[Importance - performance analysis of medical tourism in Tehran province from medical tourists and medical services providers' perspective]

Developing countries request to alternative revenue resources. Iran as one of the developing countries with high potentiality for attracting medical tourist is seeking to enter medical tourism marketing .This study aimed to analyze the importance- performance of the Tehran as a capital city to medical tourism viewed by medical tourists and medical service providers. This descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in Tehran selected hospitals in the 3th first months of 2011. The data were gathered by using a validated self-constructed questionnaire. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistical techniques. The indicate that the majority of the medical tourists are attracted from the United Arab Emirates [22.3%]. The respondents considered medical tourism factors as an importance [M=4/40 +/- 0/61].The Tehran selected hospitals' performance is average as related to medical tourism factors [M=2/75 +/- 0/66]. Despite the importance given to medical tourism factors by medical tourists and medical services providers, Tehran selected hospitals' performance is an average and there is no serious attempts are being made to attract medical tourists at macro levels. In spite the quality, variety and costs of the medical services and equipments in the selected hospitals are satisfactory, international accreditation of the hospitals are still in a major problems

[ relationship between health care providers' perceptions of patient safety culture and patients' perceptions of medical errors in teaching hospitals in Tehran: 2011]

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between care providers' perception of patient safety culture and patients' perception of medical errors in teaching hospitals in Tehran. It was a descriptive analytical and Cross- Sectional study. The population consisted of 216 health care providers and 216 patients selected using stratified random sampling in 13 general teaching hospitals in Tehran. Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture was used to assess health care providers' perceptions of patient safety culture and a researcher-made questionnaire was developed to assess patients' perceptions of medical errors. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation test. The results showed an expected direction [negative] among the relationships and coefficients correlation between patient perception of medical errors and hospital management supported the patient safety [r=-0.586, p= 0.035], frequency of event reporting [r=-0.625, p= 0.022], hospital handoffs and transition [r= -0.637, p= 0.019] and HSOPS dimension average [r= -0.602, p=0.03] were statistically significant. The findings supported the idea that there are fewer medical errors in hospitals with more positive patient safety culture. Further research is needed to determine the generalizability of these results to other hospitals and to assess the relationship between patient safety culture and other patient outcomes

[Assessment of the quality of methodology reporting in the randomized trials]

Abstract writing is one of the secondary services for summarizing the content of documents. It represents the major information and is used as an overview of the text. However, abstracts should be written and indexed on the basis of some criteria to provide sufficient and reliable information about the main text. This study aimed to assess the abstracts of Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials [RCTs] indexed in PubMed on the basis of the CONSORT abstract checklist. This was a descriptive cross-sectional survey. The study sample included 314 RCTs indexed in PubMed with the affiliation of Iran and Tehran University of Medical Sciences up to the end of 2010. The abstracts were evaluated by the CONSORT checklist in which the items were scored 0-8. The Mean score for quality was 4.7 +/- 1.02 out of 8. None of the abstracts were assigned as the most qualified [Score=8] and the highest score was 7. Among the RCT designs, parallel trial designs were the most common ones. Indications of the type of randomization, the blinding type, and the number of participants involved were found not to be well reported qualitatively. The findings indicated that the items designated for RCTs abstracts were not thoroughly taken into consideration. It seems that training of researchers and authors is required for betterment of the quality of reporting in abstracts. In addition, journal editors should provide guidelines for authors to report this type of studies correctly