety and fear of children undergoing painful invasive procedures]

Among children, there are several painful diagnostic or therapeutic procedures especially in malignant disease which may evoke fear and anxiety that may interfere with the treatment. Due to various reports on the efficacy of midazolam, we compared the effects of intranasal versus intravenous midazolam in reducing the pain, fear, and anxiety in children undergoing painful procedures at Loghman hospital between 2005-2006. This randomized clinical trial was conducted on two 30-participant groups of patients aged 4-15 years who were to underwent painful procedures [including bone marrow aspirations and lumbar punctures]. One group received intravenous Midazolam and the other one did intranasal Midazolam before the procedures. Pain was measured based on Bieri facial pain scale, whereas anxiety was determined based on Yale-Pas scale. Fear was measured and analyzed between the two groups by Chi-square and fisher's exact tests. Side affects were documented in both groups as well. 50% of patients in the IV group, and 53.3% in the intranasal group had the Yale-PAS anxiety score of above 37, which was yielding a significant difference [P<0.9]. 90% of the subjects in the intranasal group had mild pain while 10% had moderate one. In the IV group 74% experienced a mild pain and 25.9% suffered from moderate pain, whereas 10% experienced none at all. No significant difference was observed between the levels of pain amongst two groups [P<0.9]. In both groups fear bacame less during and after the procedure and it was significantly decreased in intranasal group. Since the effect of intranasal and IV Midazolam on reducing the pain, anxiety, and fear is not significantly different, regarding the simplicity of intranasal administration, this approach may be of further compliance and more practicality for analgesia of painful procedures

[Brain tumor in children: a ten-years study in Loghman hospital]

To determine whether the incidence and location of childhood CNS tumors in our patients follows the same pattern described in Western countries, we carried out this study. We analyzed the data compiled from 50 children less than 15 years old with brain tumors operated in Department of Neurosurgery in our hospital between 1994 and 2004. Diagnosis was made based on pathology and in some cases through imaging. Vascular and metastatic lesions were excluded and the latest WHO classification of brain tumor pathology was applied. We found that 54% of all brain tumors were located in the supratentorial and 46% in the infratentorial region. Brain tumor was slightly more common in males [males 54% vs. females 46%]. The most common tumor found in our patients was astrocytoma [43.9%], followed by meduloblastoma [26.8%], meningioma [14.6%], epandimoma [7.3%] craniopharyngioma [2.4%], epidermoid [2.4%] and dermoid[2.4%]. However, in children between 5-10 years, meduloblastoma was the most common tumor. In this regards, the most common symptoms were headache and vomiting, respectively, whereas vomiting and increased head circumference were the most common ones in children under 5 years. The incidence in different age groups were as follows: 56% in 10-15 years old,28% in 5-9 years and 16% in under 5 years old. Astrocytoma was more common in female and meduloblastoma in male, relatively. Meningioma which has not been reported in western studies, was relatively common in our patients. In our patients, the incidence and distribution of CNS tumors were somewhat different from various reports of western countries. Whether there is any regional difference in disease distribution between Middle East and the rest of the world, remains to be determined

Mental health in high-tech system

Stress and mental health at the place of work have received great attention by researchers. In spite of technology improvement in high-tech systems, the operators face new problems, which can affect mental health. There is hardly any published research about stress or mental health in such workplaces in developing countries. This paper presents the application of the self-rating scale General Health Questionnaire [GHQ-28] to study mental health of 160 controllers working in a part of Air Traffic Control [ATC] as a high-tech system in Iran. Logistic regression analysis showed that demographic variables did not exhibit a statistically significant effect on scores of the test. In order to compare mental health of these operators with general population, an exposure / non-exposure study was designed. Three age groups [less than 29 years, 30 through 39 y, and more than 40 y] were compared in exposed and non-exposed groups. The results of Fisher's exact test showed that mental distress symptoms were significantly higher in the exposed group. There were significant job effects on somatization, anxiety and depression as well as on the total score of GHQ-28 for the two first age groups [P<.05]. No significant effects of the job were found on social dysfunction symptoms in any age groups. The risk ratio of expressing depression and anxiety symptoms were more than three times greater in these operators than general population