ABSTRACT
University entrance is accompanied by major changes in social relationship, rules, and expectations that lead to psychological disorders in susceptible students. The goal of this research is to study the anxiety rate in Iranian medical residents in 2010-2011. This study is a cross-sectional, descriptive study. It contains 370 medical residents from the 1[st] year to the 4[th] year of medical universities in Isfahan, Gilan, Zahedan, Sanandaj, and Kashan. The stratified sampling method proportionate to volume of participants is used in this study. The information is collected based on researchers' questioners and Zung self-rating anxiety scale and analyzed with the use of SPSS software version 16, addition to descriptive and analytic tests [Pearson, one way analysis of variance, t-test]. Meaningful level is regarded as P = 0.05. The study showed that more than 92% of residents participated in the study did not demonstrate anxiety. Among 370 subjects 5.5% presented with mild symptoms of anxiety and no one had symptom of severe anxiety. A meaningful statistical relationship was observed between anxiety and sex, major of study and the city of study [P < 0.05]. The results showed a positive meaningful relationship between the number of visits and the score of anxiety. On average the number of night floats were two in 1 week and the number of patient visit was 19 in the past 24 h. A meaningful statistical relationship between anxiety score and number of patient visits was observed. The anxiety rate in medical students in this study compared to the findings of previous studies reveled very low anxiety in medical residents. The low rate of anxiety could be attributed to the sense of job security and the hope for a better future among residents. The high percentage of anxiolytics abuse and absence of anxiety producing factors among residents in addition to inaccurate response to the questionnaire may all contribute to the low rate of anxiety in this study
Subject(s)
Humans , Female , Male , Internship and Residency , Depression , Cross-Sectional StudiesABSTRACT
Immune and inflammatory responses mediated by cytokines, play important roles in the pathophysiology of asthma. These responses are associated with overexpression of Th2 cytokines such as IL-4 and IL-13. These two cytokines use common receptors for signaling that lead to identical immunological effects and regulation of the Th1/Th2 balance. The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with allergic asthma display overexpression of IL-4 and IL-13 genes. Using RT-PCR, we examined the expression of IL-4 and IL-13 genes in twenty asthmatic cases and twenty normal individuals. Total levels of serum IgE and IL-4 were also determined by ELISA method. Expression of IL-13 gene in 70% of patients with allergic asthma was higher than controls [P=0.01]. There was no correlation between the expression of IL-13 gene and total level of serum IgE [P=0.07]. Expression of IL-4 gene was detected in 30% of the patients and none of the normal individuals as determined by RT-PCR [P=0.01]. Mean of serum IgE levels in patients and controls were 84.9 IU/ml and 62.2 IU/ml, respectively. Level of serum IgE was more than 100 IU/ml in 30% of patients [P=0.03]. Mean of serum IL-4 levels in patients and controls were 15.73 pg/ml and 13.07 pg/ml, respectively. There was a relation between levels of serum IgE and IL-4 in 73% of cases. The results showed that there was a correlation between the expression of IL-4 gene and the level of serum IL-4. Levels of serum IgE and IL-4 were considerably higher in asthmatics than nonasthmatic controls